Popcxqueen

I never saw the original YET, so I love love love the remake. To each their own, and sometimes I like the original of something better too, so I get it.

Yes! What have you seen already?

Thanks for sharing your story, and for your encouragement!
Trauma, and one's response(s) to it, has a lot to do with what's called "perception of overwhelm." If a potentially traumatic thing happens to someone, and they 'perceive' it to be 'overwhelming', then it's much more likely to cause a trauma response. Perception is reality. So yes, in a way you could say that it's often about an interpretation of the events rather than the events themselves. That's one aspect of a trauma response.
Overwhelm could also refer to how a person's nervous system, where a trauma response often originates, reacts to potentially traumatic events.

I want to be very, very clear here that this almost always is subconscious, it's not an ACTUAL choice to either perceive an overwhelm or to choose to be overwhelmed. It's not our fault if we perceive something to be overwhelming - it just 'is.' Our brains and nervous systems do this subconsciously, and often our 'thinking' brain doesn't realize what's happening. We're all one body, obviously, but sometimes certain parts of our body take over and do things subconsciously, (like breathing and digestion.) This is also true often of trauma and how we respond to it.

This is a very simplistic way of explaining this, but I want to use plain language so folks can understand what I'm saying. (And I'd like to normalize these kinds of conversations as well.)

This is a very nuanced question, because no one drama gets it right completely, and some dramas I've watched have just one or two particular scenes where a character says or does something that matches reality. :-) Plus trauma is very complex and has lots of different facets to it, and is different for everyone.

But all that said, the one drama that had enough right on enough aspects of trauma (for me) was Just Between Lovers. And I will think seriously about writing an article on this, so maybe I won't expound too much more here. But suffice it to say, that that drama was often quite realistic in its portrayal of both the physiological and emotional symptoms of a "primary" trauma (often called PTSD but actually becoming more complex than that diagnosis), as well as the secondary trauma and the secondary impacts of trauma on family members, friends, and the larger community.)
I'm not saying that it was 100%, and folks might quibble with this bit or that bit in the drama, and that's fine, but it gets enough right for me.

One other recommendation would be Melo is My Nature, which shows the complex link between grief and trauma and how it can manifest in our bodies and brains.

The same storytelling device is actually used in both dramas to describe one particular way the two characters' experienced their grief/trauma, and I actually really liked how it was done in both dramas. What I liked was that - for both characters - it wasn't the ONLY way their traumas were experienced, it was just one aspect. I also liked that neither drama showed a quick fix - yes, both dramas had romantic elements to them, but they weren't magical fixes.

I haven't seen Age of Youth, so thanks for the recommendation.

Thanks to the author of this article for starting the conversation here. I've felt this same way watching endless dramas with a character suffering from some sort of trauma. As a trauma researcher and educator, I've had to tune out most of the trauma parts, so that I could enjoy the rest. (I wrote a thesis on secondary traumatic stress, or secondary trauma, which is the trauma that is actually "contagious" - contagious like yawns are contagious - with mirror neurons - and that you can "catch" from the trauma responses in people close to you. That understanding of trauma is almost never depicted, or depicted in any way accurately.)
The traumas portrayed in the average drama are often the most severe, the most reactive, or the worst possible physical responses to a traumagenic (traumatic) event or events, like going into a full-on hyperventilating panic attack when the lights get switched off, or seeing a certain object, or being near water, or going face-blind, or getting amnesia, etc, etc. Dramas almost always make it appear that if you get kidnapped as a child, or almost drown, or experience parental violence, or witness a violent event, that you will all react the same way, with almost the same symptoms, for the same amount of time - that is, until a love interest, etc. comes and then you're miraculously cured. When in reality, the way someone responds to the very real traumas that happen to oneself and those around them, is dependent on a whole host of factors, including past trauma history, community support, biological makeup, etc.
That said, have I known people who have reacted to trauma events like they do in dramas? YES. (Especially those who have experienced severe violence and war.) Does everyone who almost drowns as a child react with a panic attack when they get close to water (like in Please Feel At Ease, Mr. Ling, and five other K-, C- and TW-dramas that I can name right now)? Absolutely not. Trauma can cause a whole host of physiological, emotional, and cognitive (thinking) symptoms that can range from unexplained stomachaches and migraines to persistent joint, muscle, and lower and upper back pain. It's not all panic attacks and nightmares and amnesia (but of course it can be sometimes too.)

I've been thinking for a long time about writing an article on here about this very topic and discussing the dramas that actually DO get different aspects of a trauma portrayal right, (and there have been a few) but it's felt kind of daunting and so I haven't done it yet.

If you like it I can recommend more!

They’re all subbed, thankfully!

Same!! :-)

1st: Rurouni Kenshin - Part I: Origins
2nd: Rurouni Kenshin - Part II: Kyoto Inferno
3rd: Rurouni Kenshin - Part III: The Legend Ends
4th: Rurouni Kenshin: The Final
5th: Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning

You should watch them in order and they follow along chronologically, until you get to the 5th, which is actually a prequel to all of them...but you're still going to want to start at the beginning, which is Part I: Origins.

The Beginning (5th one) will be released on Netflix on July 30th, which is super exciting and has yet another ONE OK ROCK song as its theme song, "Broken Heart of Gold."

(The last two are on Netflix and I bought the first three streaming on Amazon Prime US.)

Here's my favorite one of their OSTs - from Kingdom:
https://youtu.be/r2YttaMVf6c

And this is a close second favorite, from Rurouni Kenshin (the video shows clips from all five movies and just watching this makes me want to go watch all of them again, in order. So, so good.)
https://youtu.be/PAl0r726_nk

And it's completely worth it! LOL!

And Kingdom 2 will be out most likely in '22, so if you haven't seen the first one yet, you'll be able to hear "Wasted Nights" at the end...[heart emoji]

Yes, you should to know what's going on. The first three can be rented on Amazon Prime US and probably some other streaming sites. The Final is on Netflix US and I'm imagining The Beginning will be as well.

Unless she's having a mental health crisis. I know plenty of actors who had to quit leading roles on their own because they needed to receive treatment. None of us are there so we don't know and won't know.

I LOVE ONE OK ROCK...!!! You should see the new Rurouni Kenshin movies as well! They've contributed OSTs for each one, as well as for Kingdom (which has two other faves of mine in it: Kento and Ryo.)

They all sang and rapped in Japanese throughout that whole song, which makes three languages that they've sang and rapped in so far. Quite impressive. I've read articles about how they worked to become flexibly-fluent enough to be able to sing/rap in English and in Japanese.

I loved Your Eyes Tell, and I think Jungkook's song for the OST fit the film perfectly. Thanks for the article and recommendations! Where did you watch Seobok? I'd like to see that one.

Furritsubs

Agreed!