One Wank After Another

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A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

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Comments

PTSD

[(Anonymous)]

I am writing about PTSD in a fic because it fits with what the reader requested. I have PTSD myself so I can at least make it realistic. It was asked though that characters recover. I haven't recovered from PTSD so I'm a bit stuck on how a person would "cure" it. Any ideas?

Re: PTSD

[(Anonymous)]

time skip forward 10 years?

Re: PTSD

[(Anonymous)]

Is your canon in a setting where therapy is available? Because the only thing that has improved my PTSD is a combination of time and appropriate trauma therapy, which for me was Prolonged Exposure Therapy.

Re: PTSD

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I think realistically people don't get "cured" from PTSD so much as they just come to live with their trauma in a way that's not so painful and debilitating anymore, and that looks different for everyone - but I'm not sure your recip is looking for utmost realism in that regard if they ask for recovery.

Personally I actively dislike any type of therapy fic, and "healing cock" fic is too unrealistic for me, but of course narratively these are the most common devices in fanfic for PTSD recovery. And if you want to emphasize the realism, then therapy probably has to feature into it at least in some ways ... if that is something your character would even realistically have access to.

If I had to write PTSD recovery fic, I would probably incorporate a mix of things like "time passing", "finding ways to make peace with your past" (in the sense of accepting the person your past has shaped you to be), finding personal fullfilment through new location/new job/new hobby/passion/calling, developing practical copying mechanisms and strategies to navigate triggering situations or memories (emotional support pet, hiking, meditation ...), and show that the character is happy/content where they are now in their life. But that's also because most characters I write either wouldn't go to therapy, or just don't have access to it (historical canon etc), so I'd focus on methods that DO help with recovery without making it explicity about therapeutic concepts.

Re: PTSD

[(Anonymous)]

In addition the their suggestions above, I would suggest that (if I was requesting a PTSD recovery fic) seeing the character takes steps on the road to healing would be enough for me. Knowing that they saw a path forward, even if they couldn’t reach the goal before the fic ended would be perfectly fine.

Re: PTSD

[(Anonymous)]

If they're in a canon where therapy is unlikely - especially if it's fantasy/horror/SF - you could come up with some kind of magical/religious ritual. Not necessarily even the "poof magical fairy heals you" kind either, but like a trip to a sacred spring where you do some special singing or dancing and then stay up all night bathing in the spring, or an exorcism to speak to the spirits of the restless dead who are haunting you and put them at peace, or a shaman guiding them on some kind of dream voyage, or something like that. It doesn't have to mean a perfect cure either, but something like that can in rl help a lot to move someone to the next step in their recovery - there's evidence that in cultures where it's built in, that kind of thing can help as much as talk therapy in some ways. And if you do want a perfect cure just for wish fulfillment, it's not unrealistic that the sacred spring cured their PTSD when it can also instacure people's broken femurs.

Even in a modern US setting, you can sometimes work that sort of thing in somehow if it fits the feel of canon. Maybe they go on a long backcountry trip alone, or talk to a priest of the religion they were born into and do something meaningful together, or stay up for three days straight in the hospital with a sick loved one and have a spiritual experience from sleep deprivation, or take shrooms for the first time (or, you know, meet someone witchy who offers to exorcise their ghosts, whether either of them really believe it or not.)

And it can make a satisfying climax in a story at least, even if you leave open the option they're not magically all better. (To people who buy into the idea that part of trauma is that a person's concept of how the world works has been fundamentally broken, it can make a very helpful story in the character's POV as well, redirect them to give them a reason things went wrong and an explanation of how it fits into the world and how it can be okay.)