this is probably going to get weirdly anecdotal, especially given the latest Discourse that’s arisen in the community and how personal it is to me. if you’re not into that i wouldn’t recommend reading this. if you do continue, hopefully you can read this with empathy and try to get where i’m coming from.
but i just wanted to say that i’ve never been exactly for or against the idea of writing controversial material. when i started writing when i was eight years old, i wrote teen titans fanfictions. by the time i was sixteen, and i had lived through physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by the hands of someone i deeply and irrevocably cared for, my material grew to mirror my experiences. that’s natural. people write about what they know. i was scared. i was not fully able to grasp the severity of what had happened, or why it was wrong, or why it was not my fault. writing about my trauma was the thing that helped me rationalize the situation, which then gave me the ability to rebuild myself. writing about my trauma, no matter how explicit or how painful it was, was the thing that kept me from killing myself.
however, just because i write about my own personal experiences, that does not mean that you, as a person who has never lived through them, can do so too. victims of abuse, victims of sexual assault, victims of csa can write about their trauma. it’s our bruises to poke at and yours to keep away from. i can write about my experiences because they are mine. i can do what i want with my experiences because they are mine to experience. that does not give you an invitation to exploit my experiences for a plot device, especially when you negate intensive research and sensitivity.
trauma is not a plot device. trauma is not character development. i did not grow as a person from being sexually assaulted. maybe i became a better writer. maybe i learned how to string words together a little more intricately. maybe i was a little braver when i started writing things that got scary. but i did not grow as a person from being sexually assaulted. i did not become a better person after i was sexually assaulted. i did not become a stronger person after i was sexually assaulted. i developed a severe personality disorder that deteriorated every relationship i had. i became so hypersexual and explicit that all of my friends no longer felt comfortable being around me. i was so paranoid every time i walked my school halls and i saw his face that i would run into class and cry. i was terrified to sleep. i had nightmares every time i fell asleep, always the same dream, always the same guy in it. i stopped sleeping altogether. he wanted me to be skinnier, so i stopped eating. he told me i wasn’t interesting when i spoke, so i stopped speaking. i lost my ability to function in my day to day life.
i did not grow from my trauma. my trauma did not make me who i am today. i grew from love, from acceptance, from genuine and honest connections with people i know i can trust. i grew from music, from art, from literature, from learning. i became who i am today because i worked to experience the good things in my life that i was missing out on because of my trauma. i am not my trauma. i did not grow from my trauma.
tl;dr - i’m not entirely against someone writing about traumatic events, but if you’re really going to do so, you need to handle it appropriately and be mindful of those who have actually experiences said events. trauma is not a plot device.