"I think it's something unusual for a character like her who is so in control .... of most of her life most of the time, to find herself in a space of pure fear. That is what this experience is -- it's just pure, stymied fear. ... Oftentimes people ... aren't given a space to express it -- [they] really don't know how to handle it because it's a very solitary experience." -- Stana Katic, on Kate Beckett's post-traumatic stress
"She's the one who's not supposed to fall apart. She's the one who's supposed to keep the ball rolling. She's the one who's supposed to have all the answers and keep everyone else motivated and on their game. This is the first time she can't." -- Stana Katic, on Kate Beckett's post-traumatic stress
This is a short video I made of Beckett dealing with post-traumatic stress. Just a couple of clips I put together, really (with the original dialogue left in and no background music, as per usual in my videos). I had a video by the same name, but I didn't like how it turned out so I deleted it and redid it.
For the record, no, Kate's behaviors in the PTSD episodes are not exaggerated. In the first couple of months after your trauma, you remember every detail of it. It haunts your every waking hour. It's an effort to just put one foot in front of the other. You keep thinking about it and you replay it in your head over and over again. You relive your trauma pretty much exactly like Kate does in "Kill Shot": You keep going back to the moment just before you blacked out (the moment Kate gets shot) and you relive that moment and every moment that follows (blacking out, the distant voices and blurry silhouettes, hospital machinery, flatlining, etc.) It's all a big blur, but there's a logic to it, in that you do remember and relive everything in the order it happened (first she relives the shot, then being in the hospital, flatlining, etc). Trauma is psycho-somatic, so whatever is going on internally will inevitably translate itself into something physical, eg. you may get dizzy, disoriented, you may feel like you're about to pass out, your hands may start shaking like Kate's did in the elevator. Your motor reactions will be off at times, like Kate's in the scene where people bump into her at the Precinct, and then the next moment you'll be fine. Plus, every time you relive your trauma will feel just as real as the time it originally happened. That's why Kate grabs her gun in the scene where she's drinking in her apartment. It's not meant to make her look like a model from bad commercials, it's meant to tell you, visually, that she's reliving her trauma but to her at that moment it feels just as real as when it originally happened. And the same physical things that originally accompanied your trauma may repeat when you relive your trauma. For Kate, it would be falling to the ground like she did when she was shot. She falls when she hears the police siren and in the scene in her apartment where she falls and breaks her glass table. You also can't predict when/where your next flashback will occur and what will cause it. Pretty much anything can trigger a flashback: a word you associate with your trauma (for Kate, the word "sniper"), a sound, a smell, a building, a shape, a color, anything, a conversation, a poem, a movie, a thought. In the first couple of months, you can't bring yourself to even think about (much less look at) anything related to death because you will have panic attacks if you do. Saying the word 'death' will not be an option for months. You have to slowly get to a point where you're able to think about death and say the word without having a panic attack. Plus, you will have nightmares so terrifying that your body will wake up, shaking and sweaty, just because it will have decided that being awake is the better alternative to the dream you just had. Finally, you do push people away and you want to deal with it on your own and re-emerge fully healed. You DON'T want people trying to "help." Like Stana said, it's a solitary experience. You can get help, but you absolutely can get through it on your own. It just takes a lot of time (months) and forgetting. Getting over trauma is basically about rebuilding your identity from scratch.