Shell-Shocked Veterans in fanfiction.
- In Abraxas
, Vivienne Graham's experience of being eaten alive by Ichi has turned her into this after she's reborn as part of a human-Ghidorah chimera. The Trauma Conga Line she's suffered since certainly hasn't helped. - In Aftershocks, J.D. from Heathers is one. The fic explores PTSD's strain on his already-unstable psyche and relationship with his family.
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if Tobias and Rachel lived in NYC post-war?", Rachel and Tobias moved away from their hometown mainly because the war-anniversary celebrations were too much for them to handle.
- Gloria in Anachronism is a trainer sent back in time after she dies. Gloria has kept all her memories and trauma from then. Even battling triggers her, to a degree.
- Becoming the Mask (Trollhunters): During his fight against Draal in the Hero's Forge, Jim briefly loses himself, thinking for a moment that he was fighting for his life in Gunmar's crucible.
- While normally the timid and sarcastic boy he has always been, a mix of the Romans destroying Helgafjall and the people he has come to call his own and Cold-Blooded Torture by Alvin the Treacherous has left Hiccup in The Boy Behind The Mask with internal scars that turn him into The Berserker should any of his friends or family be threatened, nearly killing Snotlout when he called Katja a whore and mowing down countless Outcasts (even cleaving Savage in-half) with inhuman ferocity.
- Boxed Step: Luna wears what she had on during the Final Battle for more than two years and is homeless for a period, while Harry has trouble making toast because the popping noise is a flashback trigger and runs for hours without stopping when he realizes that Ginny wants a baby.
- By the Sea: Obi-Wan is severely mentally scarred from his time fighting in World War II and feels absolutely nothing positive for it, especially not after he watched Anakin die in his arms. He has constant, debilitating nightmares and dissociative flashbacks to battles and hearing the cries of the dying, and of Anakin's last moments. He only starts to get some relief after he makes friends with Cody, who realizes what's happening and wakes him from his nightmares and sings him through his episodes, helping to ground him in the present.
- Child of the Storm:
- It's implied that Tony's issues post-New York have only been partially dealt with in the altered timeline and that they're still simmering under the surface.
- Harry gets some actual therapy in a surprising aversion of There Are No Therapists from Charles Xavier (and later, Dani Moonstar), though that's mostly for his abandonment issues. Later on, he develops full-on PTSD, as does Carol Danvers, with one reviewer who'd suffered from PTSD remarking that the descriptions were dead on. It only gets worse in the sequel.
- Harry Dresden most certainly qualifies as this, and like the other Harry, gets therapy from Charles Xavier, though his is rather more extensive.
- In Chrysalis Visits The Hague, Shining Armor shows signs of increasing paranoia and obsession as a direct result of Chrysalis' mind control. Estermann and the ex-soldier Mjoberg lampshade this heavily.
- Dr Tofu fears this has happened to Ranma in the fanfic, Cold Dragon. This was especially worrisome given the combination of Ranma's end-of-manga skill level and a tendency of those in this state to deal with things in the most direct and effective manner possible. Made worse when Tofu realizes that Genma had been effectively trying to create this state with his Training from Hell teaching style. And then Ranma becomes the eponymous 'Cold Dragon'.
- In Coming Back, Broken, while Jim and Claire seem to have bounced back from the horrifying conditions they had endured in the Darklands, it is clear that the uninhabitable conditions and Gunmar's inhumane treatment have left them with a few scars beneath the skin.
- Most characters from The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum. Marcus Renee, the (usual) protagonist, is implied to have PTSD. As is Stephan Bauer, the other protagonist, who still has nightmares over being forced to Mercy Kill an entire classroom of children. Still, for pure war-related trauma, both pale in comparison to Viktor M. Kraber, the resident Sharlto Copley expy, who attempts to shoot Luna twice, though he's stopped both times. He's a heavy drinker, has a habit of resorting to torture, and is perpetually bad-tempered. However, this is only because he lost his wife and children to TCB!Pinkie Pie.
