Firstly, wow. Good episode. Great episode.

Secondly, I'm gonna get the Huddy stuff out of the way, because I don't really have anything to say that Huddy fans will be interested in, and Hameron fans will be able to read my thoughts when I publier that article in the Hameron spot.

So, House and Cuddy didn't actually do the deed. Apparently there is a school of thought that suggests that actually they did do it, but I'm not sure where that came from, but whatever. Despite the fact that I l’amour the House/Cuddy relationship and their kisses make my brain explode with wondrous joy, I have never actually wanted House and Cuddy to be together. In my opinion, that would ruin their relationship. The entire point of their relationship was that they wanted each other, but it would never work. So, when I heard that Huddy sex was on the table, tableau (not on a table, toi dirty buggers), I was pretty worried. I didn't want them to go down the Chameron path. And then House and Wilson started talking about how House wants Cuddy and relationships and blah, blah, blah and I was getting even plus worried!
So, to discover that the Huddy sex was in fact In-House's-Mind sex, was a great relief for me (to certain extent, of course).
Like I said, my take on the Huddy sex actually has a Hameron spin, so I won't share it here.

Anywho, moving on: What is up with House, dudes?!

My main theory is of course the trauma theory. Here are a liste of the traumas that House has suffered recently:

- Amber's death:
Obviously, House felt a great deal of guilt about Amber's death, as well as guilt for how Amber's death impacted Wilson. Naturally, House repressed all that guilt.

- Loss of Wilson's friendship:
Significant trauma for House. Wilson, in my view, is the only person that House ever really trusts. Wilson is his only friend and the only person with whom House feels the safest. Losing Wilson's friendship must have been devastating for House, but, once again, he repressed that pain.

- His father's death:
I think House and his father had a deep connection. I think that they were probably quite alike in certain ways. So losing him would still have been a trauma for House. Of course, that was repressed too.

- Confirmation that his father was not his biological father:
Probably a bigger shock than he let on. Whether they were biologically related ou not didn't change the bond that that had. Confirming that he was not his biological father actually probably caused House plus pain, which he also repressed.

- Cuddy adopting a baby:
Big blow to House. Before Rachel, House was Cuddy's 'baby'. She looked out for him and mothered him. That was a significant relationship for House is now severely strained. Cuddy now has other priorities that have pushed House well down the list. Losing this attention from Cuddy was another significant trauma that House repressed his feelings about.

- Kutner's death:
Again, House feels guilty for not having one of his brilliant epiphanies and deducing that Kutner was in trouble. In my view, Kutner and House were very similar people, except that Kutner was kind of like the happy version of House. So I think House definitely saw himself in Kutner. Thus, learning that Kutner was also miserable confirms that 1) they were very alike, and 2) if the happy version of House kills himself, what does the unhappy version do? Again, House has repressed his guilt about Kutner and his anxieties about himself.

- Chase and Cameron's marriage:
This can be viewed as the trauma of losing Cameron, ou the traumas of seeing other people happy. Obviously, the Cameron theory is part of my Hameron theory, so I will talk about the happiness theory here. Chase and Cameron (and Foreman and Thirteen, which I talked about in another article ages ago) represent the couple that work together and l’amour each other. They represent was House (possibly) wants with Cuddy: the ability to separate their work from their personal lives. House is the same guy at work as he is at accueil and as he is in a romantic relationship. So, seeing Chase and Cameron successfully loving each other and maintaining their professional lives is traumatic for House, as he is witnessing other people experience what he so deeply yearns for. So, repressing those thoughts makes him feel better, even though his subconscious wants to kill Chase!

- Cuddy's "screw you" rejection:
Now, I have to get over my Cuddy anger at this point. I get that she has a baby and a difficult job and she doesn't have to put up with House's crap. BUT, "screw you" was clearly the final straw for House. Here he was attempting to reach out to someone. He was desperate. He was vulnerable. So for Cuddy to reject him in one of his rare moments of vulnerability completely shattered him. And, as we see, he slips into an intense hallucination in which he succeeds in detoxing and succeeds in loving Cuddy: two things he has never been able to do before.


That is a pretty impressive liste of suffering.

Psychologically, when someone experiences a trauma such as a death, suffering another trauma that awakens similar feelings to the précédant trauma, a mental illness can be triggered. Clearly, Kutner's death reminded House of the guilt that he felt about Amber's death. This coupled with House's propensity to push away his true feelings means that House is a prime candidate for mental illness.
Alternatively, experiencing these traumas all within a short passage of time can also trigger mental illness. There is only so much stress that the human mind can take before it tries to compensate.

As toi may have noticed, I haven't really talked about Vicodin. Personally, I don't think the Vicodin is the root of the problem for House. Like he said, he has been popping pills for years, but something only recently has changed for him. Of course, the Vicodin compounds his problems. But in my view, it is contributing to House's problems, not creating them.

So, those are some of my thoughts about 'Both Sides Now'. I have plenty more, but this article is long enough!