How Trauma Treats the Wallflower

Wallflower, informal noun, “a person who does not dance at a party because they do not have someone to dance with or because they are too shy”(Learners n.d.). In recent times media has become enamored with the idea of the wallflower, as protagonists, especially in young adult stories, have switched from the popular kids to those on the outskirts, and none exemplifies this quite as good as the novel-turned-film The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the story of a high school freshman Charlie (Logan Lerman). After his only friend commits suicide the previous spring, Charlie starts school alone, closing himself off from others, until he meets seniors Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson). Through connecting with Patrick and Sam, Charlie learns about life, love, happiness, and himself as he works through his first year of high school. Part of what Charlie learns is trauma, not just his own, but that of those around him. Trauma affects everyone differently, from its origin to dealing with it, to defense mechanisms, to treatment. Its wide-ranging uniqueness is something that’s not often shown in media, as characters who deal with trauma usually fit into one of a couple stereotypes, but The Perks of Being a Wallflower shows that large range of abuse, trauma, and treatment that is often ignored, that of the sub-clinical. There is so much that people go through in term of trauma from abuse to treatment that people will go through and having a piece of media depict that is important for public understanding. Trauma can start many ways, with abuse perpetrated against the subject being just one aspect, with actions taken by someone also being able to start trauma. Trauma then moves on to the subject, they have to learn to live with it in some way. There are many methods to dealing with trauma with a range of effects on the subject, ranging from downplaying it to allowing it to define who you are and everything in-between the two. Finally, moving past the trauma and treating it is the only next step. Treating trauma, especially deep-seated trauma, is something that’s inherently difficult but even absent of professional help, friends and family can have a profound effect. This timeline is important to understand as basically everyone with mental health issues will travel along it, and media often skips steps or provides shallow commentary which can give people an improper idea of living with mental health issues, or even put down people who live with those issues because all their problems weren’t immediately solved like in the movies.

Abuse and the origins of trauma can start anywhere, any when, and never affects two people the same. Trauma can come from very many places, with the most visible and most talked about source being physical abuse and violent altercations. These happen multiple times throughout the film, with three events portraying very different circumstances and effects. First, we have Charlie’s sister Candice (Nina Dobrev) being hit by her boyfriend Ponytail Derek (Nicholas Braun). Partner abuse is a well-researched subject, and current literature on it says that it is very common for those who experience physical violence to have been experiencing non-physical types of abuse from their partner for even years without recognizing it as abuse (Outlaw 2009). This is shown in the film with Candice and Derek being in a loud argument, which doesn’t appear to be a rare occurrence, before Candice mentions something Derek is particularly sensitive about, and subsequently, being hit. Violence from those closest is a multifaceted issue, as its not just Domestic Violence, but includes things like child abuse as well. Child abuse isn’t shown to us, but it has a profound effect on characters in the story, namely Patrick and his closeted boyfriend Brad (Johnny Simmons). In the film Brad, who as I mentioned is closeted, and Patrick are discovered by Brad’s father, who then proceeds to beat Brad. After trying to step in, Brad is the one who tells Patrick to leave. There is more than one kind of abuse going on here, one is the obvious dad beating up his son for being gay abuse, while the other is the much more subtle emotional abuse of making your son keep who he is a secret, and this type of abuse started way before this movie takes place, probably during Brad’s childhood. This type of emotional abuse leads to Brad internalizing his father’s homophobia, which has been shown to link childhood abuse with depression symptoms and PTSD symptoms in homosexual males (Gold et al. 2011), but as this is a subclinical analysis, I will not be going into detail about that specifically, I am just bringing it up to show that internalized homophobia is a response to trauma and can cause its own problems. The Perks of Being a Wallflower does touch on this, with Brad later calling Patrick a homophobic slur in the lunchroom, starting a fight which prompts the third instance of violent altercations causing trauma, Charlie participating in this fight. Charlie sees Patrick being beat up and steps in to protect him, he then blacks out, waking up after he has beat up the bullies. This scares Charlie, as not remembering such a violent action would scare almost anyone. This shows that not only those who are victims of violence are affected psychologically, there is also affects for those who do the violence. Its important to note in this instance, and others in real life, just because someone is the one who did the violent act, doesn’t make them a criminal, and it could even be argued the word perpetrator doesn’t apply either. Charlie did not start the encounter and can be compared to someone experiencing trauma after harming or killing someone in self-defense (Agar 2012). Charlies blacking out is similar to what happened earlier in his life, being sexual abused by his Aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey) when he was a child. This brings us to the second type of abuse and origin of trauma focused on in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, sexual abuse. Charlie, as mentioned, was the target of sexual abuse by his aunt when he was a child, which lasted until her death. Another character who is a victim of sexual abuse is Sam, who also as a child was sexually abused, but unlike Charlie it wasn’t by her family, it was by her father’s boss. Much of the film focuses on how this abuse affects the characters, especially Charlie, as they deal with it in a myriad of ways.