- The Desert Storm:
- Ben Naasade/Obi-Wan Kenobi has PTSD from his time in the Clone Wars. While he's fine for the most part, he is prone to having flashbacks, experiences panic attacks, and frequently suffers from nightmares about the war, and when he hits a particular stress point it's apparent to anyone familiar with 'TSR'note that he's got it bad. Once this becomes public knowledge among the Jedi, he's actually seen in a more sympathetic light, as it explains much of his behavior.
- Jango Fett isn't quite as severely affected, but becoming the last of his clan and very nearly the last of his entire branch of Mandalorian culture did a number on him, and being Made a Slave at some point afterwards didn't help. It mostly manifests in his occasional bouts of Anger Born of Worry towards Bo-Katen, Satine, and even Ben at times, but he still suffers from bouts of paranoia (only occasionally unjustified, admittedly) and occasional nightmare.
- Quinlan Vos was unwise enough to use his Force power of psychometry on Ben's lightsaber because he wanted to understand his friend's Master better. He gained the understanding he was looking for, but he was far happier when he didn't. Of all these examples he's the closest to being fully recovered thanks to some unconventional but effective treatment from the Nightsisters of Dathomir, but the experience still left its mark in a way he will never be completely free from.
- Like in Animorphs canon, Jake has symptoms of post-traumatic stress in Eleutherophobia. He's hypervigilant, sometimes reflexively flinches when Tom comes near him because he used to be the face of an enemy, and has a panic attack during his testimony in Total Recall. Cassie isn't as bad as him, but it's mentioned in A Straight Line Down Through the Heart that she instinctively mistrusts ex-hosts, flinches at loud noises, and feels suffocated by outer clothes in case she needs to morph in a hurry.
- Used as part of the deconstruction of Fallout by Fallout: Equestria, where Littlepip’s experiences and body count continue to exhibit an increasing toll on her sanity as the story goes on. Applesnack/Steelhooves also exhibits signs of severe combat stress, and getting him some therapy alongside Celestia, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy might well have averted the apocalypse entirely. It’s suggested in-story that Equestria’s lack of experience with fighting total war meant they were totally unprepared for large-scale PTSD, or its consequences.
- Naruto in First Try Series ends up this way after taking the Chunin Exam in Kiri. A trap set by an Iwa team kills half of his companions and brutally maims two more, causing him to use the Nine Tails' chakra and wipe out the ambushers. Around the time canon starts, Naruto reacts to Konohamaru's childish attack on Sarutobi by pinning him to the floor and trying to drive a kunai through his skull, only being stopped by Sarutobi catching his wrist.
- Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris shows us how Barry Allen is after the events of Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, and considering he's riddled with clear tell-tale signs of post-traumatic stress disorder it's apparent that keeping the memories of what happened in that film is not good on the man's psyche. Not helping him is the fact the main villain knows this and uses it to his advantage at times, sending shapeshifters who resemble those from Barry's past to fight him, even blaming him for what happened to them, only furthering Barry's mental turmoil.
- Forward:
- It seems to come and go with River. On the one hand, she's (rightfully) traumatized by everything that's happened to her. On the other hand, when she's in control, she has a razor-sharp focus that lets her bury that sort of detail far below conscious thought. And on the third hand, she's still a little bit crazy.
- Just about everyone else features shades of it, too. Mal and Zoe, of course, inherit theirs from canon, while Kaylee is still messed up over the Near-Rape Experience in "Objects In Space" and Book's past (whatever that may be) is clearly still in the back of his mind.
- Frayed Edges: Michael Afton's horrifically abusive and traumatic childhood and his experiences dealing with murderous animatronics have left him with severe PTSD. He suffers from frequent flashbacks and panic attacks, and he's often paranoid that the people he cares about secretly hate him, which isn't getting into his extremely low self-worth and suicidal ideation.
- Green Ice interprets Bertie Wooster as one, having been so broken by his experiences in the trenches that he's in denial about the whole war ever having happened and retreated into a sort of fantasy. This seems to have affected more than just his memory, as his frivolousness, dependency on Jeeves, and inability to plan for the future all appear to be the result of his experiences in WWI.
