What if Helena is a different kind of ‘severed’?

Was watching S2E2 and found how they are filling in Helena’s backstory so interesting. Stumbled upon this thought.

My ‘not a theory, more of a concept’: What if Helena is a reversed, or mirrored severed?

We don’t yet know the ‘How’ of the procedure, but I think it’s fair to say that they have to draw on some part of a persons subconscious. This episode even gave some confirmation of that. Dylan struggles with self-worth and confidence in the real world, his innie leans into that and has an over inflated opinion of himself. Bert is a lover of art but also seems to have grown up in a more militaristic environment. We see his father was a military man, and notice the way he prepares himself for work in the locker room (very orderly and precise). When employees are woken up in the conference room, they are prompted to remember a parents name or face. They scoff since they definitely know they have/had them, probably have phantom experiences and muscle memories of a physical presence that was their parent! But they cannot tell you their name or describe them.

In season 1, Helly behaves how we (the viewer) would act if we woke up in an office we could not leave. Frantic, questioning everything, telling the fake people around you how batshit this all is. Despite being told ‘the REAL you says your staying’, she constantly rejects that as if she is the one actually in control. This is what separates this character from the others. We’re told that mark was previously rebellious, and obviously Petey questioned it all enough to get himself reintegrated. But mark also stayed and accepted his life, and petey was working there for years before taking measures into his own hands. For better or worse, the other characters have a base level of acceptance that they are there for a magical reason and they must accept it. Helly was there for what, a few months? She never really bought into the idea that she wasn’t the real her.

With S2E2 showing us Helena for the first time (I know she was on camera before but come on), she acts how we expected a severed person to act if we just read about the idea of severance for the first time (or at least if Severance was a horror, Invasion of The Body Snatchers kind of show). She acts more like an innie than Helly does. What if that’s because she went through some early renditions of the severance procedure? Perhaps she got the trail stage at a very young age and she never really got to grow up. Or maybe that’s too complicated and she just grew up as the brainwashed daughter of a cult leader. Either way, I have to imagine that Helena has had a subverted and warped upbringing that would snuff the personality right out of her. Or rather, it pushed it down and compartmentalized it. So what if Helly is who she was meant to be and Helena is actually the severed one?

I don’t actually think there is a twist coming that she is the ‘real’ Helena. But it almost feels like that’s the secret to her character. She LIVES and has agency more as an innie than she does as an outie.