Fear Thesaurus Entry: Being Returned to an Abusive Environment

Debilitating fears are a problem for everyone, an unfortunate part of the human experience. Whether they’re a result of learned behavior as a child, are related to a mental health condition, or stem from a past wounding event, these fears influence a character’s behaviors, habits, beliefs, and personality traits. The compulsion to avoid what they fear will drive characters away from certain people, events, and situations and hold them back in life. 

In your story, this primary fear (or group of fears) will constantly challenge the goal the character is pursuing, tempting them to retreat, settle, and give up on what they want most. Because this fear must be addressed for them to achieve success, balance, and fulfillment, it plays a pivotal part in both character arc and the overall story.

This thesaurus explores the various fears that might be plaguing your character. Use it to understand and utilize fears to fully develop your characters and steer them through their story arc. Please note that this isn’t a self-diagnosis tool. Fears are common in the real world, and while we may at times share similar tendencies as characters, the entry below is for fiction writing purposes only.

Flaws That May Emerge
Abrasive, Addictive, Antisocial, Confrontational, Cruel, Cynical, Defensive, Devious, Dishonest, Evil, Hostile, Insecure, Irrational, Rebellious, Reckless, Resentful, Self-Destructive, Temperamental, Violent, Volatile, Withdrawn

Hindrances and Disruptions to the Character’s Life
Avoiding romance to keep from falling into another abusive relationship
Becoming addicted to alcohol or drugs 
Insomnia impacting the character’s work or school performance
Being unable to trust the social systems or people who should protect the character
The character becoming homebound to avoid their abuser 
Having to move frequently to avoid the abuser or the people who would return the character to them
Difficulty building deep relationships with others because of an ongoing threat of being returned to the abuser (why bother making friends if you’re going to have to leave them?)

Scenarios That Might Awaken This Fear
Being contacted by the abuser 
Suspecting that a friend is being abused
Watching a TV show or movie where someone is forced back into living with their abuser
Having to confront the abuser in court
Seeing the abuser in a social situation (at a family reunion, wedding, etc.)
Being told by loved ones or friends that the character is overreacting to the situation—that the abuse didn’t happen, they should give the abuser another chance, etc.

Other Fear Thesaurus entries can be found here.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed, the rest of our descriptive collection (16 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

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