ML's Trauma

I have trauma. For more than 10 years.
And I'll say I can't control my reaction but I can control something before it happen. This guy knows he hate women but choose to yes with dancing, means skinship. If I were him, I'll tell her "No, I am sorry I can't dance with you," in the first place.. I'll say if I can. I'll reject if I can't. That's what I did for more than 10 years so I don't hurt people because of my own problem.

Well other comments are of course baddd. Their words are belittling those who have trauma!
Please don't misunderstand because I am not correcting you, dear. I only want to share..actually... what this guy just did is not making any sense for me, as a traumatic fellow(≧∀≦)

I think he's trying to make tiny steps to overcome it. I'm mentally ill and there definitely were times where i thought "I can do this, it will be fine", but it wasn't. You can't always excactly predict how you will react in a given situation (or at least, i can't lol) Maybe he thought that since their relationship is getting slightly better he'd be able to dance with her?

My thoughts exactly! Oftentimes, there will be moments when we think we can handle something but end up not being able to. I can appreciate the ML for trying to take baby steps to overcoming his trauma. Imagine if the ML never took the effort to overcome his trauma because he knows its severe? We wouldn't even have a story!

I can totally see where ur coming from. We all go through different trauma journeys and recoveries. While I think its important to try to control/gauge the situation before I hurt others because of my trauma, my predications don't always come true. While there are times that I know for sure whether I can or cannot do something, there are definitely moments where its more in between. If I always try to say no to the in-between moments just to play it safe, I won't be making any progress to recovering my trauma. I understand trying not to hurt others because of ur trauma, but at the same time we oftentimes need other peoples help in overcoming it and cannot always avoid confronting our trauma.

I by no means am criticizing your way of dealing with your trauma, it's just for me the more one shys away from taking baby steps the more they will be stuck in the same place. Recovery is oftentimes slow, but it really comes down to how much we think we can tolerate and pushing our boundaries little by little. The mentality of trying not to hurt someone because of our trauma is great, but don't forget at the time period in the novel, I doubt the ML even knows what trauma is. He didn't have accessible therapy lying around him, or a therapist to tell him that he's severely traumatized so that our ML can make smart decisions when it comes to the FL. Imagine if our ML said no to everything our FL requests because he feels uncomfortable, there wouldn't even be a story.