#cptsd cw

[grislyintentions]

As usual, Shuyi is late!

But she's not fussing over her four bingos. XIao's like a brother, a bird brother(A bird & a cat getting along? Who would have thought?)! But hey, this was fun!

"Do I need to start asking before I hug you? 对不起, 哥哥. I'm just used to you saying yes."

"..." A gloved hand is raised...only to bump the top of Shuyi's head lightly in faux sternness.

"无妨，别在我不知情下忽然搂着我便是。书子上写着的要求只不过是想避免自己无意中害伤心无诡异的人罢了。如你所知，我一直以来都死守着荻花洲。魔兽杀得多，犯人捉个不少：这样维持警觉性的自己不适合任人爱碰就碰.”

[It's fine (no harm done). Just don't surprise me with it. The request writ upon said card is merely included as a warning, to prevent myself from hurting those who meant no harm. As you know, my vigil over Dihua Marsh is a ceaseless one. All the years of dealing in death and capturing of criminals...a reactive person such as I am ill-suited to be touched casually to the whims of others."]

@vixlenxe

[iirvings]

Lloyd, starting shortly after the end of the game, has symptoms of cptsd related to his experiences with every trip to the Tower of Salvation. He knows that something is very wrong with his psyche but he has no real way of verbalizing it to others.

Frequent nightmares involving his friends disappearing, of the people he loves leaving him, of betrayals at every corner, of falling from high towers-- Lloyd has been hurt by the actions he and others took in the game, even if oftentimes there was no other option at the time. But he doesn't have the language to let someone know that he's hurting, that going by where the old Tower of Salvation stood makes him physically ill, he's unable to sleep without counting the breaths of his traveling companion before bed, that flight makes his heart race in ways it never did before the Tower fell.

Lloyd is open with the feelings he felt about having the hero's journey forced on him via Tethe'allan and Sylvaranti propaganda. But at what point is he ever given the chance to stop and process everything he became to his companions and the rest of the population? When was he ever allowed to scream and cry about Colette being kidnapped and almost murdered multiple times, about losing his friends in front of his very eyes one by one, about his loved ones always lying to him, about having to take on the weight of the title Hero?

And so he keeps going and going, and he hasn't said anything about it because no one's ever fucking asked. He gives and he gives for the sake of his companions. He pushes them to be honest with him, to do their best and be their best. But he never gave himself the same treatment.

He never gave himself grace.

And now he lives with the weight of Lloyd the Hero on his back, without the support system he so very needs. He forces himself to relive his memories with every visit to the World Tree, and he talks himself down from paranoia every time he loses sight of his companions. All without saying a word to anyone else.

Because he is Lloyd the Hero.

But he is still Lloyd the Man.

And Lloyd the Hero is heavy burden to bear.

[thisbrilliantsky]

.

[radioactive-worm-on-string]

Oh fuck I think I might have some kind of PTSD

[wanderingibon]

anya deserved so much better

[oflolth]

very unedited and like bear with me i am. processing. ( i had to add this disclaimer because i was like no you should banish this post to your drafts and make it clearer but at present i think it being stream of consciousness is just how things must be skdfhksdf ) but . okay . i think istvan absolutely hates the grove but will still definitely save it tbh just on the basis that in this conflict, the grove ( or specifically the tieflings, anyway ) are not the aggressors but the racism aimed at him within the grove is just. like it affects him deeply in ways he's not even ready to admit at this point in his life and his development. having his people reduced to a monolith, and getting hit with "you're brave to walk around without hiding your heritage" from zevlor while he is quite literally on the run from the society in which he was raised, when he's had to forgo cultural practices that were genuinely dear to him in order to hide. like. it hurts but he doesn't really have the vocabulary or trust built up to share that pain with anyone, and as long as it exists solely within him, he will seek to invalidate it, because for istvan at present, it just is a lot more manageable if he can like. internalize it instead of pushing back. like. hm. he is doing his damn best to "hide [his] heritage" but that, for him, without a literal disguise self moment, is not possible. and part of hiding his heritage is isolating it to something he only deals with in his own head. and part of that as well like... okay so yeah, i started this post off by being like "man hates the grove" but i think he can't even really connect to that hatred without feeling like it is a failing on his part? which. he has a lot of growth to do towards accepting his own vulnerability and accepting that like sometimes people are assholes and he is absolutely allowed to be furious abt that but rn . i think that would just make it hurt a lot more for him.

like. also. he is told by his family that he is not enough of what they are, and that he is lesser for it, and then the message he gets on the surface is that he is too much of what he is, and that he's lesser for it. and it's like. [screams]

[explodingsaturn]

maybe i should just stop talking. i want all of my secrets back.

