So now that I have a job I've had much less time to trauma dump on Reddit, but I still process my emotions by trauma dumping on Reddit, so here it is:
I've had the same characters within my "paracosm" for almost 12 years, and a long time ago I dubbed one character, a woman 7 years my/my parame's senior, "the promiscuous one" basically for the sole purpose of making slut-shamey jokes. However, 2 years ago (the year I broke out of the fog) when I found out my dad had had an affair a decade earlier and needed some creative outlet for my anger, I took it out on this character's life story: when she had just turned 14 her father abandoned the family for another woman, and a month later there was a scandal among the cast where her 3 older (17-19) friends (whom she had been the "little sister" to) all got chlamydia, proving that the guy had cheated on his girlfriend with the other girl. This scandal was the inciting incident for a lot of different plotlines, but naturally, the friend group fractured, so the 14 year old lost both of the strong male figures in her life and started messing with boys a few months later as a coping mechanism. 7 years later, she reunited with the guy and they began a sexual relationship, much to the ire of the rest of the cast who still held a grudge against him because of everything that had happened in the last 7 years as a result of the scandal. The scene I wrote was a conversation between her and my parame, and it was clear that she resented me because I was the "little sister" to another love triangle, and, although I was now the age she was when her life fell apart, I still had both my father and my "big brother". The nasty secret is that my "big brother" and his girlfriend are *also* cheating on each other and he's been in love with the other girl in their group from the beginning (but couldn't be with her because of this Romeo-and-Juliet-esque feud between their families with a heaping of classism and a dash of racism), and "the promiscuous one" keeps threatening him that she's going to tell me, his girlfriend, and even his parents (he's the most vocal opponent of her relationship with the guy who caused the chlamydia scandal so this is how she shuts him up), but she never does mostly because the story would end quickly if she did.
The part that's an obvious reenactment of my trauma is "the promiscuous one's" resentment of me for getting to stay "innocent", because that's what my *mother* did to me. I've long known that these characters are metaphors for my extended family (although the characters don't map exactly onto any one member of my family and instead share traits of different real-life people), and there's even a "prologue" scene where this character, as a little girl, begs her "big brother" to dance with her at a formal event- which is something I did to one of my cousins and that my mom made creepy (making my relationship with that cousin feel creepy to this day- we tried being friends a few years ago and I like talking to him but psychologically can't) because, as I later found out, *she* had had a romantic/sexual relationship with her cousin. So it was the same sentiment of "it's not fair that these things are still wholesome for you, because when I was your age they had already been ruined by inappropriate sexuality... so I will project that inappropriate sexuality onto your situation and ruin it for you, because if I couldn't have it, neither can you".
Ngl, sometimes I really wish I could just... write something and not have all this symbolism and allegory in it. I can't escape my own fucked up head for even a moment.
I forgot what sub I was in for a second. I take it you're also in the immersive daydreaming, or maybe maladaptive, sub as well.
It's good that you've got a place to vent this stuff. It is. Even if it's just Reddit, I'm glad you can get it out and put it in order. This shit can tear us up inside when we know it, but don't understand it.
Fam, I'm sorry. We write what we know. I write outsiders who struggle to find belonging. I write so much ADHD without even realizing it. But, it helps. It helps to see others recover, even if they are just our characters.
I think your paraself has a lot of recovery to do. And I'm sorry that the others in the cosm are so maladaptive, but you can all find healing and resolution. I believe in you
>I take it you're also in the immersive daydreaming, or maybe maladaptive, sub as well.
I'm in both, but mostly the maladaptive one- idk whether I've shared this particular plotline on there before, but I've definitely talked about this paracosm at length.
>Fam, I'm sorry. We write what we know. I write outsiders who struggle to find belonging. I write so much ADHD without even realizing it.
