How to Write OCs With Trauma
Just as I had shown with the 3 love posts for this series, there are a ton of ways that trauma can be shown through character behaviors or even speech patterns. Different people react differently when it comes to trauma, and you should also keep in mind what kind of trauma the character had gone through and what they were like before it occurred before deciding how they would be like now.
In the following post, I will be giving some different responses to trauma that your characters could display.
I. The āIDGAF Anymoreā Trauma Response
Perhaps one of the most used responses to trauma that you see in characters in media is the character that blocks off their emotional responses to anything thereafter. They may fall in love with someone but theyāll never admit it because they donāt wish to be hurt. They may find a new family to love them but they shut themselves off from expressing said love because they are afraid of being hurt again.
Essentially what this response boils down to is a fear of being hurt again. Most people that shut down emotionally have been abandoned or abused or betrayed by someone they once trusted in some way; sometimes the thing that makes them feel betrayed isnāt even the other personās fault such as an older sibling moving out of the house and away from their family once they get older or the death of a loved one.
II. The āAnger Issuesā Response
I have known 2 people personally really well that have had this response to trauma. This response is where a person is so emotionally shut down (much like the last response spoken about) that they wonāt allow themselves to show any emotion other than anger.
I once had a therapist tell me āusually when a person is angry, there is another emotion behind the anger, whether it is fear or depression or otherwise.ā So the first question you should ask yourself when making a character with the rage response is⦠why are they angry? What emotion is being masked by the explosion of their anger? What are they trying to hide from? What traumatic experience is making them feel this way and how do they really feel about said experience? Depending on your answers and the kind of character youāre writing about, the angry outbursts can be different.
Some people will yell, some will get violent, some will punch holes in walls and doors and furniture⦠some will scream into a pillow⦠some will storm away in the middle of a conversation or hang up the phone if someone says just the wrong thing. Really think about what your character is like, how they respond to tense situations, before you lean into their anger response because some anger responses do not fit certain personality types.
III. The āSensitive Oneā Response
Some people, when dealing with tense situations, become intensely emotional. They may cry easily when someone just looks at them cross-eyed. They might go quiet when theyāre anxious. They might get really defensive at the smallest things. The Sensitive One can be shown in many, many ways, as there are lots of different types of sensitivity, so really consider your character and what theyāve been through before you decide which type of sensitive person they are.
IV. The āUnmasked Heroā Response
Not all heroes wear capes⦠thatās the saying, right? These people are the activists. These are the people that will talk to anyone for hours and hours just to talk them down. These are the people you always hear saying āI never want people to feel the way I felt when I went through this.ā These are the people that become therapists to help others going through their issues. The Unmasked Heroes live their lives to make it so that no one has to experience the pain that they felt, if they can help it.
V. The āRebelā Response
I do what I want. Thatās the theme song of the Rebel. They lash out, usually acting like the victim no matter what happens (sometimes they really are, but sometimes they arenāt). Trauma can completely rewire a personās brain, but with the Rebel, they often felt repressed before or like they were unable to fully be themselves and when something traumatic happens, something snaps in them to trigger that āI donāt give a flying fuckā response in their brain and suddenly theyāre doing anything and everything they ever wanted to do (and sometimes even didnāt want to do) just to spite the rest of the world and if you donāt like it, you can kiss their ass. This can also be shown through a runaway after something traumatic happens.
This is another very common, often used trauma response.
VI. The āMental Breakdownā Response
As a mentally ill woman myself, I want to emphasize: not all who go through trauma get mental illnesses and not all with mental illness went through a mental break. That being said, it is very common for an extremely traumatic experience (or life, in some cases) to give someone a mental illness. Or rather, to bring it out of them. There are illnesses like Bipolar, PTSD and more that come to the surface after an extreme mental break, PTSD being the more famous for this very situation.
What is important here is that there is no one situation that will cause a mental break. Depending on the person, it can be something that would be nothing to one person but would completely break another down while a third person might be going through 5 things all at once and seem to be handling it well. There are so many different illnesses out there, and a lot of them are very similar, so what I think is most important is that you do your research before you write an illness you have not personally seen or experienced. If you know someone with an illness you want to write about, ask them if you can run some idea by them and make sure it isnāt stigmatizing the illness, as mental illness gets stigmatized left and right in media.
VII. The āClass Clownā Response
Another common thing that is shown in media - and Iāve noticed is very common in real life - is the depressed clown. There are so many people that listen to society telling them it isnāt okay to not be okay, so they laugh and clown around to make others laugh and just like a lot of people need othersā compliments to feel validated, these people often need laughter to feel validated.
Some people that become the Clown type will deflect their sadness by making dumb jokes. Maybe, if you write about your character texting or on social media, you can show them in a downward spiral and just get on their social media page to post a dumb pun to negate the negativity. Or make a joke at their own expense, which is also common. A lot of people will make others feel bad for not being able to laugh at themselves, and these people are [often] great at doing exactly that, even if they end up in tears later on when theyāre by themselves.
VIII. The āAngsty Artistā Response
As Iām sure a lot of you are aware, a lot of artists have a lot of emotions they are processing and a lot of them will use their art (whether it be visual or writing or otherwise) in order to process it.
You may have a teenager writing angsty fanfiction or poetry. You may have a young adult opening their first blog where they write about their life beginning adulthood. You may have a person that is drawing dark, gory artwork. Whatever it may be, the art can either directly reflect the way they feel, such as the dark artwork, or they may do the opposite and write about their personal idea of a utopia and use art to escape. Either way, the art is a means to process and understand themselves better and/or escape from reality for however long they do it.
The only good and bad thing about using this response is that a lot of people that use art end up getting lost in it. They end up becoming obsessed and never cease to work on the art or think about the art and may become consumed by their own processing creativity.
IX. The āAddictionā Response
Addiction can come in so many forms. It can be the typical drugs, cigarettes, alcohol⦠or it can be addiction to getting lost in a hobby (see #8: The āAngsty Artistā)⦠or it can be becoming a workaholic. Honestly, anything can become an addiction if you let it consume you, so keep that in mind. It could even be something such as them becoming a hoarder because they are afraid to let their past go, so they wonāt let anything go.
There are so many other responses to trauma. There are billions of people in the world, and tons of them have trauma in their lives. To say that it all boils down to these responses would be silly, but these are some common responses to trauma that would be a great starting point if youāre trying to figure out how to have a character of yours going through trauma.