[alpaca-clouds]

BG3 fans, we gotta talk CPTSD

Okay, I have spend about a week considering writing this blog, but I really gotta say, that it is something people really need to understand. See, I mostly see this issue with Astarion and his depiction in fandom. However, I would argue that it is a thing that affects literally all characters that play some sort of bigger in this entire game. Including many NPCs.

But let me start with Astarion. See, I wrote the blog two weeks ago about people being judgy on people, who do not want to have graveyard sex with him. Mostly people will argue how Astarion should be allowed to have his agency in that moment - while I argued that whoever the player is playing should have also agency in that scene. Including the agency to say "no" for whatever reason. I also included that my Tav absolutely denied Astarion, because he was not trusting that Astarion in the scene really was ready for it, for a variety of reasons. Which is very much a valid reason for someone not to want to sleep with someone else. (Literally every reason is a good reason for that, mind you.)

And obviously there came the comment, that went basically: "As someone who was raped I am very appalled by you saying that raped people cannot consent." Which is very much not what I said.

What I said was, that my Tav did not consent. Yes, he did not consent because he thought Astarion was not ready for it - but he is the one not consenting. It does not matter for this whether his assumption about Astarion is true or not. Tav does not feel comfortable in the scene, so Tav does not want sex right there.

However... If you consider the drow orgy scene, Tav is also very much right. If you do that scene after defeating Cazador, Astarion is enthusiastically consenting to that orgy, but he still ends up dissociating during the scene. (And in that scene, even if your character notices it, you cannot go "Stop!" Which I hate.)

Here is the thing. If you are in the BDSM scene, you might actually have encountered a scenario in real life where someone was enthusiastically consenting to something - only to them realize, that they were not into it at all. And people can withdraw their consent IRL at this point. Only that in this game, obviously you can't. So within the game choices I will just start out with "no" for this character.

Still, that is actually not what I mainly wanted to talk about. No.

What I wanted to talk about is the other thing. I absolutely know that for a variety of reasons a lot of SA survivors do identify with Astarion, and I do not want to take that from anyone. I think it is amazing that we got a character with whom we see this issue portrayed seriously. And let's face it. Especially in tumblr fandom circles, we will have a lot of SA survivors, because the userbase of this website is majority afab, and many are queer. And we know from statistics that queer afab people are even more likely than non-queer afab people to experience SA at some point in there life. So, yes, Astarion is going to be embraced by this community makes sense - even without his dashing looks.

But here we get to the actual meat of the issue: Astarion was not just raped. Astarion was abused in a variety of ways - some of them sexual - over the course of 200 years. He went not through a single traumatic event, but an ongoing trauma that, again, lasted for 200 years.

Or to put different: Astarion does not have PTSD. He has C-PTSD. Complex trauma. The kind of trauma that develops when the trauma lasts over a long, long time, without the survivor getting a chance to ever really properly ever relax. Something that was very true for Astarion's time under Cazador. He was under constant threat of rape, torture, and other forms of violence.

While CPTSD is a form of PTSD, it has some differing symptoms - and additional symptoms from plain old PTSD.

I found this graphic on this blog here, and found it fairly good in the depictions. (If you google CPTSD you will find several graphics like this.) It shows very well the additional symptoms, compared to normal trauma.

Generally speaking, CPTSD brings a lot stronger issues with self-worth, interpersonal problems, and emotional regulation. CPTSD folks are often prone to emotional outbursts (this graphic names anger, but technically it can be all other kinds of emotional outbursts - which is why at times CPTSD gets confused with BPD).

And Astarion is written like this. He shows very much all the symptoms of CPTSD. And let's be honest: That is an issue he will have to deal with for a long, long while.