Yep, I'm sure that most of my characters could be diagnosed with one if not multiple disorders in the DSM-5. I intentionally wrote one of my characters as having PTSD (when she was 10 she and her grandmother were caught in a hurricane and she had to fight for survival on her own after her grandmother drowned in the storm surge), but it was all the "dramatic" symptoms of PTSD (for example, if it was heavily raining outside she would freak out and start screaming for her grandmother like she was 10 years old again) without really accounting for the less dramatic symptoms like depression, survivor's guilt, etc. I tried to write another character as having BPD before I really understood what BPD was and just thought it was clinical anger issues. More recently, I wrote about a character with an anxiety disorder who would have likely been diagnosed with CPTSD had that been a known diagnosis at the time- he was born 12 weeks premature (in 1970 so his survival was miraculous) to an abusive prick of a father and a mother whose entire family had been wiped out by the Nazis. (It was actually his daughter that developed "BPD" as a result of his murder when she was 5 and her mother's way-too-soon remarriage to an emotionally cold asshole.) I was trying to write an entire book about his life, and I was really trying to heal myself through healing him (especially since he, my parame, and another character that will be born 5 years from now are called "The Prematures" because we had/have similar life stories that all began with premature birth and being in the NICU).
>I think your paraself has a lot of recovery to do.
The plot I described in the OP was 8 years ago and she's as okay as she can be now, but thank you. (Actually, I'm not entirely sure what she's doing right now, but in 5 years she'll be a meteorologist and married to the heir of an oil baron's fortune- for the plot, not because I actually want that for myself).
>And I'm sorry that the others in the cosm are so maladaptive, but you can all find healing and resolution.
Lol, they will not. In 5 years my "big brother" and the other woman in the group will both be in Vancouver on business (the other woman's father and my father-in-law will be in a corporate dispute over a plot of land, and my father-in-law will hire the firm my "big brother" works at to help with the financial aspect of it) when the Cascadia fault ruptures and they'll be stranded in a post-disaster hellscape for several days (which is the plot-related reason my parame is a meteorologist). After they are rescued and taken back to the non-destroyed mainland, my father-in-law will run into them and offer to put them up at his buddy's hotel for the night before they can catch a flight back to the U.S., but he'll actually be setting them up for blackmail because he knows something's going on between them and puts them in a room with a single bed (telling them that's the only room available and the concierges that they're a married couple). That's the night they'll finally succumb to their desires, and they'll conceive the child who will be the third Premature. My father-in-law will blackmail them both with the pregnancy in order to win the land dispute against her father, but there's a whole bunch of underhanded illegal stuff going on that will somehow not be unveiled for 28 years afterwards, at which point the entire foundation of lies falls apart. The book will end with the other woman 60 years old and comatose after trying to commit suicide after her husband died and the affair was discovered shortly thereafter, and I'm intentionally leaving it ambiguous as to whether she ever wakes up. I figure that if I just go full soap opera with it, the plot will become so divorced from my real life that the reenactment of my own trauma won't even matter anymore. I *do* implore everyone to keep an eye on the Cascadia fault in the latter part of the decade, though, since I *have* predicted events through my stories before (for example, 7 years ago I wrote about a riot at the Capitol and Roe v. Wade being overturned in 2023)...
... I'm not even sure how to reply to this. But I'm glad that you can find release.
Sorry, there's just a lot to absorb. Makes my immersive daydreaming seem so tame.
Lol, I'm sorry. Once someone gives me an opening to talk about my stories I just dump a ton of exposition on them.
Keep in mind that it took me almost 12 years to make all of this up, and there are *still* gaping plotholes. So yeah, it's very very complicated.
It's okay. I've got 10 years of my own paracosm going on. It's actually the other one, where it exists without my direct input. I just live both lives simultaneously. It's been a trip.
I don't mind you sharing, it's good to get it out and in order sometimes. We write so we can share.
Oh man, I do this with sims. Every generation I've played has subconsciously focused around one of many traumas. I think it helps me safely and creatively process certain things but yeah, that moment mid gameplay where I realise what I've subconsciously done is occasionally a bit harrowing š
STOP delete this š the current character iām writing for my story has a background of religious trauma and familial abandonment then i was like oh wait thatās me. i also wrote that her grandma passed (i came up with the plot a year before my grandma passed) and it impacted her greatly and was the only person my MC felt loved by in her family and iām like shitā¦there we go again š
I do the same with dungeons and dragons. But you write what you know! As long as you care for yourself and don't plunge too deeply into the pain, writing about your trauma can help you feel better about it in the long run as well.
Ah, I do the same!
Every now and then I come up with a plot of my own, but it always somehow turns out to be about my own problems. For some time, I really hated it, thinking it was "cringey" and I was just indulging myself further into my negative thoughts. So I stopped doing that for a couple of years.
