This is my life

I was the one who brought up trauma?

My Sheppard tends to be pretty high on the woobie scale so just by default I assume canon!Sheppard comes with (family trauma + war trauma + sexuality trauma + misfit trauma + the weekly trauma that comes with starring in a genre show + a dose of extra manpain/poor little rich boy for fun) and he was in Antarctica because he needed someplace where he could be quiet and alone and had no expectations to worry about because that's how he deals, but not all of that is required. And to the extent he has control issues, it's a defense mechanism as a result of all that. But of course that's not the only reason somebody might need to be in control.