But... As I said, the same is actually true for pretty much all the characters.

If you look at the companions, it is obvious.

Gale spent at least a year in constant fear of blowing up. While Mystra's abusiveness towards him within the relationship prior the orb is more fanon than canon (though the relationship was defnitely not an easy one), the "one year in constant fear of death" is very likely going to instill some form of CPTSD in him.

Karlach was a slave for 10 years, forced to fight in the hells. While she will also probably suffer from certain forms of PTSD more common in soldiers. Additionally I would argue that she also has some CPTSD from tiefling-racism. While she does not bring it up often... She does seem to have a thing there.

With Wyll it is a bit more complicated. Yes, for him I would see the kind of CPTSD I have - parental abuse related. Ulder was not openly abusive, but neither was my mother, and guess what fucked me most up in my childhood, despite experiencing some really bad violence elsewhere.

Shadowheart was abused by Viconia and midwashed and tortured and was forced to kill her fucking pet mouse. Bonus points that a lot of it happened during her childhood. She very much is gonna suffer the consequences.

Lae'zel... Do I really need to say something about her upbringing among the Gith?

Then we have Halsin. We know fairly little about his background, given that he is very coy in talking about it. But his "three years as a drow slave" definitely make it likely that he has developed some form of CPTSD.

And then we have Jaheira and Minsc. For whom just the... Well, look folks, the adventuring lifestyle would logically also leave you with CPTSD of some sort.

Even if you play a Tav who entered the game after having a very untraumatic life... They will spent what has to be at least two months with a tadpole in their head threatening to kill them - while half of Baldur's Gate is trying to do the same. They'll have PTSD after this at the very least, if not CPTSD. (Even though, let's face it, chances are we all gave our Tavs more than enough background trauma to go along with it, right?)

And same goes for so many other characters. The tiefling refugees. Our main villains (especially Gortash and Orin). Cazador. The other vampire spawn (duh). The list goes on.

So, what am I trying to say here?

Well, for once I just want to make sure folks understand that CPTSD is a thing that exists and while being similar to normal PTSD differs in some points. Including the fact that people with CPTSD have a high likelihood to make very rash decisions driven by instable emotional states, that might be harmful to them on the long run.

And mind you. In real life most people with CPTSD have it because either they were bullied for a long time, or were in an abusive relationship of some sort. (Abusive parents, abusive partners, abusive friends/roommates.) But even in those heightened scenarios the game represents for the most part - the issues are gonna be still mainly the same.

[badaziraphaletakes]

Making jokes and laughing about a frightening experience does NOT mean someone does not appreciate the gravity of a situation. Quite the contrary, in fact - it is a very, very common way of processing trauma.

In fact, I can't offhand think of any traumatized people I know who haven't make a joke about their traumatic experience/s. It's a deeply normal, human thing to do.

(And please don't try to tell me Aziraphale seeing Crowley be kidnapped and then being hit over the head with a crowbar (?), violently kidnapped himself, and dragged to hell, and then seeing the awful people and place Crowley had been stuck with for the past 100k+ years, witnessing the usher being murdered in cold blood before his eyes, and wondering if the same thing might happen to him, and/or if he hell was going to discover his and Crowley's secret, not to mention seeing for probably the first time what exactly the thermos of holy water would have done to Crowley if he'd used it, wasn't traumatic. First of all, that just is. Second of all, look at his irises. He was probably having a bit of fun - not surprising considering how relieved he was that the holy water didn't work on him and hell appeared not to have caught onto the deception; of course you'd be a bit giddy - but he was also terrified and scarred and angry and disgusted and I don't even know what else.)

There's a reason the rates of depression found among comedians are off-the-charts. And it's not because humor causes depression (we know it actually alleviates it). It's because traumatized people and people with mental illness (I mean, the Venn diagram between those groups is basically a circle, but y'know) gravitate to humor. It is one of the most powerful weapons we have to ward off despair. Humor can save us when nothing else can.

It can also stop you from wanting to punch someone when you're really, really angry. I propose that we can see smoldering contempt and fury and outrage and disgust on Aziraphale's face at the end of the scene, hidden just under that cheeky grin. It's some masterful acting work by Tennant, so many emotions going on at the same time.