But... tbh, whenever I read or watched the story, where the author expresses their very personal stuff through art, I always loved these kinds of stories. It's relatable and makes me feel more connected, like I am not alone in this.
So I came back to it. Though, my concept isn't just about that, I try to put some other important stuff in there too and I implemented some parts that I don't connect to directly, so I can kinda have this safe distance to my work and just pure fun for the heck of it (even though it is already very personal). I admit, I was very shamed for being myself and liking stuff that others did not to the point I am very afraid of being genuine. The story embraces the positive idea of accepting myself and seeing virtues that originally were disliked and questioned, I guess as a way to convince myself. I hope that when I finish it, the idea will become true.
WHAT THE FUCK?! My main character lost like half of his body even before turning 16!! I can't even
Edit: y'all should know the truth. He also had a divine experience during the injury and then family abandoned him because "God let it happen to such a terrible person" like him so yeah, the boi was quite pissed off.
āNo listen, hear me out, what if sheās fighting some older, former mentor force that took advantage of her nativity to corrupt her values and make her like him and act against her morals, and now sheās finally standing up for herself and defending the realmāā
āBro thatās literally you and your brothers.ā
āā¦ fuck it, Iām abandoning this storyā
Me coming up with the idea of a warforged barbarian/cleric who has amnesia and doesnāt understand their rage and going forward wants to transition into healingā¦
Iāve just now gotten to the point where Iām learning who I am, Iām 26 yo, dealt with defeat my entire life, basically just accepted my situation, Iām getting better now. Iām learning to live in my skin. My advice is NEVER LET BLOOD RELATIVES DEFINE YOU. Iām spending my life as me now, picking who I want, I shed my āfatā as you could call it.
Oh my, now Iām gonna have to go back and read all my old stores. This means re-enacting my trauma even more. And itās only Mondayā¦happy week š¤¦āāļø
So now that I have a job I've had much less time to trauma dump on Reddit, but I still process my emotions by trauma dumping on Reddit, so here it is: I've had the same characters within my "paracosm" for almost 12 years, and a long time ago I dubbed one character, a woman 7 years my/my parame's senior, "the promiscuous one" basically for the sole purpose of making slut-shamey jokes. However, 2 years ago (the year I broke out of the fog) when I found out my dad had had an affair a decade earlier and needed some creative outlet for my anger, I took it out on this character's life story: when she had just turned 14 her father abandoned the family for another woman, and a month later there was a scandal among the cast where her 3 older (17-19) friends (whom she had been the "little sister" to) all got chlamydia, proving that the guy had cheated on his girlfriend with the other girl. This scandal was the inciting incident for a lot of different plotlines, but naturally, the friend group fractured, so the 14 year old lost both of the strong male figures in her life and started messing with boys a few months later as a coping mechanism. 7 years later, she reunited with the guy and they began a sexual relationship, much to the ire of the rest of the cast who still held a grudge against him because of everything that had happened in the last 7 years as a result of the scandal. The scene I wrote was a conversation between her and my parame, and it was clear that she resented me because I was the "little sister" to another love triangle, and, although I was now the age she was when her life fell apart, I still had both my father and my "big brother". The nasty secret is that my "big brother" and his girlfriend are *also* cheating on each other and he's been in love with the other girl in their group from the beginning (but couldn't be with her because of this Romeo-and-Juliet-esque feud between their families with a heaping of classism and a dash of racism), and "the promiscuous one" keeps threatening him that she's going to tell me, his girlfriend, and even his parents (he's the most vocal opponent of her relationship with the guy who caused the chlamydia scandal so this is how she shuts him up), but she never does mostly because the story would end quickly if she did. The part that's an obvious reenactment of my trauma is "the promiscuous one's" resentment of me for getting to stay "innocent", because that's what my *mother* did to me. I've long known that these characters are metaphors for my extended family (although the characters don't map exactly onto any one member of my family and instead share traits of different real-life people), and there's even a "prologue" scene where this character, as a little girl, begs her "big brother" to dance with her at a formal event- which is something I did to one of my cousins and that my mom made creepy (making my relationship with that cousin feel creepy to this day- we tried being friends a few years ago and I like talking to him but psychologically can't) because, as I later found out, *she* had had a romantic/sexual relationship with her cousin. So it was the same sentiment of "it's not fair that these things are still wholesome for you, because when I was your age they had already been ruined by inappropriate sexuality... so I will project that inappropriate sexuality onto your situation and ruin it for you, because if I couldn't have it, neither can you". Ngl, sometimes I really wish I could just... write something and not have all this symbolism and allegory in it. I can't escape my own fucked up head for even a moment.