- Implied with Lt. Surge in Gym Leader Wiki. It's mentioned that, after his instances in the army, he's become a bit paranoid. This explains the electric traps in his gym (which have since been uninstalled because trainers couldn't solve the puzzle).
- Hard Reset has this as the result of a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Especially since the usual reset condition was the protagonist's death instead of the end of the day. And the day ended up best filed under Bug War and Apocalypse How. Things got so bad that the story went on past the end of the loop as Eakins, the author, was told by readers that just ending the story with the good guys winning seemed too pat (Viewers Are Geniuses, perhaps). This resulted in a sequel.
- In Hellsister Trilogy, Supergirl is finally getting burned out after spending fourteen years fighting endlessly crooks, villains, and eldritch abominations day after day. To the point that, when the adult Legion of Super-Heroes comes along to drag her into another life-or-death battle, Kara has a breakdown.Dev-Em: Kara. Will you shut up and let them talk?
Kara: I will not shut up and they can damned well talk after I’m finished! And I’m not finished! I serve in the Crisis and I almost die, I get my guts torn open, and luckily I get helped out by another Supergirl and healed by Raven. Almost Death #1. Then the Legion, my Legion, has me come to the 30th and I have to go to Hell and fight Mordru, and Satan Girl almost beats me to death. I still don’t know how Dev brought me back, but I’m thankful he did. Thank you, Dev.
Dev-Em: You’re welcome.
Kara: Shut up! That’s Almost Death #2, Then we go back to the 20th and everybody gets into a big gang war with everybody else, and I wind up on Apokolips and save everybody from that damned Anti-Life Equation, and I’m the only one on her feet to fight Darkseid, and he damned near disintegrates me. Almost Death #3. Am I seeing a pattern here? And now... now... you snatch me and Dev from what was supposed to be a peaceful weekend of relaxing and, and seeing the sights, and catching up with old Legion friends and, oh, you know what all else, and now whoomp! I’m in whatever time I’m in, and you say that magic word ‘Darkseid’, and I’m supposed to drop everything and sign up for the latest crusade, and I DON’T WANT TO!
[beat]
Kara: (sighing, crouching and hiding her face) I. Am. Just. Getting. So. Damned. Tired. - Hogyoku ex Machina: Ishida is disturbed at how Ichigo the Hot-Blooded Leeroy Jenkins with Chronic Hero Syndrome has become willing to murder in cold blood, yet is still mentally sound.
- In Hope for the Heartless, which is set after the events of The Black Cauldron, Taran the pig-keeper is revealed to have had Flashback Nightmares of the Horned King’s death almost every night for months. While his friends seem to have moved on with their lives, Taran's nightmares have driven him to regret his dreams of becoming a warrior, or wishing that he had never been involved in the lich's death, or even that he had thrown himself to the Black Cauldron instead of Gurgi. He continuously dwells upon the morality of his actions back then, never finding a comforting answer, and he hasn't told anyone of his dreams (though he suspects that Dallben and Eilonwy have their suspicions). It leads him to become greatly shocked when he encounters by chance the resurrected Horned King who attacks him yet spares him due to the lich's Morality Pet Avalina.
- Teams RWBY and JNPR in Hunters of Justice fight a losing two-day-long battle against Brainiac's invasion of Remnant. Most of Remnant's major cities have already been bottled by Brainiac, with Vale being the only one left. During Vale's last stand, Ruby is captured by Brainiac and nearly experimented on before she manages to escape her bonds. Meanwhile, the Team JNPR and the rest of Team RWBY managed to board Brainiac's main ship in an effort to both rescue Ruby and take down Brainiac himself. They manage to reunite with Ruby and then go to fight Brainiac. However, Brainiac proves too much for RWBYJNPR to handle, and they are badly beaten. From there, they're Forced to Watch as Brainiac bottles Vale, the last remaining major city, and then he proceeds to destroy the planet while they look on in silent horror. They barely manage to escape with their lives via a Boom Tube using a Motherbox that they stole from him. Afterwards, they arrive on Earth and are rescued by the Justice League. However, the whole series of events has left Team RWBY and JNPR with severe PTSD and they're plagued by nightmares even a few months after the fall of Remnant.
