I have been thinking a great deal about language.
Not only the language of letters and lineage, but the language we use to describe what hurts.
In today’s world, we have names for so many things. Anxiety. Depression. Trauma. Panic. We speak them plainly. We research them. We build vocabulary around them.
But in 1809, those words did not exist in the same way.
The suffering did.
That distinction matters to me.
As someone who cares deeply about mental health, and as someone who writes historical fiction, I often find myself pausing mid-draft. A character feels something intense and destabilizing. In modern language, I know exactly what we would call it. I write it that way first, then I mark it and return to it. Because my characters would not use those terms.
So I ask different questions.
If a woman in Regency Scotland carries what we would now call trauma, what would she name it? Would she call it a shadow? A disgrace she cannot scrub from memory? A heaviness that follows her into the night?
In Vows of the Heart, Moira carries such a burden. I could not give her modern vocabulary. I had to let her speak in the language of her time, as I understand it through historical documentation, while still allowing room for emotional truth:
“The nightmare of England, the shadow of Stonehurst, the memories that clawed at her in the darkness.”
The experience is timeless. The phrasing must not be.
This translation work is delicate. It requires restraint. It requires honoring history without diminishing truth. It is challenging at times to describe what we now call trauma, a single word in our vocabulary today, yet one that holds guilt, disgust, fear, anguish, distortion, self-loathing, and so many other layered emotions.
People in 1809 wrestled with despair. They knew fear. They endured grief that altered their sense of safety. They carried shame imposed upon them by others. They fought for healing just as we do now, though many suffered silently.
We are fortunate in 2026 that mental health has advocacy and language that gives shape to what once went unnamed. I can only pray that those in the past had family, friends, or faith communities to help carry their burdens, even when the vocabulary failed them.
Today, not everyone has that support either. That is why advocacy matters.
I came across a post on social media recently about a man who lost his brother to self-harm. In response, he created a space where strangers can send letters of hope so that someone, somewhere, might know they are not alone.
I am not affiliated with his organization, but I believe his work has value. If sharing it helps even one person feel seen, then it is worth passing along.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUT3WnYjQbg/
Website: https://reasonstostay.co.uk/
I will continue adding to this series as I encounter modern mental health language that needs reshaping for the Regency world. It is one of the crafts of writing historical romance that feels most personal to me.
Because every character I write fights for healing.
And so do I.