Brianna's Captor

Real talk...likely not for kids.

As most of you know, author's are just "normal" people who happen to write stories. We write stories as an escape, or as a creative outlet, or to work through some underlying personal trauma, or whatever reason. But bits and pieces of our lives and stories end up on the thoroughly edited pages of our work.

Chapter 15 was the hardest chapter for me to write. You might think to yourself, "What was the big deal? She got captured and..." NO SPOILERS! If you haven't read it, I won't go on. But that's not the point anyway. 

Was I kidnapped as a child and have underlying childhood trauma? No. Not at all. But I did have undiagnosed ADHD until I was 40. One interesting thing about mental health is that it doesn't like to be lonely, it often befriends other mental health issues alongside it. I was also diagnosed with OCD when I was in my early 30's. I don't think it was an accurate diagnoses, but the symptoms were present likely due to the ADHD.

Right now you're asking yourself, what is the point of this? Well, the point is this:

As a child I would have a negative thought (often an OCD or ADHD trait), and then I would hyperfixate on it and obsessively think about it for days, weeks, years, or my lifetime (hyper fixating is an ADHD trait). For example, one time we were taken to a school assembly and told that there was a "bad person" in the area and he was driving a white van with no windows and then we were sent home in groups to watch out for each other. From then on, I "knew" I would be kidnapped by a man in a white van and taken somewhere bad. I thought about it all the time. I was terrified of white vans. I also remember having "the talk" with my mom and realizing that someone could easily overpower and take advantage of me and from then on, well into adulthood, I "knew" that I would be accosted and assaulted one day. In fact, I didn't even mind when I began to hate myself for being fat and ugly (low self-esteem is another symptom of ADHD) because rapists don't attack fat and ugly girls. That was my way of comforting myself and finally getting over my anxiety about the idea of being attacked in a dark alley, which I never frequented so I'm not sure why it stuck out in my mind. I also thought I would die before I was 20 so I never thought long-term plans were necessary. Imagine my shock when I had to actually figure out what I was supposed to do with my life. I still feel like I will die by the next decade of my life, but somehow I keep beating the odds.

But here's what I'm getting at... I would read stories with "bad" characters as a child and I would blow up their level of "badness" to a whole other beast until I was terrified of them. I had nightmares about characters in books or things that scared me, no matter how illogical. I would wake up crying at night and still see visions of my nightmares in the room. It wasn't even what they said or how they looked, sometimes, in movies, it was how their voice sounded or how things repeated. I still can't handle watching Ursula from the Little Mermaid and would have to leave the room as a kid during that part because my nightmares would get so bad. Remember the "1, 2, 3, 4, 5..." song with the marble and flashing colours in Sesame Street? I would scream when it came on to the point where my brother would start singing it if he wanted me to go away. It still gives me shivers for no reason. So when I wrote an evil character, I wanted to write him as sufficiently evil and corrupt that people would not want to sympathize with him, but also not have him so creepy and perverted that girls dreamt of being attacked by him. It's a hard line to walk, to be honest, especially in writing. You can't write tone. A person's imagination adds the inflections. And having someone say, "Come into my room," when they're a friend and offering pizza brings up a whole different image than, "Come into my room," when another person is tied up and screaming inside. 

It's easier when there is a battle, which may or may not happen in this or another book. (NO SPOILERS!) But not as easy when a creepy old dude traps a young girl in a cave when he is known to murder women and children. That's bad enough, right?