- Link in Insomnia. He's always watching his back no matter the situation, keeps his feelings bottled up almost airtightly, and counts his kills, apparently ever since the end of his first adventure.
- In Marijuana Simpson Bart returns from Iraq but ultimately cannot readjust to the opulent, weed-centric lifestyle of the Simpsons.
- In Metroid Kamen Rider Generations (link):
- The events of the Forbidden Fruit Saga of Kamen Rider Gaim took a toll on Micchy as the result of his own nefarious actions. What's left of a once young, intelligent, calculative and scheming person is now an insecure and isolated man, who can barely make fun of other people to hide his pain. He got better.
- When Micchy is suffering from PTSD in one chapter, Samus must defuse the situation by providing support and listening actively to his feelings.
- Crash from MSLN Test Dummies has PTSD from his earlier run-in with the Numbers, such that meeting Combat Cyborgs, Subaru included, doesn't go down well. He gets better after Subaru pushing him too far triggers his Heroic Safe Mode and he trashes her.
- Naru-Hina Chronicles: Following the assault on Seireiko's base in the Nation of Steel, Naruto shows mild but definite symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including memory losses, nightmares, occasional flashbacks under stress, and strong elements of disassociation. It is not enough to seriously impair his life or happiness, but Hinata believes it will take professional psychological help to make peace with what happened, and it's implied that Kakashi will not give approval for Naruto to join ANBU until he gets treatment.
- The Night Unfurls: The apparently quiet and dispassionate Hunter who keeps people at a distance is in fact a mentally scarred man with a Dark and Troubled Past that involved killing things by the hundred thousands as he endured the hell and nightmare that is Yharnam. He mangsts, constantly scans for danger, avoids anything that would allow repressed memories to surface, and occasionally hallucinates about the horrors of the Hunt with a Thousand-Yard Stare on his face. He also demonstrates other common characteristics of this archetype, such as the willingness to do what must be done, as well as stepping into the role of Mentor in Sour Armor by the time he decides to train apprentices (original version exclusive).
- In the Steven Universe fic No One Said Life Was Gonna Be Fair, Jasper is a veteran who has suffered from PTSD for over thirteen years now. It's taken a toll on her relationship with her wife Lapis and with her now-teenage daughter Mala. Jasper is especially traumatized after being involved in the death of her commanding officer Rosa "Rose" Diamond in 2000.
- Jaune Arc in Not this time, Fate has spent at least sixty years stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop where how long he lasts determines how far back he's sent relative to his Initiation at Beacon (dying six hours after Initiation sent him to six hours before it). When he's sent back over two years before Beacon, he's constantly tired, has a noticeable thousand-yard stare, and accidentally hitting his younger sister when she surprised him, Jaune has no idea how he's supposed to comfort her, instead simply staring at her in confusion. Later chapters also show him suffering from night terrors and a Bar Brawl with Yang causes him to flashback to his previous death to Cinder.
- In Origins, Samantha Shepard lands square in this category, from her Heroic BSoD that led to a series of barbaric acts to her painful realization that no matter how human she might be, the entire galaxy will keep throwing itself on her shoulders no matter how badly she screws up. She goes through a lot of crap.
- In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Lt. Surge is a downplayed example. While he's for the most part a nice and respectful guy in general, if a bit cocksure, it's clear that his time in the war has taken its toll on him, and during Christmas time he often mourns his deceased war buddies.
- Invoked in A Prize for Three Empires by Captain America, who believes Carol Danvers is risking the same kind of burnout that his fellow soldiers suffered during the War.
- Ichigo in A Protector's Pride. His dad tells him to unwind after "The Winter War" saying he's only 15 or he might go insane. He proves his point by pointing Ichigo's posture is always in a defensive stance.
