Writing Advice: How To Trauma
In seeing the recent explosion of my "How To Write Trauma With Humanity" post, I have decided to jump back into this topic!
This cute post will be covering how to write complicated individuals with Trauma. From the good, the bad, and especially the ugly since people tend to assume that victimhood is inherently seperated from assholehood
A) Being A Person And Afraid
In my experience, the majority of people with trauma have simultaneously existing fears and desires that often contradict, complicate, or outright hurt themselves.
I call them "fear combinations"
It's these fear combinations that cause people with trauma to often act in ways that seem confusing to outsiders.
For example, the person that's always on the hunt for a relationship but whenever an opportunity for romance strikes, they create relationship havok so the relationship can end
Or a person tries to always sincerely bring attention to themselves but whenver the attention is on them, they just shrug it off as not being worthy of it
This behavior seems kinda weird until you stop to take a closer look at their psyche.
Example 1 is based off of my character, Monday Vũ who has a tendency of jumping into relationships with a sincere desire to find romance until the honeymoon period ends as Monday realizes that if the relationship continues they might have to settle down, forgo their entire identity, and all of their freedom. Then they sabotage the relationship under the guise that it's a selfless endeavour.
Example 2 is based off my character, Niko Preyr who uses grand public gestures and his friendships to prop himself up as a person to be known but if you ever spoke to him then you would quickly see one of the most insecure yet attention-hungry individuals you have ever seen.
"Fear Combinations" are an excellent device in making your characters complex. In my opinion, the trauma-writing scene is just a little bit too neat in it's displays of trauma. It's too logical. It doesn't feel real to my personal experiences.
"he has trust issues because of trauma" What if he also had issues with being clingy to people he sees as trust-worthy?
What if your characters weren't so easy to understand? But I hear you wondering.
How? How do these people manifest such confusing behavior? Why should I add this into my characters?
I'll tell you
B) Instinct Vs Terror, Fighting Against Yourself
In my opinion, "fear combinations" are either caused by the distortion of a human fear or the event in which an intrinsic desire is contrasted against a "survival method".
Humans are born with certain "intrinsic" fears and desires. Humans are born with a desire for belonging, a desire for vulnerability, a desire for self-fulfillment, a desire for independence, a desire for security in themselves.
And with desire comes the fear of "missing out". The fear that you want something that everyone wants but for some reason you won't be able to get it. The fear that you'll loose it. And the fear that your desire might put you into danger. What if you get rejected? What if you never find that group? What if you never find freedom?
In not-traumatized individuals, while it may take some introspection, people can and often do reconcile their fears and desires in a movie-montage when they're children with the help of a strong support system.
In traumtized individuals, what tends to happen is that either the fear of lose and the fear of gain tend to be increased to unpredencented levels
Either that, or a lack of a strong support system doesn't allow the child to safely confront their fears in order to get what they want.
This causes "fear combination"
Niko Preyr has the natural desire to be validated as "good", as "special", as "worthy". A desire we are all born with. However, his upbringing convinced him that he is underserving of what we all need. This causes Niko Preyr to use attention as validation. However whenever he receives this attention, his gifted fear that he is undeserving causes him to reject the attention. But he continues searching for attention to serve that need for validation. A hellish cycle.
Monday Vũ has two understandable fears that we all have. The fear of losing two necessary things: indepedence and security. Monday fears being abandoned, fears being engulfed into relationships. While children and adults can often reconcile those fears in their childhood through a strong support system, Monday never had that. Instead she had her father who emotionally left her and her mother who literally left her. Monday only had herself to rely on, at least thats how she felt. And now, as an adult, Monday wants to fulfill that desire we all have. To be loved. To be connected. But she's afraid. Afraid of being blindsided. Afraid of not having the last laugh. Afraid of being apart of something.
What if that loner wolf found someone who they think is perfect. Someone worthy of their trust. Do you really think that all those years of yearning for love, for connection, are just going to be smothered when they have the perfect person to unleash their childish, half-developed, horrifying emotions onto?
But what next? After we have our character's contradictory fears and desires, after we have the justification for why they feel like this, what's next?
It's this:
C) Self-Destructive Habits: Why We Understand And Can't Change
Let me tell you, unless in very specific conditions such as certain personality disorders and so on, people tend to understand that their behavior is foolish, illogical, and hurting other people.
Monday knows that betraying other people, hurting their trust and faith in their relationships, and entering relationships when she understands her history is bad. It makes her a bad person.
Niko knows that their habits are actively hurting their chances at finding worth.
That "Lone Wolf" understands, deep down, that no single person can handle the high expectations and emotions.
They know it because they can see it. Many times. Monday can see that characters in movies who have their relationship history tend to be casted as the antagonist. Niko can hear the gossip. That "Lone Wolf" can see the way that their loved ones cracked under the pressure and guilt.
So why do they do it? It feeds into their idea of the world. It feeds into what they want to be perceived as. It feeds into their stagnancy.
If Monday can ignore how they hurt others, then they can live under the Martyr label for the rest of their life without having to come to term with the fact that this isn't selflessness, it's called being pathetic.
If Niko can ignore how deep that hurt goes, then they never have to actually make the effort to change. To take that potential and make themselves into something. To be responsible.
If "Lone Wolf" can ignore how nobody can meet their expectations without crumbling down, then they use everyone's failure to feed into their cynical, self-hating notion of how nobody's trustworthy. How they don't have the responsibility of being considerate.
