Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-26567684-20150918015657/@comment-734582-20150919123126

Uchiahmasters wrote: how would Sakura and Naruto help Sasuke with his problem? none of them knew or understood what Sasuke was going through, Naruto may have been able to help Sasuke with the pain of being alone, but he wouldn't be able to help Sasuke cope with the loss of everything Sasuke held dear. Because in reality, if you've gone through a difficult time, you solve it by talking. You don't wait till someone else comes along with the exact same past, stare into eachothers eyes and go "i understand you". You talk. To friends, family, sometimes plain strangers.

Sasuke didn't need to wait for naruto to loose Jiraiya. In stead of going on about how nobody understands him, he could've talked. Talked about how he felt, about what happened. It's a ninja village, losing people dear to you is extremely common. Even if experiences don't match 1:1, it can still help.

In stead of pushing people away, he could've embraced them. Naruto didn't face his pain by hiding, but by talking. He talked to Shikamaru (who didn't even remotely have the same relation to his sensei as Naruto), he talked to Iruka. In stead of drowning in self-pity, he fought. His dream was a symbolic revenge (becoming hokage, he believed, would force people to acknowledge him) but people corrected him on that path. Naruto was saved from darkness by others, others that may not have a literal demon in their body but who nevertheless, on some level, understood. Sasuke too could've been saved. Maybe he's the only one with that experiençe, but there are plenty of ninja who know what it's like to have their parents taken by a superior force, unable to get revenge. hell, the entire village had people taken by the Kyubi only to have a kid permanently remind them of the very thing that took their loved ones.

The whole "you don't understand me" thing is a perfectly normal thing to believe for someone going to a difficult time. it's also the moment you need to slap such a person with reality.