What better way to start this show than with a wall of text? Those of a sensitive disposition take warning now: this is a touchy subject. For those who dislike towers of text, y'all might well hit ‘Back’ right now cuz this is gonna be a doozie at least by social media standards. Hopefully though, it will be an informative doozie. I am by no means a professional psychologist or anything, but I’ve done a lot of extensive research into the subject in order to portray it as accurately as possible in my works. Either way, let’s keep it civil.
Anyone who has read teenage fanfiction is familiar with the “tragic past” which almost seems cliché. Something terrible happened to a character and now they have a sad story to tell to their peers. As a literary element it can be powerful, but if it’s misused, it often just comes off as boring and doesn’t make anyone care about the character in question. If you want it to feel tragic, it needs to hurt. PTSD is one of those options, insomuch that the trauma received from the incident lingers (I believe PTSD is “official” after the trauma and associated behaviours linger for at least a month, but don’t cite me on that). It scars them mentally, and potentially becomes an issue down the road. And that’s just the flaky specks on the tip of the iceberg.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, better known as PTSD, is a mental health condition that sometimes develops after the victim experiences a horrifying and/or traumatic event. Deciphering the nature of this beast is difficult because of how greatly it varies between every affected individual, but in terms of writing, it is commonly used, even if it is generally fairly misunderstood. The “Tragic Past”. One of many causes of Angst. An effective way to break a character when done/portrayed correctly. But what exactly *is* PTSD? Even describing it properly is tricky because of its extreme complexity, but I’ll do what I can to do it justice.
PTSD is a condition that occurs when the memories of a traumatic experience (or long-term exposure to trauma) are not properly processed by the brain. Adrenaline and other high level stress hormones can prevent the brain from correctly processing these memories, leading to what’s basically a “blown fuse”. This “blown fuse” effect means that nightmares, flashbacks and general anxiety will continue as the mind is unable to get to grips with what has happened. Every time a memory of the experience is triggered, the physical stress reactions will prevent the brain from dealing with the trauma and being able to heal. It’s a vicious cycle, especially since not only is it a many-headed Hydra in terms of variety, but also because of the different levels of severity.
So as a writer, what does this mean? How do you accurately and properly portray something like this while being both true to the nature of the beast and respectful of the condition itself? I’m no certified expert (so take my words with a grain of salt if you desire), but I’ve spent literal hundreds of hours doing extensive research and fact-checking, and have been given praise by many members of my audience praising how I’ve handled it in many of my works, so I like to think that at least counts for something.
That aside, one of the most important steps to understanding PTSD and how to portray it in a character is to understand both the affected character and their personality/nature/tendencies, as well as understand what traumatic event(s) affected them the way they did and why. People with different personalities will still react differently even if they suffer from similar types of traumatic events, and that’s part of why it’s so important to know the character(s) you’re writing for.
The 2nd half of that understanding is to understand what type(s) of trauma your character is suffering from. Ensure that the readers know of the event–details of things the character saw, felt, heard, or experienced in any way. These are the things that will likely be your character’s 'triggers’. While Tumblr might throw that word around wantonly (my disdain for Tumblr and their attempt to trivialize PTSD just to feel special is a whole different can of worms though), triggers can be and are a pretty big, nasty deal, depending on the severity of the trauma in question.
So what does THAT mean in terms of writing? Well, that also depends. It’s not like a traumatic event automatically means that the victim will fear/get triggered by anything to do with the event (although it very well might. again, this is why knowing the character and knowing the severity of their trauma is so important), but it will definitely change them. Really, it’s less about what might actually *be* correlated with the traumatic event, and more about what the character *associates* with that moment. Anything from sights to smells to sounds could be a trigger, and so sensory details are important when describing the incident.
And then of course, there are the reactions. What does your character do when they are triggered? Do they initiate the oft-invoked “fight-or-flight” response, or do they invoke one of the lesser-known responses, such as “freeze”? Sometimes, when a person realizes that they can’t defeat the problem and can’t flee from it, instead they will dissociate from it, which is what triggers the “freeze” response–when a character just stops moving and operating, almost like a BSOD as their mind tries to shut out what is happening because of what it perceives as insurmountable odds.
And of course, fight/flight/freeze are not the only responses someone can have. Essentially, PTSD can and does hijack your sense of reason, dissociating the victim from rationality and loosening their grip on reality which in turn can cause people to sometimes do things uncharacteristic, ranging from lashing out and getting very fierce and defensive, to simply shutting down and dissociating from everything and everyone.
Which in turn goes back to the notion that PTSD is a many-headed Hydra that I am simply unable to cover every facet of in this post. A good way to sum up how a character will turn out after being traumatized would be to say “Results may vary.” because they will vary. And that’s the beautiful and horrific part about this whole ordeal.
It by itself is by no means a beautiful thing, but if done right, it can pave the way for beautiful growth and recovery arcs for a character.
So in conclusion, this is me just barely scraping the tip of the massive iceberg that is PTSD. If you want to have your character be angsty about their parents who were tragically killed, that’s fine. If you want to give them other horrific or traumatic events in their pasts, that’s fine. In my honest opinion, the cliche stems more from people giving their characters tragic pasts/events merely to garner sympathy, rather than to show the toll that actual traumatic events would realistically have on people. So if this post has helped enlighten you at all on how to write characters impacted by trauma of any kind, then I’m happy I was able to help. The goal of me discussing PTSD at all on this page is to help encourage more writers to look into it and gain a better understanding of it–and thus create better characters and stories as they attempt to portray what is in truth a rather severe mental disorder in a more realistic light. Because when it’s done wrong or done poorly, it makes for a pretty piss-poor story. But when it’s done right and done properly… it’s a beautiful story to follow.
This is by no means comprehensive, and the “part 1″ in the title means I’ll cover some of PTSD’s many other facets in future posts. Kudos if you read it all though.
