#equating Maximum Trauma responses with moral purity also gets anti-recovery real fast

[serpentinegraphite]

in the same vein as having characters always sound like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy, a common thing in fanworks that gets on my nerves is like how in a fandom where realistically one might expect the characters to experience some trauma as a result of canon events (even though it's not shown in canon), there are only ever like the most extreme trauma responses. it's full on panic attack in the face of a trigger and brutal, unending nightmares, and like nothing else.

I just want to say for anyone out there who isn't aware, not every trauma response needs to be turned up to 11!some days a trigger might hit harder than others.

sometimes a character's trauma response should say something about them! a character who hates being vulnerable and seeks a constant control might react to a trigger with anger!

a character who is great at repressing might "This is fine!" themselves all the way through a triggering and unpleasant encounter rather than show any outward distress! dissociation is a real and common trauma response.

aside from the complete homogenization of trauma symptoms being boring as shit, it's often a weirdly consistent Moral Purity signifier. there's never a chance for a nuanced or complicated or shitty response to a trigger, it's always straight into the harshest panic response, thereby inviting only unconditional support from the audience. (nevermind what this kind of weirdly narrow anxiety rep does to people in the audience who actually have anxiety that doesn't fit the One Kind Of Anxiety characters are allowed to have)