- Joffrey in Purple Days. While he starts the fic as the same monster from canon, he breaks down rather quickly after several painful and humiliating deaths due to his terrible plans. After a few loops, even Robert can see the same haunted look that he saw in listless soldiers after the Battle of the Trident. He slowly crawls back and lives on until he decides to make for Yi Ti, where he has a very positive experience that is unfortunately cut short when the Zombie Apocalypse from Westeros spills into the continent. After that death, touching weapons or even eating utensils begins triggering flashbacks. Myrcella's support somewhat eases his torment, but it's a stopgap measure at best until he finds a more permanent solution. All of his deaths have left him with a permanent War Is Hell mentality and an absolute disdain for the War Is Glorious attitude most Westerosi lords seem to espouse.
- Said solution was a second looper, Sansa, who, being a patient partner who understands the pain Joffrey's going through, greatly helps to stabilize Joff. However, she herself falls to this when she has to fight off Stannis' forces when they attack King's Landing, just after Melisandre's shadow demon kills Ned. The attack is repulsed, but the butcher's bill is so high Sansa's left a shivering wreck until Joff finishes off Stannis' rebellion and gets back to King's Landing to return the favor to Sansa.
- RWBY: Scars: Most hunters are some level of this, as the job is inherently dangerous and gory. The initiation to Beacon Academy alone involves seeing a good chunk of your peers being mauled and eaten by Grimm.
- Teresa in Secret Dreamer was nearly killed when the Risen attacked Ylisstol. She eventually confides to Severa that she still has nightmares about it.
- The protagonist of the 40k fan fic Secret War, Attelus Kaltos, suffers from severe PTSD. His constant chain-smoking barely helps his nerves and paranoia. He also always puts his hands in his pockets, in an instinctive way to hide his shaking hands even when they're not shaking. After the horrid things he's been through, it's understandable.
- Seventh Endmost Vision has a whole host of these. The canon war between Wutai and Shinra in the backstory of Final Fantasy VII happened wildly differently here due to seven timeline divergences; while it didn't last as long, it was much more intense, and involved a lot more people- it was effectively their world's version of World War I. Multiple characters in the present day of the fic - five years after the War's end - are still badly affected by it, particularly Tifa, who fought as a 1st Class SOLDIER during the War; her first-person narration focuses on her memories of the War a lot. Cloud, who isn't this, even reminisces on three guys from his hometown at one point, and how the War affected them; one was fine, another seemed fine but would have killed himself but for Cloud's intervention, and the last descended into alcoholism and rage issues.
- Shaggy the Handler turns Shaggy of Scooby Doo into one. Prior to finishing college, he spent a year in Vietnam as a dog handler. His experiences left him the nervous scaredy-cat we know of, though he still has some fighting ability when he's serious. Shaggy won't talk to his friends about his past and, after uncovering some of it, they decide not to bring it up either.
- Shinnen New Year gives us the canon version of Shu Ouma, who is traumatized since he lost Inori years ago and is attempting to get over it by celebrating New Years with various crossover characters.
- In Sora's Misadventures in Equestria, we have Aqua. Blaming herself for taking Eraqus's lessons to heart and being helpless in stopping Terra and Ven's fall to darkness due to Xehanort and Vanitas's schemes, then being stranded well over a decade in the Realm of Darkness fighting endless waves of Heartless and a Super-Persistent Predator in the Dark Hide (which regenerates after she kills it every time due to the nature of the Realm), she is an emotionally-broken young woman, with a jumbo-sized PSTD and Berserk Button in the form of the old Keyblade Master. Even after finding a way out, unlike the events of Kingdom Hearts III, she's still a broken mess where her despair allowed her nursed inner darkness to possess her and make Sora and his friends stop her and her general attitude over everything is mistrust. Even with Ventus and Terra finally being found, she still has issues, especially with her Berserk Button, which causes her to lash out at those who threaten her friends.