Dealing with trauma is just as important a focus as what causes it. As abuse happens and trauma forms and begins to fester, its only natural that the mind would form defense mechanisms to help deal with the trauma. Many types of defense mechanisms are shown throughout the film and are portrayed in very many styles and circumstances. Repression, Downplaying, and Internalization are the main three types of defense mechanisms shown throughout the film. Repression is when painful or traumatic experiences, or unacceptable impulses are subconsciously pushed down as a protection from negative feelings, like anxiety, depression, etc., taking over. The main source of repression in the film is from the main character Charlie and his trauma from being sexually assaulted. Charlie after the abuse he faced and his aunt dying in a car crash, suppresses those memories, inducing amnesia (Austriani 2017) that affects Charlie until the end of the film. This mirrors what happens to Charlie after the fight in the lunchroom, so its something Charlie has a disposition for. Repression isn’t just for memories, it is also for feelings deemed “unacceptable”, this applies to Brad, Patrick’s former lover. We are told Brad spends years in the closet, only seeing Patrick romantically behind locked doors, because of the homophobia not only his father, but also society and his friends display. Brad represses his feelings in public. Brad lies to his friends about how he got his injuries, saying he was jumped when his dad beat him, and even after Patrick gets beat up, he thanks Charlie for stepping in, even though he could have stepped in himself at any time. Brads repressions of his feelings hurt him and those he loves, namely Patrick. Patrick also shows repression on a smaller scale, after being pushed away from Brad after witnessing him getting abused, Patrick slips into a depression, but as everyone sees him as this energetic, quirky, happy-go-lucky person, he pushes down his feelings and tries to be what people expect him to be, but ultimately it isn’t working, and he breaks down. The second type of defense mechanism in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the downplaying of the abuse and trauma. This is mainly seen through Candice downplaying the abuse she receives from Ponytail Derek. After being hit, she tells Charlie who tries to step in to stay back claiming she can “handle” him. Ponytail Derek is looked down on by the people at the school, which leads to Candice’s underestimation of him and her belief that she can handle him. She perceived the power balance in their relationship to be so far in her favor that when Derek hit her, that perceived balance was thrown so far out of balance, she rebounded and significantly downplayed the abuse because it caused the imbalance itself (Arriaga et al. 2018). The final strategy shown in the film is internalization. Internalization in this context is when someone takes what is expected of them, even if its an unfair or hurtful expectation, and conforms to that expectation. This is effect by labels is mainly seen with an increase with so called deviant behavior (Garcia n.d.). This is seen in mainly the step siblings Sam and Patrick, who both internalize others’ opinions in some way even if they act like they are above what others think of them. Sam, as a result of being sexual abused, gets the perception of being “easy” and ends up engaging with this expectation and sleeps around throughout her adolescence into high school. This internalization is told to us in the film with Patrick mentioning how he hates it that Sam makes herself “seem small” around men, something that is addressed in her character development later in the film. Patrick also displays internalization, though it may seem less obvious. Patrick is shown to not be a popular person, and is routinely made fun of in school, its possible that he has taken these years of bullying and microaggressions into himself and becomes the strange, weird person people expect him to be. This may seem like an unsubstantiated theory off the bat, but after Patrick lets the cracks in his façade show while opening up to Charlie, it becomes much more probable.

