As Someone Who Is Dealing With Decades Of Emotional, Mental, And Physical Trauma On Different Levels

As someone who is dealing with decades of emotional, mental, and physical trauma on different levels each, this is it. Over half of the trauma I received I didn't even know was trauma until therapy last year (talk about ✨mind blown✨) but after rediscovering them, it explained SO MUCH. The triggered habits and PTSD is still there, though.

It is very hard and not always a daily showing in both the trauma examples and healing--but the minute signs are still there in both. I put examples of this very thing in my stories, fanfic or original, because it is something fascinating. Terrible, but intriguing. All of the things I went thru, I wouldn't wish on anyone. However, it's stuff I still think should be talked about; the actions, the reactions, the life-altering details, all of it.

A sequel to my main fanfic series I'm writing, Haunt AU/AHoN AU (A Haunt of Normalcy), has a character that possesses all of the trauma reactions and life-altering changes I went thru, though for them they came from different types of Trauma. The Hamato family is also dealing with the trauma they went thru the past couple of years in the series, as well. It's as much as a story as it is a character study: a study in healing, a study in connections, and a study in growth (alongside sci-fi and paranormal science, but that's another post).

For me, trauma writing is amazing not only to showcase the amazing integrity and strength of people, but to show how comforting deep seeded connections can truly be thru the healing of them. That Hurt/Comfort is as beautiful as an HE (happy ending), both in life and in writing.

"Character doesn't act traumatized"

The flaw with the criticism of "this character isn't acting traumatized, you need to show how this event changed them" is that a lot of people experience EXTREME traumatic events and think it's normal. Their behavior might change in subtle ways, but they mostly just continue with their life.

This is especially true in children/young characters. See example here:

Considering Donnie in the Seperated AU literally had NO friends for the first several years of his life (no his dad does NOT count!!) it prompted Donnie to start developing Shelldon way earlier on out of the desire to have a friend. Even after meeting and befriending April, he still spends most of his days being quite lonely considering she'd be busy with school and stuff. Shelldon was a way to combat that loneliness. But considering the fact that Donnie wouldn't have had nearly as much experience with tech when starting on Shelldon's development, he started out as a very rudimentary AI only able to produce a few simple responses. (Donnie having basically no stanards for what social interactions should be like was not at all bothered by this lol) Over the years however, as Donnie's skillset grew Shelldon would become more and more complex, so at the time where the main story takes place Shelldon Hamato is for all intents and purposes a real person and not just a mere machine.

Also I drew him with his Metalhead-inspired design cuz uhhhh cuz I wanna

Also uuuhh have some extra turtle tot doodles cuz omg they're so fucking cute I can't stop drawing them hhhhhhhhh

pro tip

ur friends don't hate you

nobody is secretly mad at you

you have anxiety and that's ok you are loved

the mikey playbook

step 1: get leo & donnie interested in what you have to say step 2: hold for dramatic pause step 3: be completely unserious step 4: feel the immense suffering radiating from your older brothers in the background

it just be like that I guess