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Writing Reference: Trauma Aging the Appearance

For my fellow angsty and whumpy writers who are writing characters that have been through a lot.

Does trauma actually speed up one's aging?

Yes, and no. Studies show mixed evidence, that requires more looking into as it's more complex than initially thought.

We mostly know that some people do seem to age faster during trauma like violence or some abuse, but not as much so for poverty or neglect. Genetic factors might play a role. People who seemed to age faster would have puberty earlier than others and even show signs of accelerated aging at a cellular level.

We're still doing ongoing research about what this means and what decides this.

The general theory behavioral scientists and biologists are leaning on is that aging faster during in dangerous traumatic times serves an evolutionary advantage.

As for adults, significant results show that depression can be a damper of lifespan, especially for elders, but there's a lot outside of trauma that influences this.

Graying Hair

Stress, not even just trauma, but stress alone can gray your hair. Genetics can play a role of course, but you've ever seen a single mom you know that they have to buy lots of hair dye.

Many hormones and chemicals activate when stressed, and double so when entering a form of shock, adrenaline rush, or total despair. One of those chemicals is norepinephrine.

Norepinephrine actually affects your melanocyte stem cells, the exact cells that stand at the base of each string of hair, and if these melanocytes die off they can't be replaced and the hair happens to lose pigment.

People typically start to gray around their forehead, sides of their faces, and central scalp. It takes a long time for someone's whole head of hair to completely gray, and usually someone will rock half-grayed hair for a long while before aging catches up if their gray is caused from stress. Facial hair can also gray.

Wrinkles and Tear Troughs

Dark eye circles, stress wrinkles, deep tear troughs, heavy eye bags... We've all heard it. Do these actually happen though?

Yes, absolutely. I can even vouch anecdotal evidence, as a severe abuse survivor myself, if you pull up old pictures of me I look like I was just pulled out of someone's back shed that had a magical portal to a world war.

Stress Wrinkles

Stress causes tenseness, and that includes in the face. This tenseness for long periods of time can cause wrinkles, especially in individuals past their late twenties. Some common stress wrinkles we see is between the eye brows known as frown lines, forehead lines, bunny lines that are between the nose and cheeks often near the nostril area, and smile lines that around the mouth.

Tear Troughs

Those lines you typically see right at the top of the nose and underneath the eyes are actually deep tear trough lines, I have these myself.

They can sometimes give the appearance of sunken eyes, dark circles, and heavier eye bags due to lighting on your face. Deep ones are referred to in the cosmetic industry as tear trough deformities. They can be caused by genetics of course, but also heavy sleep deprivation, dehydration, stress, and significant weight loss.

Many would describe their appearance as making a person always look extremely tired. They can also have a sort of darker hue to them as they leave the skin thin against your sockets. They can help eye bags form as well.

Eye Bags & Dark Circles

When you're always tired or experiencing a lack of sleep the muscles around the eyes can become strained, leading to puffiness and color tinting. Fatigue, depression, and lack of sleep messed with your blood flow. We can the see the results of so in places with thin skin such as the eye area.

Inflammation, dehydration, malnourishment, and weight loss cause these areas to discolor as well.

Sunken Eyes

One day I found an old picture of my brother and I. We looked mostly like normal kids besides our eerily sunken eyes.

Sunken eyes look different from eyebags and dark circles, and you typically know when you see them because they leave you feeling chilled or spooked. Something just looks so very very wrong in them. They are dramatic, really really dramatic, and can even be frightening depending on their severity.

Dehydration is a major player in causing sunken eyes, as well as damage to the facial structure from physical trauma. Sleep deprivation can cause it. Pair this with all the other above stress agers, and one can walk out into the world with a sunken appearance.

Sunken eyes can appear very dark, red, purple, or black even, and leave deep grooves underneath the eye. They can cause the eyelids to appear droopy, and the eyes intense and bulging. The eyes are literally deeper into the socket and they truly are best described as sunken.

Sunken eyes can also cause eye dryness, give the face a sense of asymmetry in eye positioning, cause double vision, difficulty focusing, and a sagging look to the skin around the eyes and eyelids.

Thousand Yard Stare & PTSD Eyes

I'm sure you've seen the famous artwork by Thomas Lea going about capturing an American soldier looking to the perspective with these horrific eyes.

PTSD eyes and the thousand yard stare are two completely different things.

Thousand Yard Stare

The thousand yard stare is a biological response people can have due to extreme violence and danger such as war. Wikipedia describes the stare as blank and unfocused. It is a reaction to shellshock or CSR which are both really terms for active PTSD while still under extreme duress such as in war combat.

In fact there are plenty other reactions that can happen alongside the thousand yard stare or in its stead, including...

Catatonia

Hypervigilance

Dissociative Amnesia

Uncontrollable Laughter

Tremors

Headaches/Migraines

Tinnitus

Neurasthenia (Sudden Muscle Weakness)

Mutism

Fugue

Sensory Overload

Screaming

Paralysis

Fear Response

Dissociation

And many many more

This is shellshock/combat stress reaction, and these things actually aren't limited to those in war. Anyone experiencing any kind of extreme shock in traumatic situation such as sexual assaults, murder, sudden death of a loved one, torture, kidnapping, and more.

