#tw:PTSD description

[thecacklingcrow]

“When there is a connection of humanity between two people, it is the meaning of love.”

An article about how exposure therapy through online rp helped me overcome trauma.

tw: rape mention

tw: rape trauma

tw: PTSD description

I didn’t want to say this before because it was private and very personal.  But when asked how the Role play community has improved my life I have this to say. No joke, roleplay helped me overcome rape trauma. SEVERE rape trauma.

98% of my characters or fandom characters I rp have dark skin when I don’t and there’s a reason. Please read all the way through before saying anything. I am sharing trauma, not making accusations at a community.

When I was 22, One of my best friends at the time decided rape was ok. He was black. I never pressed charges, I never told myself it was’ because he was black’, I never blamed anyone but him and the choice he made, I just stopped talking to him. I didn’t tell people. I just pretended it never happened and tried to move on. Because realistically, there’s no support for male rape victims. There just isn’t. Regardless of what color you are or aren’t. And while I never blamed his upbringing, or his community, or anything or that sort that didn’t change the fact that after the rape, when I was in close proximity to dark skinned people my body would freak out. I still don’t know why skin tone was what my brain tacked onto instead of something equally harmless like long nails, or brown eyes.

Even when I knew people weren’t a threat to me. My body would react in a way I had no control over, with no one to talk to it about to help me sort through wtf was going on. I was effectively trapped. I was trapped dealing with PTSD when I had no name for what was even going on. 

I would get nausea, break out in sweats, panic and get some SEVERE ‘fight or flight’ responses and was always horrified of these reactions I had no control over being the cause of hurting someone. I was always terrified that I would snap in the throes of a panic attack I had no weapons to fight against and deck someone. So I hid it away in a little jar. I never did hit anyone. Not once. I did a lot of running away instead in multiple senses of the word. From myself, from what happened. I ran away from all of it.

And one day I was on the train about a year after the rape, A black man sat next to me. PTSD reared it’s ugly head and I jumped out of my seat faster than if I had been sitting on hot coals. He said “Wow that’s fucked up.” 

To his eyes, I was just some racist. A logical conclusion given my reaction. But I was in the middle of severe fight or flight and I was terrified of it hurting him because I had no control over wtf was happening with my body. The first trauma induced reaction was “FIGHT”. The one that immediately followed, the reaction that was ME and not my trauma was “PROTECT HIM. ” so I jumped out of the seat because it was all I knew how to do to deal with this beast in my head I had no control over. I didn’t want that creature coming anywhere near him. Near anyone.

And then I cried, pleading on the train in front of everyone. There was no hiding it. He deserved to know it wasn’t him, because in trying to flee from the panic, I had also hurt him. This wasn’t okay with me. I broke down and told him

 “No no please. It’s not you. You’ve done nothing wrong. I was raped by someone black and my Body just. REACTS. I have no control over it, it just does it even when I know people aren’t like that.  I jumped away because I don’t know how to keep you safe when I have no control over what my body is going through. It is not your fault. I’m dealing with some severe shit and I’m genuinely just scared of hurting someone when my body flips out. I’m SO SORRY. I know it looks awful, please forgive me, I don’t hate you.”

What happened next changed everything. 

He gave me compassion, understanding, kindness, and love.  He took one look at me and said ,

“You know, My wife is going through the same thing right now and I’m going to tell you what I told her. Take the time you need to heal and stop beating yourself up. It’s not just other people you have to worry about, it’s you too. You’re never going to get better unless you take the time to heal. Part of healing is learning to pick the lock on the slave collar they put around your neck when they hurt you so badly.”

Me, being a blubbering wreck and mentally frazzled didn’t quite pick up on it then and he explained.

“You said yourself you had no control. Panic makes you feel helpless, but that doesn’t mean you actually are. Panic has a way of fooling you into believing that. “ This line right here, CLICKED. This sentence had been the lock picks I had so desperately needed.

He told me to google PTSD when I got home. I did and realized, not only had he handed me lock picks, but by giving me a word for what was happening to me, he also gave me the full manual on how to use said lock picks. I think of this person often and thank them profusely from the bottom of my heart. All for a set of lock picks.

What does this have to do with rp you ask? I’m getting there <3

This was the point in life that I really started to take on the fight against my trauma. He was 100% right. I was a slave to this anxiety that had been left behind. Drugs weren’t going to fix that. Drugs don’t make that go away. I knew because I already had anti depressants.

So I made characters with dark skin, or chose characters to rp with dark skin. And I fell in love with them as they grew and developed into fully fleshed out characters. They Made friends with other characters of every color under the sun. Characters that people in the role play community wrote. They Laughed, loved , cried. And the whole time I was right there with them. Also laughing , loving and crying. I never forgot that people are people, and the only one responsible for what I had to go through was the person who hurt me. But my body forgot, and this helped like you wouldn’t believe.

No joke, it reversed the trauma entirely. Because it was absolutely impossible to have bad reactions to characters I had made, not just made, but made to be like the man on the train. Characters that carried kindness, compassion, love, and understanding and above all else HUMANITY. 

When you write characters like this, or read stories with characters with these qualities, it reminds you just how important these traits are in everyday life. It reminds you how important it is to be human.

“When there is a connection of humanity between two people, it is the meaning of love.”