- Tsuji Anthony Ricardsen from Soul Eater: Troubled Souls becomes one in the third arc. Even with prior two-year training before enrollment, on just his second mission Tsuji tangoes with death and crushing defeat on Cobra Island and suffers a series of Heroic BSODs that makes him more somber in demeanor. He says he goes through nightmares in the middle of the night and cannot move on. Not to mention, there is apparently something from his past coming back to haunt him. He envisions the face of the Kishin Egg that nearly killed him five years back. He is only 15 years old.
- In Steven Universe: and the Hunters of Arcadia, while his behavior may be partially due to the horrifying magical experiments done on him to turn him into a changeling and the stress of being in the Janus Order, Jamie seems to possess a level of trauma from being nearly abducted by Topaz and Aquamarine.
- Ichigo in To Undo it All goes days at a time without sleeping, is plagued by nightmares when he does, eats flavorless high-calorie food only and drinks coffee despite hating it because it wakes him up quicker. He also has to hold back from reacting violently to being touched by all but a select few and instinctively doesn't keep track of his friends' spirit energy as, from his perspective, they've all been dead for years. When he first comes back, Ichigo makes a point to not directly look anyone in the eyes for fear of having an emotional breakdown. Unohana assigns herself as his personal nurse to attempt to heal his obvious PTSD.
- Ichigo eventually reveals that in the Bad Future, after the Thousand Year Blood War he slept in the crater of his home, pretended to attend school at the ruins of his old high school, and just generally wandered around the destroyed Karakura Town, talking and laughing to himselfnote .
- Veritas Dolor: Shadow works as a G.U.N. agent, which makes him a part of the military. Seeing his comrades killed in action doesn't help his PTSD. It only adds to his trauma.
- What Leads You Here: Keitaro, having grown up and lived through a simulation of the Pacific War, and it still haunts him in the form of nightmares and flashbacks, as do the events from the battle against the kaiju. It's also the source of his instinctive need to take accountability for everything, hence why he Apologizes a Lot like in canon.
- In What Tomorrow Brings, when Tom hugs Rachel, Jake goes into hypervigilance mode and reflexively reacts as if she's being attacked because he's come to see Tom as the enemy.
- Uchiha Sasuke in White Rain — the man has issues. Multiple personal issues, for which he needs professional help. Let's put this into perspective: Itachi Jr. is actually an all-around 12-year-old Nice Guy. Sasuke uses Tsukuyomi on him just because he [Itachi Jr.] looks like his father.
- The Wizard in the Shadows
- Harry came to Middle-Earth with the original intention of a couple of months' rest and relaxation away from it all. Four years on, he's one of the biggest badasses and most feared entities in Middle Earth. He's also just this side of being completely insane, occasionally doing a fair impersonation of Deadpool minus the active cases of Breaking the Fourth Wall (though he lean on it every now and then). By the end, he's somewhat more functional. Somewhat.
- Maglor's not much better. In fact, he's probably worse, his personality switching from Really Gets Around Cloud Cuckoo Lander to The Mentor to the Blood Knight without much, if any, warning.
- Many characters in XCOM: RWBY Within, most notably Blake (whose issues are compounded by the physical aftereffects of the severe wounds she suffers) and Ruby, who as a junior officer and Strike Team leader has a lot of Survivor Guilt to work through over the personnel who were killed under her command. The sequel explores it in detail as Teams RWBY and JNPR have to readjust to life as regular Atlesian Hunter trainees, some of them with more ease than others.
- Danganronpa:
- All of the former Remnants of Despair in Danganronpa -- Coda are wracked with guilt and trauma from their actions as part of Ultimate Despair. This manifests in vivid flashbacks and being triggered by reminders of their crimes.
- Chiaki Nanami in Extra Life is left traumatized and afflicted with PTSD after her torture. Besides having nightmares, the sight of an elevator causes her to flashback to the ordeal, and she feels guilty for surviving when her friends came out, in her opinion, worse. She actually does get therapy from Izuru Kamukura, and while that does help her learn to live with it, she's still haunted.