These things very much often develop into PTSD, and although a rare reaction to returning extreme stress, those with PTSD can sometimes mimic these reactions during a flashback episode.

PTSD Eyes

Then what is PTSD eyes?

PTSD Eyes is a term coined to describe that sort of unique look in the eyes that those with PTSD can exhibit. This is caused by a lack of pupil reaction to threatening or upsetting imagery compared to the average person, and meanwhile an exaggerated reaction to nonthreatening imagery.

People with PTSD eyes can actually have a harder time focusing on things with their sight. This can also give people with PTSD a general unfocused sort of look.

In a series of pictures showing soldiers before, during, and after war we can see this very often in the after image.

Weight Loss

Malnutrition and starvation is extremely hard on the body, and very dangerous. It will show in every facet on your appearance. Your face can grow sunken and sharp, your arms and chest boney and gangly, and the muscles and bone structure underneath starts to show.

Often times trauma and weight loss can go hand in hand, not even through relation, but just due to circumstance.

Pale Complexion

Pallor, or medical paleness, can be a result of fatigue and stress, giving the skin a paler or grayer appearance.

Other causes can be shock, malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, anemia, recent blood loss, and even low blood sugar. After some time and care to the body people will eventually brighten back up.

Extra Sources & Farewell

Here's some awesome sources if you want to look into things even more!

[whumpinthepot]

Give your whumpees comfort. Tell them its going to be okay. Draw a warm blanket over their shoulders. Cradle them. Please I ne- I mean, they need it!

[whumpinthepot]

🧪 ~ Experiment #42 ~ 🧪 (Artem Podrez)

(Credit this post if you use!)

[whumpinthepot]

Whumperee and Whumpee having the same caretaker.

[whumpinthepot]

what do you mean you havent used mindfulness techniques to accept the state of the torture labyrinth as is yet. its like youre not even trying

[whumpinthepot]

“I - I swear, I’ve told you everything!”

“Oh, I know. I’m just still having fun.”

[whumpinthepot]

Whump Dialogue

"I said I was sorry!"

"And I said put your hands on the fucking table"

[whumpinthepot]

did u hear. they are replacing sex with waterboarding and vivisections.....

[whumpinthepot]

Please keep writing dark twisted themes I want to read them pls pls don’t water it down to try to be less problematic that would make it boring I want to read it and go “Wow that sure is dark and twisted! Good thing its not real :))”

[whumpinthepot]

Laboring in my laboratory wearing my white coat and long black nitrile gloves with white hair standing on end locked tf in all mad and scientistc in the eerie glow with my beakers and baubles beeping maschines and pages of scrawled notes strewn about and you think I'm creating life or building a bioweapon but in fact I'm just passing a glowing green solenoid back and forth between flasks watching with fascination because I'm off some strong as fuck acid and a couple gas station gummies to boot

[whumpinthepot]

Hamster Interactive Story - Completed! It’s a G/t whump story about a tiny girl living in a hamster cage. It also has illustrations!

Hey all, shameless promotion time: get in the reblogs, comments, or tags and tell me about which lady whump stories you recommend. Whether it's your own writing, others' writing, books, shows, movies, etc, go for it! I'm always looking for more for ideas. 👀

Doesn't matter if you know I've seen it before either! Just add it on here for anyone else who wants to find stories, too! If you get more ideas later to add, come back and add them!

As long as it's lady whump, go wild, my whumperful friends! 😁😈

Here's my own stuff so far:

My Lady/Female Whumpee-led Story/Fic Collection

New idea I may be doing in the vague near future

I'll make a book rec list sometime, too. Cause I've got a *lot* of those.

[whumpinthepot]

“Come here.”

Their voice rumbles through you, as if you needed another reminder of how big they are. Of how small you are.

Their hand twitches impatiently.

A hand that could easily grab you; a hand that could close the distance between the two of you in an instant. It would be effortless.

But they make it an order, just to see if you’ll listen.

“Come. Here.”

[whumpinthepot]

I love having characters that have died before so we can torture them with the memories of their past death

[whumpinthepot]

HEY!

So, I don’t know who this is going to reach, but I hope it reaches anyone or everyone <3

I really want to meet small whump creators on here. I do obsess over a lot of whump creators who are big and somewhat popular, and I always wonder how to find smaller blogs that are lurking around like I do. As a small blog myself.

So if you’re a small whump blog and want to meet new friends, I’d love to read your stories and see what you create. Even if you don’t make anything and just reblog, that’s okay too. I really do think there are hidden gems out there that I’d love to find, but sometimes it’s hard to.

And if you interact with this post, we’ll all find each other and make more friends. At least, that’s what I’d like to think would happen.

And while you’re here, maybe say something in the comments about yourself, your blog, or your stories. What’s your favorite whump trope? What have you put your characters through? What’s the whumpiest media you’ve consumed lately?

As usual, I’ll say that I obsess over everyone’s OC’s and literally want to eat every crumb of lore I can get. I love drawing them too! So please talk about them!

Have a whumperful day!

[whumpinthepot]

naive dog-like trust may have gotten you into this basement but if we're real i don't think it's going to be getting you out of it

[whumpinthepot]

I need more people obsessed with their female whumpees, i can't be the only one

[whumpinthepot]

Mad scientists will be like "I know a place" and then strap you onto the autopsy table