The Kindness Bench for SimLit Writers - For All Games!
What is a kindness bench? Kindness benches are inspired by the Buddy Bench movement which is in practice in many schools. With Buddy Benches, children who need someone to play with or talk to at lu...
"noxxims;15031508" wrote: Thanks, that's what I've been doing so far.
Also, regarding the book you mentioned in an earlier post, it sounds really interesting. I had a course on the biological basis of behaviour in school last year and stress was a really important topic. Basically when we get stressed, the brain releases a hormone that gives the body energy to respond as it would need to in a fight or flight situation (sympathetic nervous system) so we really do become addicted to this feeling as if it were a drug.
As we know, too much stress has a negative impact on the body because while this fight or flight mechanism is helpful in the short term, constant activation puts strain on the heart, stomach, etc.
There's a TED Talks with Katy McGonigal "How to make stress your friend" that talks about the adaptive and maladaptive effects of stress.
@noxxims That sounds like a great video! I'll check it out. I hadn't realized that people can become addicted to the bio-chemicals and hormones associated with stress. It makes sense, though, because we can become addicted to all sorts of bio-chemicals and hormones.
This author (Doreen Virtue) also mentions two additional responses to stress (in addition to flight and fight) which are freeze (deer-in-headlight) and fawn (people-pleasing).
I watched a video she made about "how to deal with difficult relationships" in which she says studies indicate that those who've responded to trauma with the fight response tend towards narcissism; those who've responded with flight tend towards OCD; those who've responded with freeze tend towards dissociation, and those who've responded with fawn tend towards co-dependency (hyper-awareness of others' moods and the attempt to change or "fix" them).
For me, just becoming aware of all of this helps tremendously. And I think, with my writing, I'll be able to integrate this knowledge to create rounder pictures of my characters and their responses and interactions.
I'm always amazed at the Sim animations and coding of responses/behaviors, for we can often see these types of responses in our Sims.
In my legacy, I had a Sim who grew up with a verbally abusive aunt at home: and she responded with both freeze and fawn. When she was a young adult, her romantic choices were all verbally abusive men. This all happened autonomously: I played the "tough love" super-ego and prevented her from pursuing those unhealthy romantic attachments, but it was all very curious to me. I could've used this info when writing up the chapters dealing with these events!
This is really interesting, @CathyTea, especially with the different responses - fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. I think Kass has a tendency to "freeze" as she seems dazed by things as they happen and almost distant at times, and afterward has a tendency to cut things out of her life and stay at a distance from everyone,
like her breakup with Davis, how she tunes out her Nonna when her Nonna is lecturing her after the night she spent with Gage, her avoidance of Gage, her avoidance of telling her sisters about their father, her avoidance of her father, her avoidance of confronting her feelings for her boss, her lashing out/avoiding Ayesha after the argument, and now her avoidance of her mother.
I would say also that Kass has moments of "flight" - running away and trying to control things, and occasional fawn - as she likes to "fix" things for everyone and please everyone around her and even a moment of fight - getting wrapped up in how bad things are for her and lashing out irrationally at others without concern for their emotions/experiences. I think this actually makes her well-rounded because she exhibits all of them at times. Well, I think she is the most well-rounded developed character I have, so that's probably why. She feels the most real to me.
On the other hand, Rachel from the Colt Family Traitacy and Gage from Kass's series and now his own, are definitely fawners - co-dependent and hanging onto potentially negative and harmful relationships and using relationships with others as an excuse not to confront problems. I agree with you as knowing their responses to pain, suffering, agony, grief, and aggravation definitely helps me as a writer figure out how to better create scenes for them and deepen their character development.
It's interesting that your Sim autonomously chose bad relationships because of her home life experience. This is so true of life, isn't it? I'm amazed to see how well the Sims mimic life at times. It's both sad and fascinating, depending on the situation.
