fandomhigh | First Aid for Fandom

The Danger Shop today looked like a comfortable (albeit somewhat luxurious) living room - not a body in sight.

Yet, anyway.

"Not all first aid, particularly in Fandom, involves physical damage," Hannibal said. "This past Halloween's happenings involved little or no wounding, so far as I'm aware or radio reported. However, there are undoubtedly those who have been harmed by it. Psychological damage can be more difficult to detect and treat, but it is nonetheless there."

He leaned on the edge of a table and looked them over. "It also demands an entirely different sort of first aid. In some respects, it is the same as you've been learning so far - treat the symptoms until the individual can arrive at professional help. However, in this time and place, professional help of a psychological nature is often denigrated or even shunned, and your help may be the only assistance a person gets - if they are even willing to accept it."

He smiled wryly. "Which is not to say I expect any of you to become experts in psychology and psychological damage. But learning what you can of it would certainly be helpful. Today's exercise, then, will be to speak to each other. I want each of you to come up with one thing that has hurt you, even traumatized you, in the past. Talk about it, discuss why it hurt, and work with each other to come up with something that would have helped at the time, and perhaps something that might even help now."

He held up a hand. "If you are uncomfortable with speaking of a past trauma in front of your classmates, come up with something reasonable, perhaps something that hurt someone that you've known. Solve someone else's problem if not your own. Although you would also do well to consider on your own why it is you have such issues with a thing still. And of course," he spread his hands, "should you wish professional help, please feel free to see me after class."

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Talk about trauma - yours, someone else's, yours disguised as someone else's...

Peridot was so bad at this. Rather than looking for a partner, she sort of just sat there with wide deer-in-headlights eyes and contemplated what in the room she could possibly hide behind until class was through.

There was no hiding. Hannibal pulled up a chair next to her. "Are you having difficulty with this?"

"Difficulty? Me? What sort of difficulty could I, the great and adorable Peridot, possibly be having with a lesson like this?"

Yes. Yes she was.

"It would seem you have one more thing in common with humans of this time and place, then," Hannibal said, leaning forward to confide. "They have a similar lack of problems."

Or ability to admit to them.

Peridot squinted a little at that.

"But they have so many problems."

So did you, 'Dot.

"They don't think so," Hannibal pointed out.

"Do they not think so, or do they simply not believe anybody is properly capable of comprehending the nature of those problems as well as they would themselves?"

You know, not thinking about any Gem in particular.

"A bit of both," Hannibal said. "It's easy to believe that nobody else can understand your problems as purely as you can. And to an extent, it is of course true. But often your own viewpoints contain so much of yourself in them, that an outside viewpoint sees more clearly."

Peridot paused for a long moment at that one, and then hedged, "One would think it would be difficult to understand the viewpoint of a person whose entire nature you can't really comperehend."

"It can be, yes," Hannibal acknowledged. "But when you comprehend so little, it often means you see things that that person may not, either."

"Or you could get everything horribly wrong," Peridot countered, "and end up doing more damage than you might have done otherwise."

"Perhaps," Hannibal said. "But I'm speaking of advice, not surgery. Working together, you can achieve a great deal."

Re: Class activity

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Kaylin was not about to talk about any of this with anyone.

Though Hannibal could probably get her to agree to talk about some of it later privately.

Her face was a mix between stubborn refusal, fear, and a blank face.

"Perhaps a discussion of others' trauma?" Hannibal suggested. "What are some things you've witnessed, here or at home?"

Kaylin shook her head. If she opened her mouth and tried to say anything it might just be ugly.

Hannibal sat near her. "Are you certain? No questions you'd like answered?"

"What's there to ask?" she finally managed. "Bad things happen to people."

"And have you never wanted to help them after the fact?" Hannibal asked.

Kaylin looked up at him, her face full of desperation. "Please don't make me talk about this here," she said so quietly that he probably would have to listen carefully to hear her.

Hannibal nodded. "Perhaps later, then," he answered, not much louder.

She nodded, barely able to meet his eyes.

Hannibal raised an eyebrow at that. "You don't want to speak about it here; there is no shame in that. Be firm and proud in your conviction."

"It's not the not talking that makes me ashamed," she said quietly.

"You have no cause to be ashamed for the reason behind it, either," Hannibal assured her. "If it was not your doing, it is not your shame. If it was your doing, it was either intentional or not. If it were unintentional, there is no reason to be ashamed. If it were intentional, then you should own and be proud of your decision, or acknowledge it was faulty and not make it again."

He shook his head, smiling. "But I won't make you speak of it here."

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