Hurt/Comfort and PTSD
Tue, Apr. 30th, 2013 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chordatesrock posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
access_fandomI wrote something for fun at one point. It was a scene from the point of view of a character with PTSD, set immediately following the part of canon where he returns to the exact location where most of his trauma occurred. If I were to draw a graph where the Y axis represents being more mentally unwell, and the X axis represents time since the end of the original trauma, then I might draw a line sloping shallowly downward as it heads further right, with a bump in the middle. The fic would be that bump. It has its own beginning, middle and end.
The problem is that, in the fic, the character's best friend provides a lot of emotional support. It could probably be argued that the best friend's help is instrumental in making the character feel a lot better, fully resolving the current triggered reaction in a way that helps the character to deal with the trauma better in the future, but doesn't fully resolve it.
I've considered expanding on that, with other single-scene fics from other points in canon, showing that it's not static before then or fully resolved afterward. However, I don't have as many ideas for those, and a lot of them would be harder to write. It's already fairly long for a oneshot, and I was particularly capable of writing it the day I started it, in a way I probably never will be again.
I want to post this, but I don't want to contribute to the problems with hurt/comfort, which I am afraid I might have written. I would like to portray healing as a dynamic, only partly linear process that will result in something different from the situation before the trauma, and different from the situation immediately afterward.
Because I feel uncertain about this, I would like to invite the thoughts of anyone with relevant experience or information.
The problem is that, in the fic, the character's best friend provides a lot of emotional support. It could probably be argued that the best friend's help is instrumental in making the character feel a lot better, fully resolving the current triggered reaction in a way that helps the character to deal with the trauma better in the future, but doesn't fully resolve it.
I've considered expanding on that, with other single-scene fics from other points in canon, showing that it's not static before then or fully resolved afterward. However, I don't have as many ideas for those, and a lot of them would be harder to write. It's already fairly long for a oneshot, and I was particularly capable of writing it the day I started it, in a way I probably never will be again.
I want to post this, but I don't want to contribute to the problems with hurt/comfort, which I am afraid I might have written. I would like to portray healing as a dynamic, only partly linear process that will result in something different from the situation before the trauma, and different from the situation immediately afterward.
Because I feel uncertain about this, I would like to invite the thoughts of anyone with relevant experience or information.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-01 01:07 pm (UTC)Yeah this. It's not being a bit flinchy, it's not "I had a nightmare and we cuddled", it's not "This person who has no fucking clue what I went through magically knows the key to helping me cope". It's a fundamental alteration of self and how you interact with the world.
It gets used as a plot point over. And. Over. And. Over. Again. Often by people who do not have PTSD, let alone any experience with the situation that supposedly caused it for the char, so they fuck up writing the origin, they fuck up writing the PTSD, and they fuck up writing Magical Healing Sex or Cuddles or whatever.
I live this shit. It deeply affects my life in fundamental, painful ways. I am sick and tired of seeing fic writers treat it as a very poorly done plot point. My life and my disabilities should not be treated like a plaything.