good morning we're back with more cater fun times

so, i think cater isn't close with his dad like. at ALL. we know that they travel a lot for his dad's job and that his dad is a banker so my assumption is that they really don't see him a ton because he's usually working. on top of that he doesn't really relate to his father at all, they don't see eye to eye on a lot of things and his dad doesn't really "get" him. kind of your typical "only half there" sort of dad. cater is definitely closer with his mom, and he loves his mom, but they have a strained relationship. i like to think she's the type of person who is pretty closed off to criticism and takes criticism personally, so anytime cater tries to talk to her about how he's feeling she gets sort of defensive and he feels like he has to back off because he knows the conversation isn't going to go anywhere. maybe I'm projecting (hehe) but it seems to me like cater very much feels like a stranger in his own home, and i think that's probably where a lot of his people-pleasing tendencies come from. like he has to act like a totally different person to keep his mom and sisters and dad happy, and the person he has to be for each of them is different. and it's exhausting.

plus i have this headcanon that as cater got older and started showing more signs of depression bpd/rsd (not that he didn't show it when he was younger, it just became more prominent the more he grew into it) his family got more resistant to it- like they would get on his case if it seemed like he was being a downer or taking things to seriously or being what they perceived as "overly sensitive", which is just another reason that cater feels like he has to hide how he's feeling, because he just assumes that no one is going to take him seriously

ultimately it's not like he hates his family, it's just sort of complicated situation that he feels like he can't escape, and a home life where he feels like he's never going to actually be Himself (tm)