- Hope on a Distant Mountain recasts the events of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc as an Unwinnable Training Simulation that Naegi managed to beat. However, the experience has left him with PTSD, feeling disconnected from his family and uncertain how to approach his classmates, who aren't quite as he remembers them.
- Harry Potter is already one of these, particularly in later books, but many fanfics exaggerate this aspect of him. Special mention goes to Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past where he's already lived through a Wizarding War that was much more devastating than the one portrayed in canon, with his memories playing through his mind almost every night.
- Frank and Alice Longbottom are portrayed as having a magical version of PTSD in Hawk-Eyed Charlie.
- Frank and Alice Longbottom are portrayed as having a magical version of PTSD in Hawk-Eyed Charlie
- Neon Genesis Evangelion fics, like canon, feature this often.
- A Crown of Stars: When the story begins, Shinji and Asuka have gone through a war against giant aliens (in which they got constantly hurt, mind-raped, and actually died), the end of the world, living in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by warlords, being forced to work for dictators... they have endured so much misery, pain and trauma after long years of conflict that when the story begins they are barely functional. They are bitter, jaded, and soul-weary and not looking forward to the future. And they are not even nineteen.
- Advice and Trust: Shinji and Asuka are teen kids being forced to wage a war against Eldritch Abominations. The constant battles and hardships were wearing down their precarious mental stability, but after getting together they lean on each other to try to overcome the pain and have something stable to cling to.
- The Child of Love: As seen in the sequels, Shinji and Asuka tried to put so much distance as possible between them and NERV after the war for their and their daughter's sake. However, the ordeals of the past still affect them, and they still are forced to deploy their giant robots every so often, despite Shinji telling them they are sick of killing people.
- Children of an Elder God:
- After fighting and defeating a bunch of cosmic horrors from the Cthulhu Mythos, Shinji and Asuka are so traumatized that they feel they no longer fit into human society so that they say goodbye to their remaining friends and leave civilization forever.
- Rei, too. She commits Heroic Sacrifice while stating that normal life is not for her.
- Doing It Right This Time: Before being sent back to the past Shinji and Asuka were heavily traumatized and barely sane after the Angel War and Third Impact. After a last violent fight, they decided to kill themselves because even death seemed a better option than remaining in a dead world. Then the two of them and Rei got flung back to the past and they started dealing with their issues in... unique ways.
- Manga/Evangelion 303: After surviving a failed mission, Asuka suffered from Survivor Guilt. She was full of anger, hatred, and self-loathing, and anything made her snapping. And she stopped laughing or getting fun. She did not even want to get fun. After a second failure she tried to shoot her brains off, but Shinji stopped her. From that point he helped her to get better.
- Ghosts of Evangelion: Shinji and Asuka suffer from post-traumatic distress and other mental traumas after the war. Several decades after the Third Impact they are still struggling to keep their PTDS at bay, be functional people and decent parents.
- HERZ:
- Asuka survived the War but she had been beaten, humiliated, mind-raped, and disfigured permanently. For many years she was mad at everything, everyone, and herself, seeing herself as an ugly, scarred, one-eyed freak and a worthless failure. She needed a lot of therapy to learn to open up to others.
- Shinji became quieter and more introverted after the battle of 2015. He hardly talked to any of his schoolmates who were not his old friends and his ex-roommate. He was also severely depressed and borderline suicidal.
- Higher Learning: The constant, brutal battles against giant, super-powerful aliens as well as her Mind Rape wore Asuka's psyche down to the point that she was permanently depressed and barely functional at the end of the war.
- Once More with Feeling: After living through the war and Third Impact Shinji got sent to the beginning of everything. Although he is trying to grow a spine, become a better person, and do things right this time, he is heavily traumatized and feels immensely guilty for everyone's deaths. Some characters note that he seems older and more tired than a fourteen-year-old should, and Kaji is amazed that Shinji has not tried to kill himself yet.
