• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Hello Everyone - Writing a Book With a PTSD Character and Would Like Some Input

Status
Not open for further replies.
thanks everyone! been kinda busy w/ work! im home on lunch now and just wanted to pop in and say hello... so, Hello! have a good one!
 
Just to interject - I am/was a scratcher. It was my T who called it 'scratching'.

It's something I do when anxious but also (sounds like I'm contradicting myself), when in a dissociative state. It's hard to explain but I'm anxious & then I do it without conscious thought.

Generally it is just scratching, like an itch but there is no itch. Occasionally the scratching would cause scratch marks but they disappeared within a day. I only ever scratch the inside of my arm near my wrist.

My therapist puts it in the category of self harm (previously I had some limited & infrequent cutting).

When pointed out to me I generally will stop. Sometimes I will become aware of it myself & stop.

There doesn't appear to be in physical reason, and I haven't done it for some months now. It seemed to happen when my symptoms were at there worse & I was avoiding treatment/engaging in therapy.

I wouldn't consider it a big factor of my PTSD. I think actual self injury would be more prevalent in PTSD then scratching. But then I think you'd run the risk of making it about 'self harm' and not PTSD.
 
I'm also writing a story and have some questions

I'm also not a sufferer or carer, but I am a writer myself. I actually wandered over to these forums from Wikipedia. The story revolves around my main character who is a young homosexual fresh out of high school. He ends up going out to a well known hangout for gays in his neighbourhood and meeting this wonderful guy, they end up making love to each other the same night they met.

As the main character calls a taxi home and the Taxi driver figures out what he has been up to. The main character is incredibly pleased with himself and keeps imagining his new boyfriend. Until the Driver purposely takes a wrong turn, the main character laughs and points it out but the Driver insists his way is quicker. The Driver ends up driving the main character to the middle of nowhere and having his way with him.

The main character begins to experience PTSD, at first he tries to forget it every happened but destroying the evidence by having a shower but his best friend/room mate tries to ask him what happened. The main character ends up shouting at his friend to mind his own business and locking himself in his room and lying still on his bed. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the driver and every time he opened them he wanted it to be a nightmare.

My main character is depressed for an entire chapter with his friend trying anything to cheer him up, he is a chef so he tries cooking the main characters favourite dishes but The main character remains silent. When all hope seems lost the friend hears the main character's phone ringing and it's the guy that he met. The friend convinces the guy to come over and help. The guy ends up trying to talk to the main character through the door but doesn't get an answer.

The main character feels ashamed that now his friend and the guy he met are both worried about him, and that they would not stop asking about it and he would never forget. When the guy he met enters the room the main character is even more depressed because he doesn't want anyone to see him this way. Before what happened he was always a happy person, the guy convinces the main character to eat something. Even though it's his favourite food the main character doesn't even smile when he tastes it.

The guy says he won't ask about it any more and he instead asks the main character what he wants to do, the guy suggests doing something fun to cheer him up. As the guy smiles the main character only sees the evil grin of the Driver. The main characters friends begin to appear like they want to abuse him too, the main character explodes and hits the guy in the face and corners himself with a knife threatening to cut anyone who came near him. The guy ends up throwing his pair of gloves in the main characters face and taking the knife from him.

The main character realises what his done as the faces of his friends change from being evil to a look of concern. The guy convinces the main character to tell him what happened and he does. The guy asks him if he has told the police and the main character says he hasn't and that he had a shower so there was no evidence. The friend remembers that he smelled semen on the clothes that the main character was wearing when he got his phone. The guy convinces the main character that putting the Driver behind bars would be the best way to get closure.

They end up going to a police station to report what happened, The main character holding the guy he met's hand tightly the whole time. When the police officer comes out he asks that he take the victims statement, the main character is petrified at the thought of being apart from the guy, more so at the thought of being alone with a stranger. He always trusted people but after his experience with the Driver he doesn't even trust a police officer. The guy ends up giving the main character his favourite pair of gloves and this gives the main character the confidence to go in.

The police officer takes the statement and then asks for the main character to take of his shirt "And make it sexy like you were with the guy", the main character is shocked and asks for the officer to repeat himself but the officer says that he needs to photograph any bruising for evidence. The main character is relieved but still shaken about what he heard the policeman say. In one of the more cliffhanger moments the main character decides to leave his friend and the guy and run.

The guy has to give his statement so the friend runs after the main character. The main character is determined to forget what happened on that night, and that means forgetting about the guy to. The friend catches up to the main character just in time to see him throw the gloves that the guy had given him away. The friend is appalled by how selfish the main character is acting.

The main character then starts talking as if the guy was just looking to get him in bed, that all homosexuals (including himself) are as bad as the driver. That there is no possibility for true love in a same sex couple. The friend attempts to convince him that this isn't true, that the guy hadn't mentioned the word sex since he heard that the main character had become depressed. The main character is skeptical as to whether or not the Guy sees him as more than a sex-toy and says "we're queer, all we want is pleasure, love is a cheap name we give to someone we want a little more of"

The friend who has never raised his voice in his life urges the main character to wake up and see that the guy actually cares about him and if the Guy didn't he wouldn't have come over to try and help cheer the main character up. The main character is reluctant to return because he is unsure if the guy really does care "You'll never know if you sit here forever" the friend replies and the main character agrees to go back to the police station

Meanwhile the guy is giving his statement but is distracted by thoughts of the main character. All he did was care for him but now he sees that the main character would rather forget about him. The sadness he feels at losing the main character and the anger he feels at the reason threaten to boil over inside himself. He had only been with guys for fun up until he met the main character and he thought the main character could be something more. He believes he is wrong until the main character returns.