Also - may I point out that Crowley loved Aziraphale's jokes about the whole thing. Aziraphale knows how to cheer Crowley up. A big part of the reason he was so sarcastic in hell was for Crowley, to score some points against the people who have been oppressing him for millennia without him ever being able to answer back. (And also he was acting that way because he figured it was how Crowley would act and he had to be convincing. If he'd gone in there and hadn't been 100% confidence and swagger, hell would have noticed something was off. They're paranoid, and Beelzebub, at least, is smart. No flies on that one. Heh, heh. Did Aziraphale overplay it a bit? Maybe. But the deception worked, so clearly his approach was correct overall.)

And finally: Don't tell me Crowley wasn't having a little fun with all this, too. His laugh on the bench was sincere:

He could arguably also be accused of overplaying it a bit with the neck cracking (which I don't blame him for; I would have done the same - but I don't see anyone getting mad at him for having a little fun the way they did with Azi):

And he LOVED getting to breathe fire at Gabriel & Co.

Which is exactly as it should be. :)

[grislyintentions]

(@icicle-dragon) -for Xiao

Xue gave Xiao a surprise hug! He felt his big brother needed one.

A sharp inhale punctuates the air as the Yaksha reflexively tensed, having not expected to be caught in an embrace. Anticipation towards physical violence gives way to matching hostility and aggression, discomfort seizing a hold of his instincts.

Xiao does not jerk away but the minute flinch in his expression is hard to miss.

"Don't-" Gritted teeth ground out the beginning of his words before the older adeptus is able to suppress the rest of the venom. He takes a shaky breathe. Then another. Allows tension to bleed out of him. There is an imperceptible shake in Xiao's hand when he raises it....to gently set his touch atop Xue's head.

"Don't surprise me like that," Xiao scolds lightly. "I could easily have mistaken you as a hilichurl trying to ambush me."

@icicle-dragon

[lostmf]

By @desnos

[amuseoffyre]

Hypothesis: Ed actually already knows how to fix and clean stuff around a house (not just a ship), because he used to do that as a child (to save his mum the trouble - if anyone laughed, he could make the excuse that he was saving her time and energy that she could use for doing *paid* housework for posh gits). He might also have learned to cook on a budget from her, but maybe that's speculating too far...

I wouldn't be surprised by that tbh. In poor households, kids were expected to take up labour as soon as they were big enough to hold tool. Whether in the house or being sent out to work, there's plenty of historical aspects that would support Ed being pulled into domestic tasks early on.

That said, Ed and domesticity have a... complicated relationship. Our man desperately wants to be married and in a safe and loving relationship, but his template for what a happy/safe relationship is skewed at best.

I know I've mentioned this before, but it has me in a chokehold: Ed definitely self-soothes using simple domestic tasks in times when he's in situations where his whole world has just turned on a dime, usually as a mechanism to say "look everything's fine. We're all good".

When he's surrendered his identity, his beard has been shaved off, and he's now pretty much a slave to the empire for the next ten years, he's sitting folding laundry. Because it's fine. This is all fine. I'm fine. You're fine. We're fine.

When he's been abandoned by Stede and vaguely shared about it with the crew and decided to turn them on a new path towards a talent show, he goes back to his cabin and starts cleaning. Because it's fine. This is all fine. I'm fine. You're fine. We're fine. WE ARE ALL FINE SHUSH DON'T LOOK TO CLOSE OR SAY ANYTHING.

And, of course, most significantly, when he's shot Izzy and had his breakdown on the front of the ship, but the next morning, he's cleaned all of the cabin and scrubbed it down and freshened himself up. BECAUSE. IT'S. FINE. THIS IS ALL FINE. I'M FINE. YOU'RE FINE. WE'RE FINE.

We are definitely not going to push someone to kill us. We are definitely not going to drive the ship into a storm because no one is taking the fucking hint to do the big job for us.

WE. ARE. FINE.

Even within the context of his own subconscious in the gravy basket there are layers and layers of him folded in there: the most hated parts of himself manifested in the shape of Hornigold but Hornigold is doing all the domestic tasks.