- The One I Love Is...: Although Shinji, Asuka, and Rei survived the War and their relationship made them slightly psychologically stronger they were still traumatized. Several years later Shinji still felt guilty for his friends' pain, Asuka was afraid of having children, and Rei regressed and became emotionless again for a while.
- In The Second Try, Shinji and Asuka were deeply traumatized after the Angel War and Third Impact. The After the End chapters narrate how they were forced to mature and overcome their issues in order to survive, and how they got better eventually.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide:
- Although Shinji has recovered a bit from Kaworu's death, he's badly traumatized, has given up any hope of having a healthy relationship with his father, and he doesn't know how to fix his relationship with Asuka.
- At the beginning, Asuka is in a coma after having tried to kill herself. Although she eventually comes to, she's very bitter and angry due to her Mind Rape and believing no one cares about her at all.
- Rei had gotten a bit better at socializing during the war, but with her Heroic Sacrifice having resulted in her getting brought back as Rei III, she feels disconnected from the memories of her predecessor and regresses to her former emotionless state.
- Original Character, Junichi Nakayima, a former grunt turned spy, also has a case, but it is Downplayed. Though he is quite mentally stable, he notes that his experiences in the military admittedly have damaged him psychologically and made it hard for him to care for and relate emotionally to the people around him and he also makes references to having been ordered to do several questionable things on the frontlines he has since come to regret, and in hindsight, he considers his decision to join the army to be a pivotal mistake in his life, if not his worst mistake ever.
- In Neon Metathesis Evangelion, Asuka and Mana acknowledge how piloting and fighting angels has already taken its toll on Shinji.There was a certain logic to what Mana was saying. In a way, despite only being fourteen, Shinji was a kind of… injured veteran. Who had done his duty heroically and saved everyone, but had the mental wounds to show for it. That idea fit very well to Asuka’s notions of EVA pilots as an elite fighting troop. It wasn’t that Shinji was weak; rather it was time that others took over for him. And Asuka was definitely up to the task.
- Digimon fanfiction turns the North Korean Digidestined into this. Justified in that Word of God states they exist, but we never see them and there's no telling what their lives are like behind closed doors. Of course, given that they live in North Korea, unless they're Kim Jong's kids, having a horrible enough life to invoke this trope is almost a guarantee. Also of note: If the DPRK Digidestined is one of the tiny percentage of North Koreans who aren't dirt poor, they will be Brainwashed and Crazy or otherwise a Stepford Smiler. Again, these are justified tropes given what is known so far about the DPRK from the rest of the world.
- In the Total Drama story, Legacy, one contestant enters a period of mental decline after seeing a fellow contestant murdered before his eyes.
- In Naruto/Doom crossover Hell and Back has this happen to Naruto. Accidentally transported to Hell, Naruto spends approximately fifty years waging war against the forces of Hell to find a way home while ensuring they can never reach his world. Made worse in that because he can never fall safely fall asleep, he has to devour the souls of the demons he kills to survive. Two scenes that really sell how different he's become: 1) Viewing a severed head on a pike as little different than a "stay off the grass" sign. 2) When he does get back, he's quickly banned from sparring with anyone, as he can barely keep himself from killing his partners.
- Rarity is this in Friendship is Witchcraft, to the extent that she willingly joined Fluttershy's Apocalypse Cult and made a sweater specifically designed to give the wearer hugs.Sweetie Belle: Well at least I don't spend every Veterans Day sobbing on the floor!
- Some fanworks portray Reisen Udonge Inaba as one of these, showing either traumatized, wickedly skilled with weapons, or both due to her experiences from the Lunar War or some other large event. This is especially the case with a series of shorts titled "Regret", where she's shown to have the typical standard flashbacks or intrusive thoughts for someone with PTSD and, at the last of those shorts, we find out that she performed a mercy kill on a younger moon rabbit soldier, which turned out to be pointless, being the reason as to why.
- Homecoming Primal: Mira from Primal is both traumatized by the horrors of war and bloodshed ‘’and’’ traumatized by the brutal task of adapting back to civilian life.
