{the story up right now is the old version! So all the things I wanna change will be later on when I get to rewriting}
when writing Zara I didn't take into account the signs she would show post trauma and having to deal with both mental and physical abuse her whole life, and I don't feel as though I did the character justice and representing that trauma well,
when I wrote this book I was naïve when it came to the details that mattered, her mental health and healing from that kind of trauma wasn't handled to the best of my abilities and I want to give Zara the proper healing journey I believe she needs to have.
I completely understand that not everyones journey through healing after trauma is the same...but in my eyes I feel like I needed to analyze the damage she had in her life and help her heal the way I think her character would heal given her personality and the way she lives after the life she had escaped from. Please remember that healing isn't linear, it's not easy nor is it the same for all,
take in account that her "annoying" little traits and emotional responses to certain things is all her healing, it's her letting herself feel the things she needs in order to let herself move forward, because she's that's what specifically she needs.
I want to take some time and talk about some things people found very annoying in the old version and stuff I'm going to add to the new one I want to discus because of her healing in her trauma,
I want to address them and really make sure you understand what your about to read and how it may not be for everyone.
• Her crying more than a normal person would.
- this was a ginormous problem for many in the old version, a lot found her winy and annoying when she cried. I want you to remember that what you're about to read in her past is her parents abusing her and not allowing her to show emotions beyond the respect they thought she needed to show, her tears are a sign of her healing, her finally being able to cry without beatings and harsh words. She knows she cries a-lot, she is aware the amount of tears she sheds, she allows herself to feel it because she can now, it's her telling her parents that she's her own person, a little "F you" to them if you will, and she won't let their abuse get to her, she's healing slowly and she's going against everything her parents forced her to do to be able to move past her old life.
• Her bipolar like tendencies.
- I'm not diagnosing her I want to make that clear, accusations like that are serious and can only be determined by a medical professional. If I were to ever write a character like that a lot of studying would need to be done to insure I wrote it correctly and portrayed it realistically.
her tendencies that can be seen as "bipolar" are a result of her trauma and healing journey, she doesn't quite understand how to handle the freedom of letting herself express the emotions she feels without being harmed for it. She's still a kind person at heart, but sometimes her anger shows at the feeling of needing to protect, sometimes she gets ptsd triggers from her past in the present day and that causes a harsh reaction to something that appears minor. She has a protective natural that's caused by the fact that she was never protected...that no one was there for her when she was growing up.