Research Survivor Guilt Stories

[RoselynJ]

I'm not trying to be rude. If anything I'm trying to point out how little you understand PTSD

I am deeply apologetic that I hit triggers, and clearly I have a lot to learn, wish is why I am here.

 

[RoselynJ]

I don't understand how indiviudal experiences (not stories but experiences) would help you make it accurate as if you combined info from everyone's experiences it would still be innaccurate as that is our experiences and not the character's

Everything you have written is very insightful and helpful. The reason I asked - rather than going off the clinical descriptions of the symptoms - is that those descriptions are (for want of a better word) sterile. For instance - flashbacks. Ok I can make a narrative about a flashback, but that single word doesn't help me understand if the flashback is like a normal memory where you remember the event, or perhaps you are actually reliving the moment and are stuck in it. Through this thread I have learned that perhaps it is a mix. I asked because I wanted to understand the symptoms properly.

 

[RoselynJ]

Yeah, except I wish that there were people out there who wrote in ways that can really capture the hell on earth that comes with survivors guilt. If this author can do so then I say that is amazing! I WANT people to know how it feels. What it is. How it works. That it exists.

This is what I am trying to do, and why I am here. And, if I get far enough as to finish it, I would 100% ask (respectfully) for someone who understands to read it first to make sure I got it right.

If someone's life was in your hands (or so you think) and you and your actions (or so you think) killed them. Or you abandoned them when you could have brought them with you.

This is actually pretty close to what happens actually, which is why I came asking about guilt. I will defiantly go look for that book, who is the author? (I found several books with that name, but they don't seem to match your description)

 

[shimmerz]

who is the author?

Sorry, it was 'I Choose to Live' by Sabine Dardenne. My apologies.

 

[RoselynJ]

Sorry, it was 'I Choose to Live' by Sabine Dardenne. My apologies.

Thank you! I have put it on hold at the Library and will go pick it up today.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

For instance - flashbacks. Ok I can make a narrative about a flashback, but that single word doesn't help me understand if the flashback is like a normal memory where you remember the event, or perhaps you are actually reliving the moment and are stuck in it.

This right there is my point. Flashbacks are different for each person and I alone have several different kinds and experiences of a flashback. Sometimes I am stuck back in time where I think I am there, visually, emotionally, sensory (touch, taste, smell). And sometimes they are more like vivid memory and sometimes they are emotionally only. Sometimes they are sensory only (body memories). And everyone is different.

So every one's experiences are different. Some never have a "full" flashback with visual, sensory, emotional. Some have one or a few of those.

Also, my experiences differs due to not having support (other than this site). For those that have family and friends and support then their experiences differ from my own.

So basically my situations and circumstamces are individual and cause my experiences with, say, flashbacks or really anything to be indiviudal and unless you model the plot after someone (alive that can tell you) then it won't be accurate.

A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or any other emotion one can consider.

The term is used particularly when the memory is recalled involuntarily, and/or when it is so intense that the person "relives" the experience, unable to fully recognize it as memory and not something that is happening in "real time".

*bolded for emphasis

Flashback (psychology) - Wikipedia

That pretty well sums up a flashback. Just one symptom but my point is you can research each symptom and as you, say, write down key things of each symptom, you start to get a picture of how might this character be experiencing this issue and what hurdles could come up in her life as these sypmtoms play out. You don't need people's experiences here to do that.

Again, not saying it's wrong or right to ask. I am someone that researches everything and I am saying that you can research this and gain what you are looking for.

My opinion is that it is a very personal intimate thing you are asking from many that have trust issues. But it is also my opinion that you don't need experience stories for what you are looking to gain.

 

[RoselynJ]

Sometimes I am stuck back in time where I think I am there, visually, emotionally, sensory (touch, taste, smell). And sometimes they are more like vivid memory and sometimes they are emotionally only. Sometimes they are sensory only (body memories). And everyone is different.

This is valuable. Thank you for sharing it with me.

 

[Suzetig]

My opinion is that it is a very personal intimate thing you are asking from many that have trust issues. But it is also my opinion that you don't need experience stories for what you are looking to gain.

This is equally valuable and suggests to me that you don't have her permission to use her stuff.

I find it astounding that you don't seem able to take on board the genuine unhappiness that people have expressed here about the way you are trying to glean information from them. Worse still, you take a tiny extract from a post trying to, again, explain why what you're asking is inappropriate and think it's ok to use that for your own purposes.

If you are a PhD, and have done any kind of social research, you know this isn't ok but still you continue.

 

[RoselynJ]

This is equally valuable and suggests to me that you don't have her permission to use her stuff.

I'm not going to quote things people tell me. She has told me something in that each flashback is different that I could never have learned otherwise. That is why it is valuable.

I am not ignoring the pieces I did not directly quote in my responses.

 

[Suzetig]

You're not responding to them either.

And actually you could easily have learned that every flashback is different, by doing actual research into this and other mental health conditions. It's not true to say this is the only, or even the best way, to get what you want.

It takes very little insight to gather that as each person, their history and physiology are different, their experience of flashbacks will be different and research and reading would tell you that there are different types of flashback which can be experienced differently by individuals and that any person might experience a range of flashbacks. It's honestly not difficult to get information about how PTSD, survivors guilt or whatever the hell youre writing about might present in a way that someone could usefully translate into a written character.

This just feels voyeuristic and gratuitous in my view.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I could never have learned otherwise

Not true. A simple google search could tell you that, which is what I am trying to get across to you. But you don't seem to want to take that in. Ok, I gave you "valuable information" but that information isn't just MY experience. It is may people's experience so much so that you can find that information anywhere on the internet. There is a book (actually many) about just body memories. It is everywhere on the internet. Research, research, research!

 

[scout86]

I am here to ask for your feelings - rather than the stories themselves (unless you wish to share).

@Friday , I'll confess to total ignorance of the ins and outs of how to right a novel, ethics included. Not something I know anything at all about, so you're probably right that there's some kind of clear, bright line here that's been crossed. That sentence I quoted is what I was going on. In it, I saw an invitation to walk away, if this was something someone didn't want to talk about. As well as the invitation to say "This is something I don't want to talk about." With or without an explanation. And the invitation to offer thoughts on the topic too.

I should maybe add that part of that ('feelings'???) doesn't totally register with me because I don't easily make a connection between how my body might feel and emotions. And 'emotions' usually get filed under "What difference does THAT make?" If I experienced that differently, I might take the original post differently. I DO get the concept of 'survivor's guilt', but usually can place it in the category of "Great Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe". I realize that something that works differently for different people. I'm pretty big on 'minimizing' and practice it enough to be pretty good at it. Again, different for different people. But that's one of the reasons I read the original post. Seemed safe and I was curious. There's a bunch of stuff I don't read, or I avoid some of the time, because it doesn't 'seem safe'. I honestly don't see the intent to exploit here that some of the rest of you do. Probably just me being dense, but it's my version of reality. (And I could be totally missing it, because that's something I do a LOT.)