Psychotic delusion takes Nina over in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. The culprit is guilt. Terrible guilt about having a self. A separate self. Her very own. To Nina, this means going against her mother’s sacrifice and wishes. So, if she even wants that, if she feels desire, if she has the slightest inkling to try to be her own person, the most horrible persecutory feelings possess her …

Childhood trauma has many triggers. And, having a baby can stir your earliest anxieties. So, Grace suffers terribly in Lynne Ramsey’s Die My Love. She doesn’t know why. No one does. Not until later. But letting herself love Jackson, moving to an isolated Montana, living in a house where someone died, and being an outsider in a loving family she never had - these feed Grace’s descent into madness …

No one there. That’s the trauma in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value. You can’t feel safe loving someone if there’s no one there as a child—no one who makes you know you have a secure home in their heart. Losing a mom or a dad when you’re little makes you run from love. Live in despair. Walled off. Scared to death that loss is all you’ll find. Just watch Gustav and Nora …

Guillermo del Toro’s Victor Frankenstein was an extremely traumatized child. He’s tormented by memories of abuse and loss that refuse to die inside him. He suffers endlessly. And, so does …