PTSD in Literature

Generally all mental illnesses get lost in translation often enough. Even a psychologist couldn't exactly quantify what it's like to have a mental illness because it's generally a pretty simple inconsistency in the brain causing a ridiculously complex series of snowballing issues. Personally, I've seen sociopathy/ psychopathy somewhat incorrectly used on television twice this year (I actually know one, so I could see the difference.) Out of that, the most complex & most difficult are anxiety disorders (which I believe PTSD falls under) because the results can literally be entirely specific to the sufferer.

As to PTSD, I'm really not entirely sure how that one works either, but I'm not sure if anyone suffering actually believes that they're back wherever it happened. I think they just momentarily regress to the mindset of when the trauma happened. IE an ex-soldier's subconscious mind might take in information that reminds them of being in whatever war they were in & then wants to automatically react. You would have to do research though, don't take my word for it.

There are a lot of forums where people talk about their experiences. If you are respectful I bet they would be happy to help.

I agree with Neegh. Show.

I was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of childhood sexual abuse and physical abuse. It presents in individual ways... But there are many commonalities. I have covered it in my fiction before, but have never named it. I prefer show through actions and behaviour. It's a more powerful way to make it real for the reader.

KTC said:

I agree with Neegh. Show.

I was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of childhood sexual abuse and physical abuse. It presents in individual ways... But there are many commonalities. I have covered it in my fiction before, but have never named it. I prefer show through actions and behaviour. It's a more powerful way to make it real for the reader.

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I agree with you both. Mostly. I think naming the disorder being suffered from can work depending on the story being told. A story about a character trying to overcome a traumatic past for example, because trauma and PTSD aren't the same things. But in the same story I would also expect plenty of show, to you know, actually show the person has PTSD or a personality disorder and how it effects their life. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I favor a combination of show and tell about simply telling or simply showing.

KTC said:

I I was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of childhood sexual abuse and physical abuse. It presents in individual ways... But there are many commonalities. I have covered it in my fiction before, but have never named it. I prefer show through actions and behaviour. It's a more powerful way to make it real for the reader.

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I've written it similarly. Don't have PTSD myself, but I've lived with someone who has.

I think one of the risks of actually naming the condition you're portraying is that these terms tend to carry a lot of baggage, and once you name it, people will make certain assumptions, and might disengage if the character's experience doesn't fit their assumptions, even if it's completely realistic.

I find simply showing it to be more effective.

Besides, mental illness is complicated, and many people go through several "wrong" diagnoses before finding a diagnosis and approach to living with it that truly works for them.

There is a spectrum for PTSD as well, I think. I'm not sure from a medical perspective, but I know that while I don't think I have full blown PTSD, there are things that will occasionally trigger a brief episode. Rocket attacks and gunfire will do that to you, I guess.

I think you lose a lot by just saying it. You said you want to show it, and I think that is crucial. I would love to see how it gets dealt with in a family. My father-in-law has flashbacks in his sleep a lot, and more than once has tried to fight or subdue my mother-in-law in his sleep. My episodes have all been brief and while I was awake, but I have definitely almost taken my wife out before (I've also almost taken out a menacing bush).

But leaving bruises on your loved ones hurts both of you. I don't see that side of it too much, I don't think.

PTSD comes from a lot of sources and manifests in a lot of ways. Write the story and let the reader decide if it PTSD or not, unless you are writing a scholarly manuscript. Is it important that it be identified? If it is, work that into the story logically. You are generally entertaining the general public, rather than educating professionals. Don't dwell on diagnosis unless t is important.
The condition has been labeled in the relatively recent past, yet I'm sure characters have had it for centuries.

Here's a current PTSD story in SYW- (password: vista)
if you like, give a crit...

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=302842

Nuwanda said:

Great! I wasn't really sure if I should tackle the sleepwalk aspect of it but you've sparked somethings I have to consider as far as how physical I want my MC to become during his episodes.

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Yeah. It probably depends on the source. The people I know affected by it are ex-police officers and military, both active duty and veterans. Coming from a different source, say an abusive relationship or something, might result in different manifestations, particularly in the physical aspect.

My father-in-law reacts physically because the stressors that caused those manifestations were physical altercations. Mine usually involves ducking and looking for a shooter or bracing for shock. I've never done anything in my sleep though, as far as I know.

DadofSnorf said:

Yeah. It probably depends on the source. The people I know affected by it are ex-police officers and military, both active duty and veterans. Coming from a different source, say an abusive relationship or something, might result in different manifestations, particularly in the physical aspect.

My father-in-law reacts physically because the stressors that caused those manifestations were physical altercations. Mine usually involves ducking and looking for a shooter or bracing for shock. I've never done anything in my sleep though, as far as I know.