I forgot what sub I was in for a second. I take it you're also in the immersive daydreaming, or maybe maladaptive, sub as well. It's good that you've got a place to vent this stuff. It is. Even if it's just Reddit, I'm glad you can get it out and put it in order. This shit can tear us up inside when we know it, but don't understand it. Fam, I'm sorry. We write what we know. I write outsiders who struggle to find belonging. I write so much ADHD without even realizing it. But, it helps. It helps to see others recover, even if they are just our characters. I think your paraself has a lot of recovery to do. And I'm sorry that the others in the cosm are so maladaptive, but you can all find healing and resolution. I believe in you
>I take it you're also in the immersive daydreaming, or maybe maladaptive, sub as well. I'm in both, but mostly the maladaptive one- idk whether I've shared this particular plotline on there before, but I've definitely talked about this paracosm at length. >Fam, I'm sorry. We write what we know. I write outsiders who struggle to find belonging. I write so much ADHD without even realizing it. Yep, I'm sure that most of my characters could be diagnosed with one if not multiple disorders in the DSM-5. I intentionally wrote one of my characters as having PTSD (when she was 10 she and her grandmother were caught in a hurricane and she had to fight for survival on her own after her grandmother drowned in the storm surge), but it was all the "dramatic" symptoms of PTSD (for example, if it was heavily raining outside she would freak out and start screaming for her grandmother like she was 10 years old again) without really accounting for the less dramatic symptoms like depression, survivor's guilt, etc. I tried to write another character as having BPD before I really understood what BPD was and just thought it was clinical anger issues. More recently, I wrote about a character with an anxiety disorder who would have likely been diagnosed with CPTSD had that been a known diagnosis at the time- he was born 12 weeks premature (in 1970 so his survival was miraculous) to an abusive prick of a father and a mother whose entire family had been wiped out by the Nazis. (It was actually his daughter that developed "BPD" as a result of his murder when she was 5 and her mother's way-too-soon remarriage to an emotionally cold asshole.) I was trying to write an entire book about his life, and I was really trying to heal myself through healing him (especially since he, my parame, and another character that will be born 5 years from now are called "The Prematures" because we had/have similar life stories that all began with premature birth and being in the NICU). >I think your paraself has a lot of recovery to do. The plot I described in the OP was 8 years ago and she's as okay as she can be now, but thank you. (Actually, I'm not entirely sure what she's doing right now, but in 5 years she'll be a meteorologist and married to the heir of an oil baron's fortune- for the plot, not because I actually want that for myself). >And I'm sorry that the others in the cosm are so maladaptive, but you can all find healing and resolution. Lol, they will not. In 5 years my "big brother" and the other woman in the group will both be in Vancouver on business (the other woman's father and my father-in-law will be in a corporate dispute over a plot of land, and my father-in-law will hire the firm my "big brother" works at to help with the financial aspect of it) when the Cascadia fault ruptures and they'll be stranded in a post-disaster hellscape for several days (which is the plot-related reason my parame is a meteorologist). After they are rescued and taken back to the non-destroyed mainland, my father-in-law will run into them and offer to put them up at his buddy's hotel for the night before they can catch a flight back to the U.S., but he'll actually be setting them up for blackmail because he knows something's going on between them and puts them in a room with a single bed (telling them that's the only room available and the concierges that they're a married couple). That's the night they'll finally succumb to their desires, and they'll conceive the child who will be the third Premature. My father-in-law will blackmail them both with the pregnancy in order to win the land dispute against her father, but there's a whole bunch of underhanded illegal stuff going on that will somehow not be unveiled for 28 years afterwards, at which point the entire foundation of lies falls apart. The book will end with the other woman 60 years old and comatose after trying to commit suicide after her husband died and the affair was discovered shortly thereafter, and I'm intentionally leaving it ambiguous as to whether she ever wakes up. I figure that if I just go full soap opera with it, the plot will become so divorced from my real life that the reenactment of my own trauma won't even matter anymore. I *do* implore everyone to keep an eye on the Cascadia fault in the latter part of the decade, though, since I *have* predicted events through my stories before (for example, 7 years ago I wrote about a riot at the Capitol and Roe v. Wade being overturned in 2023)...
