Hello, darklings!
I’m practicing showing myself more kindness and stress management. I took advantage of the holiday week and didn’t work any extra hours. It was a pleasant respite.
Now, let’s discuss trauma!
I love when creators take the time to research and show trauma. I love when they show the healing from injuries, both physical and mental. I also love when it becomes understood that some traumatic injuries don’t disappear and will be something a human being has to learn to live with.
Watching shows, I think some stories miss out on character development by being a little too episodic. No, I’m not blaming the writers for this. I know why, and understand and still love many creative works that ignore previous suffering. But I also know the thrill I get when I see a character who continues to struggle in following episodes to grasp, come to terms, and manage their trauma.
One reason it makes my little goblin heart so happy is because, one, it’s realistic, and two, either I or someone else will see it and relate hard. I think many are like me and are validated by seeing that healing takes time. Sweeping trauma under the rug is not realistic in reality like it can be for characters in episodic stories.
I’m not going to blame a creator if they don’t show characters with that baggage, but I’m going to rejoice when I see it.
Especially if I can see accurate portrayal. (Bites knuckle!) Research is fanfreakingtabulous!
That doesn't mean the characters do everything right. I love when a character has unhealthy coping mechanisms, and the creator shows that it doesn’t work well. I love when other characters make mistakes when handling others past trauma. I also love when characters manage to navigate their treacherous mental health ground and start improving bit by bit.
Also, there are a lot of clever ways to do the research, but not relay the research. Generally, I don't want to read an explanation on panic attacks or a huge block of mental dialogue in the middle of a fiction. This goes back to a very tried and true rule of writing: Show, don’t tell.
I have a very good real life example of this, sadly, of how you can see trauma without stating there is trauma. My roommate and I have a young boxer-mix that showed up on our doorstep December 2022. He can’t tell us his story. He showed us.
His ribs and spine showed us. The frost nip on his lips and joints showed us. The way he growled and trembled and couldn’t turn his back to us showed us.
Finnegan barked, cringed, and growled at people he didn’t know well. If something startled him in the yard, he would tear up the ground in his panic to get back to the safety of the house. If the roommate left the house, he would get nervous diarrhea and eat little. He anxiously chewed and destroyed things. This dog spent a full month with his tail between his legs and literally pissing himself if I approached with a leash.
He wasn’t even a year old yet. He was supposed to be a happy, energetic puppy.
As time went by, his symptoms became less stark. He barks and shakes less. He doesn’t have any accidents in the house unless he’s sick. But he still cringes and hides whenever I pull the broom out to sweep. He is still terrified of strangers. He still suffers separation anxiety whenever roommate leaves the house. Those things will probably never leave him.
This dog can’t talk to us with words. We have a good inkling of his story from what he’s shown. You can do the exact same thing with your characters. Every suspicion, every refusal to trust, every flinch, every shake, ever explosive angry-sounding bark and growl, every stomach cramp and short breath can tell us a story without any details as to their cause.
And if you do that well, I will be here to eat it up. Promise.
By the way, Finnegan is doing extraordinarily better. The dog we have now is not like the one that showed up on our doorstep. He now loves to play, with both his two humans and his older four-legged brother, Pippin. His favorite toys are tug ropes and tennis balls. He wags his tail and is such a jelly boy for kisses, pets, and snuggles. He's super smart and sweet. There are still good and bad times, though the bad times are becoming fewer. We recently started his prescription of anti-anxiety meds which help him handle his fear even more. He's had a journey, and we're determined to never allow anyone to hurt him again.
I make no such promise for my characters.
Write hard, you deviant corvids!
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