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I do a lot of sleep-talk. There's tons of turtling in social situations, etc...but the sleep-talk is OFF the charts. I always fear what I'm going to say, because there was a lot of secret-keeping surrounding the situation that caused my PTSD. You're right...there's a myriad of ways to present and to show through the character's action/inaction/dialogue...it's almost endless.

go ask alice was cool

When is your story set? If it's prior to the 1980s, the term PTSD didn't even exist as a mental health diagnosis, let alone as a popularly known term. Of course, people still got it, and there were different terms for it (old soldier's syndrome, battle fatigue, nervous breakdown, shell shock or what have you), but you wouldn't necessarily have to name it.

Actually, this goes for most mental health conditions. The names we're familiar with for them rarely date back much before the 20th century, if that. Of course people had them, but they were regarded very differently, especially in times and places where the mind/body dichotomy was widely accepted.

I'd say that a contemporary story with a character who has mental trauma from war, sexual or other traumatic assault, living through a disaster or catastrophe of some kind etc. would be likely to either self-diagnose, or have people make armchair diagnoses of PTSD, even if he/she doesn't seek mental health care. But prior to the late 80s or the 90s (really, it wasn't until the internet age that many of these psychiatric issues became such household words anyway), they might just think of themselves as being generically messed up or "traumatized," or maybe being on the verge of what used to be called a "nervous breakdown."

I have "complex" PTSD, because basically my entire life from birth to age 36 was trauma with very occasional breaks of "good". In other words, in my life, the trauma (primarily abuse) came from so many sources and occurred in so many environments that I essentially had nowhere to escape to, aside from grandparents I visited once a year and uncles I saw once in a great while as a teen. And they didn't know what was going on; they were just safe people/places for me.

For me, because the trauma was so varied, I don't even know all of my triggers. Something completely innocuous to others can have me gibbering in a corner in a full-blown panic attack. The wrong touch or movement from one of my partners can send me into a flashback, in which I genuinely do sometimes believe I'm back in that setting rather than in the present.

And I'm missing some fairly huge chunks of memory of my life before age 36...and smaller chunks of my life since.

So as others have said... the effects of PTSD on the person who has it, and how they cope with and manage it (or not) would depend on the cause of the PTSD (war, abuse, a single incident, a lifetime of incidents), and on the individual's personality, what type of help they've received, etc.

I have characters in several of my books who have PTSD. In some, it's identified as such because the character has gotten professional help and therefore a professional diagnosis. In others, the effects are shown but the disorder isn't named. The ones who've gotten help use coping strategies learned from their therapists or from good friends who know how to help them.

As for what I would like to see as a reader:
- *Accurate* depictions of PTSD. While the way someone experiences can vary, as KTC said, there are commonalities.

- Refuting of the idea that someone with PTSD just "has to let go of the past" and they'll be fine.

- In a story with a romantic relationship, avoiding the idea that true love "cures" PTSD and makes all the trauma go away. Not only is that grossly inaccurate, but according to readers who've contacted me about my books, that idea can be very damaging to PTSD sufferers who *aren't* magically cured by love.

If I think of anything else, I'll come back...

KimJo said:

- In a story with a romantic relationship, avoiding the idea that true love "cures" PTSD and makes all the trauma go away. Not only is that grossly inaccurate, but according to readers who've contacted me about my books, that idea can be very damaging to PTSD sufferers who *aren't* magically cured by love.

If I think of anything else, I'll come back...

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Definitely. I believe that love is a verb. Love will not cure your PTSD, but having someone who loves you and is willing to work with you can be a huge source of comfort.

I'm currently writing a sit-com with a character who has shell-shock. (it's set in a VAD hospital in WW1 Wilfred Owen and Siegfred Sasoon among others suffered with it in parts.

As a reader and writer as with any mental illness or disability I want to see normal people dealing with the issue rather than an issue swamping the story and character.

Laurie Halse Anderson did an awesome job in "The Impossible Knife of Memory" showing the effects PTSD has on both the person who has and the people who have to live with them. But then again, Laurie Halse Anderson is just flat-out amazing. I don't know if any of y'all have some kind of bias against YA lit, but you shouldn't.

DadofSnorf said:

Definitely. I believe that love is a verb. Love will not cure your PTSD, but having someone who loves you and is willing to work with you can be a huge source of comfort.

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This. I have characters in my WIP who are helping each other through this, but are not (yet) a couple. I am interested to hear how people support each other when two combat veterans get together.

FYI, I'm writing historical fiction and I do love one of the terms used for PTSD used shortly after the American Civil War: "soldier's heart".