Writing About Trauma

Flannery O’Connor in Mystery and Manners wrote: “The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; and it is well to remember that the serious fiction writer always writes about the whole world, no matter how limited his particular scene.”

PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is more commonly discussed and written about in the 2000s than in previous decades. Sometimes PTSD is referred to as PTS, not labeling the stress a disorder. My first job was working in an inpatien...