: What are symbols for a highly painful and irreversible trauma of a woman? In my novel, I have a heroine, who must be hurt at the beginning of the story. I need to find a symbol for a deep trauma for a woman. That is, I'm

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First off: Since you exclude rape from the possible sources of trauma for your heroine, I don't think any other trauma is exclusively female, unless you go for the death of an unborn child. a.k.a. miscarriage. (Which, in my opinion, is even more of a cliché than rape. I'm a woman, and I get seriously annoyed whenever women in fiction are reduced to the mother role.)

However, when I wrote the comment above I thought: What is rape really about? It's not about sex. Wounds heal, but the reason rape victims are traumatized by their experience is the feeling of utter help- and powerlessness. When being raped, you are deprived of all the power you thought you had over your body and hence your life. You are reduced to a mere object without will, and possibly without a right to feelings. In the last consequence, rape shatters the identity between your will and your personality.

I hope you can agree that such an experience would be apt to scar your heroine very effectively and would also win her the sympathies of your readers.

However: Since you reject rape, let's think of something that is not rape but creates a similiar feeling of powerlessness. What else is there that instills us with help- and hopelessness? War: Feeling like a worthless pawn on a chess bord. Natural disasters: Just think of hurricane Katrina and Linkin Park's "The little Things give you away". Disease: Alzheimer's for example destroys your personality and there's nothing you can do about it. So if you want to go with the notion of a powerless heroine, you could just pick the situation that fits your story best, or simply is most interesting and engaing tou you.

Lastly: The symbol. Once you have identified the experience that scared your heroine, it should be straight forward to find a symbol that can represent this experience. War: A pair of worn boots, the sound of gunfire, a certain smell of dust, a posture in another person that hints at former military service, a phrase uttered in a foreign language. Natural disasters: A certain color of the sky, another shade of smell. Disease: Pretty straight-forward, but: a scar, a limp, a tiny stutter or another kind of speech impair that never quite left your heroine. What I try to point out is: Unless you have very good reasons for your symbol to be objective (and why would it be, to throw it away at some point? Nice idea, but then you can't just throw away memories, can you?), consider making it not objective.

For me, for example, there's nothing as much a symbol of Norway but a certain type of weather that brings out the full fresh smell of conifer forests. It's not something I can see or something I can touch, but it's there nevertheless, it's personal, and it's strong.

Hope that helped.

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It's very difficult to find a universal experience that everyone would find traumatic. It entirely depends on ones experiences and values. For example, I wouldn't be massively affected if I lost a leg because everything I enjoy doing I can do sitting down, whereas a professional athlete might have their life crushed by even breaking their leg and having it weakened permanently.

I can't imagine there are very many bad experiences that can occur to a woman that cannot happen to a man, so I will simply suggest what can happen to any human, that would be traumatic to most if not all.

My first suggestion would be to signify the trauma from watching her family die. Everyone has loved ones, and everyone would be upset if they lost them, so everyone can relate to that pain. So in order to magnify the horror of that happening, the worst thing that can happen to her is nothing at all.

Survivor's Guilt is a form of PTSD that is very powerful, as one must deal with the fact that they have been spared whilst others have not. It is very difficult to move past emotionally, as whilst the person continues to live, they will continue to suffer because of their very existence.

Every happy occasion will be tinged with the fact that whilst they are experiencing something wonderful, they may be doing it in the place of someone else who cannot experience these joys.

If it needs to be someone who is not part of the family, then perhaps it could be someone else who was close (such as one of her father's political aides) that helped to hide her when the attack started, who was then subsequently killed, or perhaps she was hidden and made a noise that caused the attackers to find someone else who was hiding and ended up being killed instead of her.

For a symbol that represents this, perhaps a locket with a picture of the family (although that is very clichéd), or another item of jewellery (such as a bracelet) containing charms that represents each of the family members that died. If it was another person who she feels guilty about getting killed, then perhaps they gave her a gift such as a bracelet that she wears in their memory.

My other suggestion would be that her dominant (likely right) hand gets injured during the attack, and rather than it being lost entirely, she simply loses some of her motor function. This could be magnified if her hobby or passion was something that required the use of her hand, such as intricate calligraphy, tinkering with electronic circuits, or playing a sport such as tennis or basketball. Everyone can relate to using their hands, so it would be sad to see someone struggle to do something most people take for granted.

This would be worse than losing her hand entirely, as it would serve as a reminder every time that she tries to use the hand that it she cannot quite use it properly, whilst still retaining some function. This may give her false hope that she may be able to regain the skill that she previously lost, but then when she fails she is reminded that the extent of the injury is permanent.

A physical symbol of this could be a single glove that she wears over that hand in order to hide any scars/ injuries that were sustained. This could provide a very good contrast when she looks at her hands together, as she can see her good hand free and exposed, whereas her injured hand is covered and hidden from the world.