I have a really big issue talking about s4 Effy tbh. Not cos it’s like too personal or any rubbish like that. Just cos it was so very, very poorly done that sometimes I feel offended. (Seems to be a regular occurence since s4 lol. Ha, thin skin, perhaps?). I’ve spoken quite a bit on it in the past on LJ, and it’s really frustrating. Don’t bother to stress over it; it’s not worth the effort.

Personally I don’t believe there’s any point in trying to understand it cos the writers themselves didn’t understand what they were doing. It’s like trying to analyze a smearing of feces done by a monkey. Sure, you can fanwank it to the moon and back, talking about the ~deeper ~meanings and what emotions the monkey was trying to ~provoke, and even the state of mind of the monkey. But when it really boils down to it, it’s still a giant smear of poo done with no talent and no real inspiration/motivation. And anyone with half a brain, or whose done it themselves recognises thats its not some massive stroke of genius (or a ~fantastic lovestory). IMO anyway. To me both Freddie and Effy’s episodes in s4 were done incredibly poorly (shocking! Lol), by someone with little education (or more importantly, experience) in the sensitive area of serious mental illness such as the one(s) they attempted to portray. It always struck me as more ~cinematic and done for ~drama and show, rather than genuine desire to show the realness of it. (much like they handled Cassie’s glamourous approach to ED, and her issues.) Skins only seems to excel at reflecting the realism of mental disorders when they’re not actively trying, you know?

I do think it’s clear that Effy was suffering from issues, but what they were can only be speculated on by us. There’s various viewpoints and with a case so complex and poorly handled at times as Effy’s, I don’t think it’s worth trying to differentiate/play amateur psychologist. I’m not even convinced the writers had much background whatsoever in clinical psych. The we’re so, so many terrible flaws in it all. So like, we can sit and debate whether it was psychotic depression, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar, drug-induced, or any host of combinations or alternate options and try to retrospectively apply older episodes to it, but that itself is tricky considering Effy’s history as a character and the variation in writers. It’s a tv programme after all. I don’t think her madness necessarily came from nowhere, but it’s pretty futile IMO to try and pinpoint its source at this point.

Also, I don’t think she meant that she hated Freddie prior, just that she had no other feelings at the moment. No hate, no resentment/regret (which I do think she experienced prior), no guilt, no sympathy — nothing. Except brainwashed love. Love and hate aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. You can have both. Just Effy had none of the hate or anything else left. It’s very pretty sounding but completely make-believe. Like most other pretty sounding make-believe things. Unicorns and fairies spring to mind, lol. 

Honestly, I try to avoid speaking in great detail about Effy s4 and especially labelling her, cos the last thing I want to do is then see a rash of tumblr morons crying, “omg I rly want schizophrenia/depression/etc cos Effy makes it look so cool and edgy and beautiful!!!” 

Tldr; don’t let yourself get too frustrated working it out. S4 and espesh Effy was just a mess. Guaranteed the writers didn’t give it that much thought. They just wanted flashy and dramatic. And like everything we interpret/extrapolate from Skins, there’s only a small chance that anyone’ll get it 100% accurate and complete anyway. :)