We see him making soup and trying to feed Ed as a parent would try and feed a stubborn child, foraging for ingredients for boil-up and weaving sandals. Also worth mentioning the stuff Hornigold has around him are all Maori elements - the type of woven sandals, the ingredients for the food, the basket. The two parts of Ed's traumatic history incarnate - one of his white abusive father figures carrying out the domestic routines of his Maori mother.

Because it's fine there too. Totally fine. Not at all avoiding anything. STOP LOOKING. NOTHING TO SEE.

And later, much later, he decides to become a fisherman and take on the domestic chores of sorting out the meals for his employer, because... well, you know the drill. He's fine. He's totally fine. He's not at all stuck in a repeating cycle of taking refuge in domesticity and pretending everything is totally fine and normal and not at all anything to do with the memory of the domestic situation in his childhood growling down his neck.

[gor3sigil]

I have to share a story about why I HATE the term "trauma dumping".

So basically, we were at my at the time partner's house with friends of them and we were talking about mental health.

I don't remember exactly how we came to this but one woman started talking about psychosis and her sister who is schizophrenic.

She had a lot of preconception about this and, while I am not schizophrenic, I dealt with psychosis and hallucinations.

So I started to talk about my experiences with that, stating AGAIN that I wasn't schizophrenic but I thought it was an interesting point of view.

Some other people started asking questions so I answered them, asking here and there if it was okay for me to talk about it, and nobody, INCLUDING the woman who started the conversation in the first place, said anything.

And at one point I saw she was uncomfortable and asked her if she'd rather drop the subject.

And then, she BLEW UP on me saying that I was trauma dumping, that she felt like she was partaking in a conversation she NEVER ASKED to partake in (again, she was the one who brought up the subject), that I was being insensitive and over sharing shit and that she didn't like it.

Like, bitch, I asked a bunch of time if it was okay, you were the one talking about these symptoms without even living it and trying to teach people some crappy over the counter shit, but now that she wasn't the Main Character with the Knowledge it became an issue and I was the problem.

I know that I'm open about my experiences and tend to talk about it but I ALWAYS make sure that people on the other end are okay with me sharing this. This was just utter bullshit.

And online or IRL, I just noticed that the term "trauma dumping" is just the easy way out of a conversation that makes you feel uncomfortable while putting the blame on the person doing it.

You can absolutely put boundaries, but don't you dare guilt someone just to avoid being seen as an asshole and make yourself clean of anything. It's healthy to state that you are uncomfortable talking about things, but you can do so without making up shit about others.

[thestarlightforge]

Your friendly holiday reminder:

It is normal to draw and maintain firm boundaries with (and/or hate) people who have abused you.

You are not being absurd, dramatic, “too emotional,” or a ruiner of anything.

You deserve safety, and to be surrounded by people who know, love and accept you for who you are.

Signed,

Your Fellow in Perseverance

[prose-among-the-trees]

You know what’s really scary?

Being influenced by a community because believing them is safer than understanding the truth.

I was not programmed. The people who experience organized abuse and psychological abuse are real, cult survivors are real. I wanted an explanation for why I was treated the way I was, I wanted to believe that my abuser was intentionally hurting me. That it was her fault in her entirety. I wanted to believe she intentionally created my did so I could be a better kid.

But the thing is, she was just clueless. I have to understand and accept that my abuser just thought she was being a great parent. It’s not fun, knowing that there’s nuance to what you’ve experienced. None of it was my fault, and all of it was hers, of course, but it was an unintentional fault that will affect me for the rest of my life.

I wanted so badly to believe that she was maliciously harming me, training me to be a perfect little solider of a child. I needed to believe there was a concrete cause to my cptsd and did instead of a bunch of little things that ruined my life.

And that? Dealing with the fact that I wasn’t programmed and it really was just mistakes from a mother who shouldn’t have been involved?

That’s fucking terrifying.

[shcultureis3]

Sh + cptsd culture is genuinley feeling happy after a satisfying sesh bc you went deep enough and drew enough blood. Not even knowing why you think this way. But how can this be so bad when it makes you so pretty and happy? I dont think i could ever stop for anyone, sorryy

.