Tmnt Writing - Tumblr Posts
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:
