#so yeah alisaie needs therapy pls pay her bills kjnerhmknjenmrhknm

[turnsorrow]

okay but real talk ALISAIE + PTSD  :  she starts showing symptoms of ptsd around the shadowbringers era, prior to the wol’s arrival but worsened once they’re there by the events of tesleen’s death + holminster switch. her most intrusive symptoms take the form of nightmares and extremely severe anxiety. basically, alisaie really isn’t, like, sleeping, after holminster. she has panic attacks, but because she keeps her mind so occupied, these usually only happen if she lets herself spiral : ie / alphinaud witnesses her in distress more often at night when they retire from everyone else, making this a rather private issue between the two of them. her emotions do start getting more erratic towards the end of endwalker specifically as paranoia + her fears start ramping up, but she really is the type who buries this stuff so deep that nothing ever really shows until she literally cannot handle it on her own anymore.

basically, individual interactions aside ( it just depends on how much x muse pays attention to her or how their relationship develops ), no one would really know how much alisaie has been struggling until after endwalker if at all, except for alphinaud. she especially wouldn’t want her father or mother knowing, estranged with them as she has become.

as a note, despite this starting to manifest from the trauma she experiences in the first / shadowbringers, the nightmares and behavior tied to the ptsd extends to more than just her trauma with tesleen. she has nightmares of her grandfather’s / phoenix’s “death”, she pointedly gets really distressed and agitated whenever he’s brought up, she avoids fourchenault and sharlayan as much as she believably can during endwalker because they’re reminders, she sometimes completely backs out of conversations when the events of the first are brought up without warning, etc, etc.

emotionally, she's always on her guard for danger, her insomnia is at an extreme level to the point it's hypocritical whenever she chides others for not taking care of themselves & furthermore is a cause for finding her passed out at random places during random times of the day, she’s constantly overwhelmed with her fears of losing those around her, has angry outbursts whenever she gets upset... gestures vaguely.

and like despite the hopeful ending at the end of it all, the events of ew with endsinger make this all a million times worse bc she 1. literally dies, 2. also literally watches the second person she cares most for in the world wake up from being a singular breath away from dying.

she’s still adept at holding herself together when need be, but ptsd + abandonment issues + attachment issues = alisaie’s going through it in shb/ew, but she’s going through it behind closed doors mostly with alphinaud because she doesn’t want to acknowledge it or deal with it. quite literally, she just wishes she could ignore it and it’d go away. not the best coping mechanism !