The main character apologises for leaving and explains how he wanted to forget but now he realised that it would be easier to work it out together. The guy understands that the main character had something horrible happen to him and that he left not because of the Guy but because he was trying to cope with what happened. They kiss and make up so to speak.

that's not the end of the story but I do have a question, after this part would it be realistic to assume the Main character could have a moment of happiness? This is not to say that he is completely forgotten about what happened but would the symptoms he had been experiencing be expected to stop for a little bit?

The next scene involves the friend taking the main character to a karaoke bar and the Guy convincing him to sing a love song duet. The main character is happy and they sing until the main character ends up falling asleep on a table. The main character is asleep for the drive home and only wakes up by the sound his bedroom door makes.

The main character asks if the Guy is going to be staying over and he says only if the main character wants it. The main character says there is a spare mattress for the guy to use but The guy say I think we only need one. The innuendo isn't lost on the Main character and he becomes afraid and says that he doesn't want to have sex so soon after what happened but the Guy insists that it would help them to move on but the Main character isn't convinced. The main character shouts for the Guy to get off like he did to the driver before he wakes up alone in his bed.

Apparently the guy coming onto him had been a nightmare but the main character is uncertain as to when he fell asleep. The reality is that everything from the point that he fell asleep on the table was a dream and that the Guy had chosen to sleep on the couch instead but the main character doesn't know that. The guy is woken up by the sounds of main character getting out of bed and moves to hug him but the main character asks if it was all a dream. The guy thinks he is talking about the Driver and tells the Main character not to worry because he is gone and not coming back.

The main character is ashamed to admit that he thought the guy was capable of what he had done to him in the dream and how he had not questioned it and believed it. The guy tells the main character that it's not his fault that it was just the Driver messing with him. The Guy then smiles as the main character's hair is all out of place from rolling around in his sleep they sit down on the couch together while the Guy styles the main characters hair.

The main character is comforted by this action and the final scene is the main character admiring his new hair style in the mirror while the Guy tells him how good it looks.

My main problem is I am unsure as to whether it would be realistic to assume that the Main character could attain some form of happiness in the guys arms while still suffering from PTSD. I've always been worried about how true to life my characters have been when writing this story, i would love to have some comments on what I have told you about so far. I hope posting here hasn't offended anyone and if it has I'm sorry, I was just looking to get some feedback.
 
Funny you mentioned Catch-22. I've had PTSD since 1979, from a false alarm in nuclear forces. I had my first night-terror the first time I fell asleep afterward. I had flashbacks and the same night-terror for almost a decade before the diagnosis hit the mainstream. I first learned the word "flashback" as a cinematic term. Watching the movie Catch-22, I was broadsided by the flashback scenes. I kept saying to myself, "I know this." That's the best depiction you could probably find of a long-term flashback sequence, IMO.

It took me 13 years to have the entire flashback, then it stopped. The night terrors stopped, but so did the good dreams. I've only been debilitated by PTSD three times in 28 years. As profoundly as my world is shaped by that event, I still did well at school and at work almost all of the time. During Gulf I, Gulf II, and now with the president prattling on about "WW III" I suffered episodes that knocked me flat. Even without the flashbacks and night terrors, I suffer. The worst part, I think, is not knowing what's going on when it starts. I blame everything else, but. I hate myself so much it doesn't make sense---there isn't that much of me to hate. And it is very difficult to function. After getting an invitation to an Honor Society, I failed two classes and now have my first academic warning. It always feels like I lost myself and I have to constantly remind myself that this is an episode and not my whole life.

Since you're using a vet, you may want to include wars and the war drums as triggers. Even WW II vets show up at the ward when a new war starts and the media is all jingo and gun-ho.
 
Thank you just tina and all others who have lent a helping hand! Merry Christmas or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, whichever you please! I've been absent for some time, owning a jewelry store this time of year tends to do that. Now I am back, hurrah! And in the spirit of the season I would like to extend my gratitude and best wishes to everyone here, oh and don't eat to much turkey! Well, since I can't seem to take my own advice in that category, I have to go to sleep! Goodnight and sleep tight, adios!
 
My two cents

mvd182,
First of all welcome to the forum. You wont find any better caring and understanding people here.

Secondly, I think you should find your nearest VA hospital. Call and make and make an appointment with either a conselor or a therapist. Explain to them that you want to find out just what PTSD is and how some people get it and others dont. Here's a link to get you headed in that direction

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/post_traumatic_stress_disorder_symptoms_treatment.htm

Read over that, it should answer many of your questions. About what "WE" deal with everyday.

As for "Jack" make Him as real as possible.
1) He was in the service......mentaly and physicaly tuff

2) He served in combat......stabbed someone?, shot someone?, was held as a captive?, He was shot at by the enemy?. See His best friend die? hold someone in his arms as they died?

3) Does he hold in what He seen and did, He couldnt tell His wife what He had done, she wouldnt understand. Friends wouldnt understand. No one did. He might feel as if He doesnt belong .......He would be alone, until He gets the help

4) Does He drink or do drugs, because of the war? A way that some people use to cope with their PTSD

5) Does He drive fast, ride motocycles, sky drive, bungee jump? seeking that "rush" when He was in the service

Just a few quesions that make up food for thought from someone that was in the first Gulf war.



Mayhem
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top