Medea and the Meltdown

Sunday, May 18, 2025, This is for Andrea and Alex

What Happens When Emotional Logic Breaks

Some myths whisper. This one screams.

Medea, daughter of a king and priestess of Hecate, helps Jason steal the Golden Fleece. She betrays her family, murders her brother, and flees into exile—all for love.

She saves Jason. She bears him children. She loses her homeland, her status, her gods.

And when Jason leaves her for a younger, wealthier woman, she kills their children.

Not in a fit of madness, but with terrifying emotional clarity. Because if he could kill her future, she would do the same to his.

No, this is not a feel-good chapter.

This is the part where we talk about what happens when love and identity collapse together—and one gets obliterated.

Sacrifice Without Recognition

Medea’s rage isn’t random. It’s sacrificial rage. The kind that builds over time in relationships where one person keeps giving and the other keeps… receiving.

Modern equivalents look like:

• “I gave up my career for this family, and now you want space?”

• “I supported you through addiction, and now you’re thriving—with someone else?”

• “I did everything right. Why am I the one being left behind?”

Medea isn’t the voice of madness. She’s the voice of traumatized logic:

“If my suffering means nothing, then nothing should matter.”

The Psychology of Emotional Overinvestment

In couples therapy, we call this fusion: when identity is so merged with the relationship that losing the partner feels like losing the self.

Medea didn’t just love Jason. She became the person who loved Jason. So when he discards her, she doesn’t grieve. She self-incinerates.

This isn’t ancient melodrama. This is every person who’s ever said:

“If they leave, I’ll have nothing.”

“Without them, I’m no one.”

“I don’t recognize myself anymore.”

When the Nervous System Goes to War

From a trauma perspective, Medea is not “evil.” She’s in a full freeze-fight response:

• She’s betrayed.

• She’s cornered.

• She’s powerless.

And so she seizes the one thing she has left: the capacity to hurt back.

Research in moral injury, especially in veterans and victims of relational betrayal, shows that acts of revenge are not always impulsive.

They are often planned, felt as rational, even necessary.

Not because people are monsters.

But because they are trying to restore a moral order that no longer includes them.

Therapist Tools: Working with Medea Energy (Without Burning Down the Clinic)

Name the Sacrifice. Out Loud. In Front of Witnesses.

Unacknowledged sacrifice is emotional napalm.

If one partner has been carrying the invisible cost of the relationship, name it. With reverence.

Say:

“You gave up something for us. And I haven’t fully seen it. I want to now.”

Separate Grief from Punishment

Medea confuses grief with justice. So do many partners.
The work is helping them sit in grief without needing to make someone pay.

Try:

“What do you need to mourn before we move forward?”
“What part of your story still feels erased?”
“If punishment weren’t on the table, what would repair look like?”

Rebuild Identity Outside the Relationship

If all of a partner’s meaning is tied to the relationship, any rupture is existential. The antidote isn’t reassurance—it’s re-individuation.

Ask:

• “Who are you becoming?”

• “What do you want that has nothing to do with them?”

• “What are you reclaiming?”

Final Thought: Don’t Be Afraid of the Fire—But Don’t Worship It Either

Medea teaches us what happens when relational injustice meets emotional collapse. She is not a model. She is not a villain. She is a warning.

The lesson isn’t “Don’t feel rage.” The lesson is:

“Let your rage tell you where you are still bleeding—but don’t build a house out of it.”

Coming Next: Chapter 7 — Antigone and the Sacred No: Boundaries That Cost You Everything

In the next chapter, we meet Antigone: the original boundary-setter, the woman who said no to power, to compromise, to silence. We’ll explore how saying no can be an act of love—and how to know the difference between principled refusal and destructive stubbornness.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Euripides. (c. 431 BCE). Medea. In The Complete Greek Tragedies (D. Grene & R. Lattimore, Eds.). University of Chicago Press.

Spring, J. A. (2012). After the affair: Healing the pain and rebuilding trust when a partner has been unfaithful (2nd ed.). Harper Perennial.

Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003

Johnson, S. M. (2008). Hold me tight: Seven conversations for a lifetime of love. Little, Brown Spark.