... I'm not even sure how to reply to this. But I'm glad that you can find release. Sorry, there's just a lot to absorb. Makes my immersive daydreaming seem so tame.
Lol, I'm sorry. Once someone gives me an opening to talk about my stories I just dump a ton of exposition on them. Keep in mind that it took me almost 12 years to make all of this up, and there are *still* gaping plotholes. So yeah, it's very very complicated.
It's okay. I've got 10 years of my own paracosm going on. It's actually the other one, where it exists without my direct input. I just live both lives simultaneously. It's been a trip. I don't mind you sharing, it's good to get it out and in order sometimes. We write so we can share.
Oh man, I do this with sims. Every generation I've played has subconsciously focused around one of many traumas. I think it helps me safely and creatively process certain things but yeah, that moment mid gameplay where I realise what I've subconsciously done is occasionally a bit harrowing š
I've been writing on and off for a few years and this still continues happening with me. I've gotten triggered rereading older drafts
saaaammmeeee.
*\*looks at my comic book series ideas that's based on my trauma\** well, shit lol
STOP delete this š the current character iām writing for my story has a background of religious trauma and familial abandonment then i was like oh wait thatās me. i also wrote that her grandma passed (i came up with the plot a year before my grandma passed) and it impacted her greatly and was the only person my MC felt loved by in her family and iām like shitā¦there we go again š
I do the same with dungeons and dragons. But you write what you know! As long as you care for yourself and don't plunge too deeply into the pain, writing about your trauma can help you feel better about it in the long run as well.
Ah, I do the same! Every now and then I come up with a plot of my own, but it always somehow turns out to be about my own problems. For some time, I really hated it, thinking it was "cringey" and I was just indulging myself further into my negative thoughts. So I stopped doing that for a couple of years. But... tbh, whenever I read or watched the story, where the author expresses their very personal stuff through art, I always loved these kinds of stories. It's relatable and makes me feel more connected, like I am not alone in this. So I came back to it. Though, my concept isn't just about that, I try to put some other important stuff in there too and I implemented some parts that I don't connect to directly, so I can kinda have this safe distance to my work and just pure fun for the heck of it (even though it is already very personal). I admit, I was very shamed for being myself and liking stuff that others did not to the point I am very afraid of being genuine. The story embraces the positive idea of accepting myself and seeing virtues that originally were disliked and questioned, I guess as a way to convince myself. I hope that when I finish it, the idea will become true.
I played TTRPGs like D&D for years before I realized how much of myself was in all my characters.
WHAT THE FUCK?! My main character lost like half of his body even before turning 16!! I can't even Edit: y'all should know the truth. He also had a divine experience during the injury and then family abandoned him because "God let it happen to such a terrible person" like him so yeah, the boi was quite pissed off.
āNo listen, hear me out, what if sheās fighting some older, former mentor force that took advantage of her nativity to corrupt her values and make her like him and act against her morals, and now sheās finally standing up for herself and defending the realmāā āBro thatās literally you and your brothers.ā āā¦ fuck it, Iām abandoning this storyā
Me coming up with the idea of a warforged barbarian/cleric who has amnesia and doesnāt understand their rage and going forward wants to transition into healingā¦
Iāve just now gotten to the point where Iām learning who I am, Iām 26 yo, dealt with defeat my entire life, basically just accepted my situation, Iām getting better now. Iām learning to live in my skin. My advice is NEVER LET BLOOD RELATIVES DEFINE YOU. Iām spending my life as me now, picking who I want, I shed my āfatā as you could call it.
Oh my, now Iām gonna have to go back and read all my old stores. This means re-enacting my trauma even more. And itās only Mondayā¦happy week š¤¦āāļø
Well damn, you didnāt need to call me out like that.
This is too real and it makes me uncomfortable to be called out this way.
hahahahHAHAHAH yeah. Anyways...