It’s kind of hard to find any good source materials that I can pluck from in regards to discussing the “yays and nays” of writing convincing PTSD, but I’m gonna take the knowledge I do have - both from my experiences and from everything I’ve picked up and learned around that - and just leave a few key points lying around like crumbs for y’all. Mostly made with writing trauma in mind:
-Though there are exceptions, for the most part, your sex and horomones may determine how you respond to stress and trauma. Higher testosterone makes it much more likely to react to trauma in a more “stereotypical” way, fighting back with aggression, deflecting, sometimes turning to addictions as means of an escape. Some of that comes from toxic masculinity, but some of it is just from having less natural emotional depth or a harder time venturing that emotional depth. (In summary: men put off therapy. A lot.)
-Meanwhile, more estrogen-based people will more often feel the emotional wringing of depression or fear, and actually become more vulnerable to getting in toxic situations. When you’re at a low point, it may be difficult to make clearer judgements, and seeking comfort for the sake of comfort might end up taking a toll like any other negative outlets. (Again with “there are exceptions” because not everybody responds in these ways, there’s definitely a uniqueness to the brain’s stress responses)
-For ye writing people, here’s some ideas on not-so-good outlets one might turn to when facing trauma: alcoholism, painkillers and substance abuse, anger outbursts (towards people or things equally), emotional outbursts, self-isolation (can be anything from leaving a virtual chat to locking ones self in a bathroom - both of which I have done, *ahem*), self-harm (note that this also includes restricting yourself from things such as food, water, communication, sleep, etc), co-dependency (ie looking for whoever will pay attention to them regardless of what that might do in the long run)
-And here’s some better ones: hobbies, games (particularly ones that require focus), physical exercise, basic self-care (look we all should be taking care of ourselves anyways but lots of us just don’t so doing that actually really fucking helps. Dude sometimes a long hot bath and Epsom salt can just make me not want to unexist), m e d i c a t i o n, t h e r a p y, positive social groups or support groups (not specifically a therapy support group, but any group that is supportive towards healing from things like PTSD), meditation- and/or just sitting with your fucking feelings and acknowledging it’s a THING
-PTSD is oftentimes this tree that grows from a root problem (this can be something like family trauma, war, assault, abuse, emotional neglect, loss, literally any situation which made the person feel helpless, physically OR emotionally) and that tree branches into various symptoms and side effects. Some of these are bigger and broader terms, like depression (feeling hopeless about ones self and life, often becoming so emotionally overrun that you’re just numb and don’t care anymore) or anxiety (sometimes social, sometimes situational, or both, or all)
-In other ways, side effects are very specific things that comes from the same source. These can (but do NOT always) include: nightmares, flashbacks, bodily tremors, tics, headaches, bowel issues, heart palpitations, and a broad category called psychosis (a big fancy word that means you sense something that is not actually there)
-On that psychosis thing, because lo and behold I fucking have that problem, it’s usually not as “real” as it’s made out to be. Even we question ourselves for the realness of it, which if anything kinda adds to the fear because sometimes you really don’t know. Anyways you can experience psychosis in a lot of ways, from hearing things to seeing types of hallucinations, to believing in the higher meaning of things around you and having types of delusions (I struggle with those the most). It can also vary in frequency. Some people see shadowy figures all the time at night. Some people hear stuff only once every blue moon. Often, they come in episodes that only last for a short period of time (hours to days)
-Another vague category is dissociation, a feeling of “spacing out” that might be kinda frequent and kinda freaky. People can dissociate in different ways so it’s a little harder to pinpoint how to feel, but to an outsider it really just looks like your brain did an Error 404 on you. Some people feel paralyzed and cannot move. Some people feel out of their own bodies. And some feel like the world around them doesn’t really exist. Whatever the case, this is closely tied to the flashbacks thing and it can really take you outside of the present moment. It’s easy to get lost.
-Trauma does not have to be around 100% of the time. Sometimes people can heal from trauma and almost function like normal again. But it may still always exist, and while manageable, some things like triggers (I want to cover those but I don’t have the time at the moment to) will still be hard to deal with and take time and gentleness to get through. Some people can overcome PTSD in months to years. Others overcome it in decades. Some never overcome it, but it gets manageable with time and taking the efforts to process and heal.
Okay that’s all I got time for this morning :’)