Opening up to friends is only one way to try and deal with your trauma, in fact there are almost an, if not an actual infinite among of was to deal with trauma. Some ways are much healthier than others, and they vary in effectiveness. Whether it’s treatment alone, or with help from friends, family or professionals, whether it works or not treatment or attempt to treat issues is an important step in the lifetime of someone is mental health issues. Friends are an important part of the recovery process, having peers that do not judge and actively try and help is important for positive growth, and friend’s effect can even been profound in the opposite direction, if the friends and peers aren’t helpful they can produce great negative effects in the person in need (Schön, Denhov, and Topor 2009). Patrick’s trauma of what he experienced with and because of Brad affects him severely and has been mentioned at every step in this paper, and as it has been mentioned, it culminated with Patrick breaking down in Charlie’s arms. Hiding his love, seeing his boyfriend beaten, and finally being violently rejected took its toll on Patrick and while he was repressing it, it only festered. This leads to the aforementioned break down but, through Charlie being there for him, Patrick gets better and eventually overcomes his trauma. Charlie also helps Sam understand her trauma, and work past it. Sam has been defined by her trauma since a young age but having Charlie there, someone who genuinely loves her for her, not her body, or some fake persona she wears, she starts to understand her trauma and how it is affecting her, leading to her no longer making herself “small”. Charlie doesn’t just facilitate healing by friendship, he also makes use of it, and his journey with it is a main focus on the film. Charlie starts the story alone, with his poor mental health ruling his life, but after he makes friends with Patrick and Sam, his life and attitudes start to improve, he becomes happier and more outgoing, which is reflected in the letters he writes to his pen pal. Eventually when Charlie is isolated from the friend group, he relapses and desperately tries to restore the friendship as he feels much worse now that he knows the happiness he had with his friends, and hes alone again. There is also the example from later in the movie, through his connection with his friends, especially with Sam, he starts to wear down the walls keeping his previous trauma from his aunt at bay down. This resurfacing of old trauma may have resulted in a breakdown in the short term but dealing with that trauma has a positive effect long term and wouldn’t have happened without his connection with his friends. Family is just as important as friends in dealing with mental health, and like with friends, the polarity of its effect is determined by actions taken by the family and can be significant (Aldersey and Whitley 2015). Charlie’s family is the most present throughout the movie and has an impact on Charlie’s journey. While his family tries to give him a normal family experience, there are significant moments where they show they are there for him and they try to reach out to help him even without all the information. Not once do they judge him for needing help or say his trauma isn’t bad or real. Apart from Charlie’s family, other families are mentioned, but because of the type of parenting mixed with Charlie being the main character, we don’t see much. Other parents appear to be negligent at best with Mary Kate seemingly almost always having the house to herself, or abusive at the worst, like Sam’s “asshole dad” who did enough for Sam’s mom to leave him, though it’s unclear if Sam’s sexual assault by her father’s boss had something to do with it. The movie caps off with what is the final method of healing and treatment, professional help. Professional treatment is not sought out in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it still is shown. While today, and even in 2012 when the movie was made, professional mental health assistance is somewhat normal, with the stigma around therapy and the freedom of information being prevalent. However, in the 1990s when the film was set and the book was written, that information was not well spread, and the stigma around mental health assistance was very much present (Rickwood, Deane, and Wilson 2007). Charlie is put into psychiatric care temporarily near the end of the film after a break down which is significant enough to get his sister to worry that he is going to commit suicide, prompting her to call the cops. The help is shown to be very helpful, with Charlie spending some time full time in the hospital, but eventually getting released to go home with once-a-week therapy going forward. This is both shown and told to his that it helped him significantly to deal with his past trauma, and he walks away not only in a healthier place, but in a place where he is open to the journey forward (M.Phil Research Scholar, Department of English, St. John‟s College, Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu, India and John 2016).

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an important piece of media, it represents so many groups not represented in very many pieces of media and gives a positive, but also realistic, representation of problems that many of those people would deal with. Mental health problems, symptoms, and solutions experienced by real life people being represented in a manner that doesn’t focus on the clinical or medical side of things is important as not everyone deals with clinical problems. Almost 20 percent of American adults were said to have sought mental health help and that is surely not everyone with a mental health problem, not to mention therapy doesn’t mean someone needs clinical help, as not everybody who goes to therapy is diagnosed or traditionally treated. While the film does show professional, clinical help, the majority of the film depicts aspects that people all over can and will experience and work through by themselves or with the help of family and friends. Not every mental health reference in media is about a diagnosis, and the discussion of effects and causes of things like trauma in a subclinical and real way in media is important for people who experience it. Media that shows us, or in this case young adults, is especially important because we can relate and sympathize with the characters, maximizing their effect on us. We learn from the media we watch, learn what is okay, learn how to deal with things, and learn about ourselves.

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