: How to get the "back again" part after horrible experience? Ok, so I have a character, Jack, and I don't know how to get him on the "back again" path. You know, when you move past what

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tl;dr

I find myself wanting more detail in the question. "Lauren Ipsum" says that it is inappropriate to give story-specific detail, but you could still say, for instance, whether or not the items in the “series of traumatic, personal events” are of the same type. …Also whether or not the guilt and blame are justified — although the feeling is that they are not. (I take it that the fear of future “traumas” is rational.)

I find myself getting vague memories of characters, in movies, who have a dark (evil) or pathological [usually both, conflated, I venture] inner motive, and who normally appear "normal" to other persons. The point there is that it sounds as though you do not want to go in that direction. (The ulterior motive is the important one, in such cases.)

I second “Rapscallion” ’s statement that one is not unaffected by traumatic events. There is the point that one is generally able to come across as “normal”. (This is informed by the simple fact that things such as friends, sunlight and activity do make one feel better, directly and immediately.)

/tl;dr

There is a “quick-and-dirty” fix available, if you need it: appearing to be “normal” can be a “survival” trait. That is… however badly one might have been affected by something, such as to cause (or strongly dispose) one to pertinent emotions or behaviour… this can be astonishingly over-ridden, where the detail of a situation triggers an (irrational and subconscious) belief that some particular behaviour (“normal” or otherwise) can protect one from a feared hurt. A simple example is an injured animal; in the presence of a predator, an injured animal will behave as much as possible as though it is not injured. The parallel with a human being in a social situation is fairly straightforward.

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TL;DR: You don't have to focus heavily on the trauma, just drop enough hints that Jack is dealing with it (or is haunted by it) when the plot isn't progressing.

Ask yourself if you really need to set your character 'back again' at all.

As someone who hit a wall of depression and anxiety in their late teenage years, I can tell you that the feeling never fully abated. People, like me, who experience deep depression/anxiety will probably tell you that it never truly goes away. It lurks, waiting to reemerge when you're most vulnerable.

I learned that it was fruitless to 'cure' myself from feeling horrible. No amount of good things nor the highest of highs will ever stop the inevitable lows, however depression/anxiety can be very manageable with the right attitude. Nobody at work, nor many of my closest friends know that I'm like this.

How does this relate to Jack? Well maybe Jack will forever be changed by this event and his daily struggle with dark thoughts:

Now he has to cope with the aftermath, plus new responsibilities, guilt he places on himself, blame placed on him by others, and he's worried about more traumas happening in the future.

Honestly, that sounds like a deep and very interesting character. It makes him real. People can be quite resilient - Jack can continue to function normally from the perspective of others, but maybe since the trauma he hates to be alone? Or suffers nightmares?

I personally disagree with the other answer. Real people don't just get happier after trauma. Good things happening don't cancel out the bad things.

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Perhaps your Character needs to have something good happen to him to pull him out of the depression? Characters usually achieve small goals and have some good stuff reward them while they are on their journey and running into obstacles.

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If you want to write sensitively and authentically about personal trauma, you have pretty much two choices:

Endure it yourself. I don't recommend choosing to undergo this.
Talk to other people who have endured trauma, or possibly people who counsel trauma victims.

Creating a real, rounded character who has suffered and then learned to adapt and grow past the pain requires lengthy, detailed observation of the human spirit. If you can't do this from the inside, you must do it from the outside, and if you can't do it at all, write something else.

Please don't write a story about someone who suffers terrible things and then brushes it off and all is well at the end. It reads as cheap and phony and offends people who really have suffered.

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