Character Study: Me, Myself, and I

As I mentioned in this month’s Behind the Scene, I started writing Transgression as a way to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be.

I relate a lot to Noland and what he said in his interview, “I like to hunt down my areas of weakness and turn them into strengths.” The best way for me to do that was to take a good, long, honest look at myself and come to terms with what I was, and what I was working with. I thought that would be easier to do in bite sized, manageable chunks.

So I did what any sane person would do, and I divided myself into three very different, very separate people. I used three characters to take an intimate look at the very different facets of my personality- to see how they interacted with each other and discover which one’s I liked, which ones I didn’t, which ones I needed, and which one’s I could let go of.

Thus Achaia, Yellaina, and Amelia were born.

Achaia was what I considered to be the bulk of my personality. I was willful, stubborn and strong out of necessity. Those were the characteristics I had taken on to not only survive my trauma’s, but to thrive in the aftermath. Much like John Watson in BBC’s SHERLOCK, the fighting to survive had in its own way become my comfort zone. Thus Achaia’s spiritual gift.

Amelia was who I considered to be a second step down. See at the time I was still in the throes of PTSD, and didn’t realise just how much baggage I was lugging around. It was my “normal”. So angst was a main stay of my mood and person. I was distrusting of people, and kept everyone at arms length, because that had served me well and helped me to survive my past circumstances. Isolating myself had kept me safe. I embraced and leaned into my pain, as a tool that had sharpened me. This, Amelia’s gift.

Yellaina was the feminine side of me that I had always believed to be weak, and embarrassing. I was ashamed of that part of myself and stifled it at every opportunity. Because in my life and circumstances, I could never afford to be perceived as weak. I fully intended to Yellaina to not be a crucial character, and to be a very small part in the story- but turns out, the joke was on me.

As I got older, and the characters developed into their own agency and person, I stopped thinking about that genesis of the characters. It wasn’t until after I published Penance, that I realised that just as Yellaina was really coming into her own and showing her value- despite her physical weakness- that I had also embraced my femininity.

***Spoiler Alert for those who haven’t read Penance***

In that same book, Amelia’s sacrifice was in a way, me saying goodbye to that angsty side of myself, and my trauma baggage to move forward in joy and liberation. Sorry Amelia!

Ironically, the character I had tried the hardest to push down, persisted to become a hugely integral part of the story- just as that part of my personality is more obviously embraced when you see me today. People are shocked when I tell them how angsty I was through high school and college. They can’t believe it. Because very little of me resembles Amelia anymore (though I still keep a healthy distance from people and don’t like to be touched).

All three characters are so different, but if you were to put them all together into one person, that would have been 19 year old me. Now the characters have grown and developed, and thank God, so have I. But that is how the cast came to be, back at the genesis of it all. And that played a huge part in helping me through my trauma, PTSD, and beyond.