Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Free Essays

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very serious psychological disorder many ordinary people can develop. It causes large scale depression and can severely damage relationships and lives. Its main causes are from a person experiencing or witnessing an event involving death or serious injury. We will write a custom essay sample on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or any similar topic only for you Order Now A person’s response to the trauma usually involves fear, helplessness or horror. In children evidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be exhibited in disorganized or agitated behaviors. One of the most common side effects of PTSD in adults is the recurring thoughts, images and perceptions about the specific trauma they endured. Consistent, frightening dreams of the event are also signs of developing PTSD. For children, they may also experience frightening dreams but with unrecognizable content they might not understand too well. Adults can also exhibit signs by acting as if they were reliving the events over and over again. Another sign of PTSD is the avoidance of thoughts, feelings and conversations with others about what happened, and the restricted range of affections and emotions exhibited by the individual. Many people feel like they are unable to have loving feelings and can have a sense of a foreshortened future where they can’t picture themselves having a career, marriage, children or even a normal life span. In most cases, the symptoms of PTSD begin to surface around 3 months after the specific event, but can be seen or experienced earlier as well. The symptoms generally tend to stay around for not too long of a time but for some people it can become chronic and never go away for as long as they live. Victims can begin to feel detached from society and estranged by their peers and others, as if they were all alone with no one there for them. Victims can also have difficulties concentrating, become hyper vigilant, which means a person has an increased state of anxiety and is constantly scanning their surroundings for threats, and exaggerated startled responses which is a side effect of all the anxiety they’re putting their minds through. Along with high states of anxiety, difficulty sleeping, extreme irritability, outbursts of anger for non-important reasons and severe depression are seen in many PTSD patients. Symptoms have been known to be worse when the trauma experienced is from intentional human actions rather than something like a natural disaster. Also, when something involves mass casualties like war, someone who survives can experience something known as survivor’s guilt where they feel guilty for getting through it meanwhile they lost loved ones and friends. The most vivid, disturbing way to experience PTSD is through a flashback. A flashback is when a person has recurring images flash before him when looking at normal things and cause the victim to be transported back to where the trauma took place and even begin to make the person feel, see, and smell the things he might’ve on that day or time period. This is especially common with war veterans like Vietnam War veterans. Vietnam War veterans can and have been known to be upset by war movies, hot humid weather, and even Asian cooking as it brings them back to the times when they were overseas and where they lost a lot of friends. PTSD has always been closely tied to the history of human warfare, not just the Vietnam War. PTSD is also known to soldiers and veterans as soldier’s heart, combat neurosis, and battle fatigue, meaning a soldier can lose their will to live and fight and just want to give up. Combat veterans who have witnessed or committed violent acts are more likely to develop PTSD. The men who liberated the Nazi war camps in the 1940’s could have been Severely distressed by the things they saw were being done to people. And through to today in the prisons the United States has where they keep war criminals and suspected terrorists like Abu Ghraib. Soldiers who were stationed there had seen some horrific things done to people, and those images could stick with them for a very long time. However, it was not until after the Vietnam War that PTSD became a well-known and serious mental health condition and captured the interest of doctors and psychiatrists. A study done on Vietnam War veterans showed that at least 1. 7 million veterans had experienced a serious case of PTSD when their tour was over or after the war. The attention received by the Vietnam War veterans also helped shed a light onto victims of other wars and events and allowed the still living Holocaust survivors to seek help if they wished. Another study showed that 55% of women were victims of a violent crime and that one in four of these women suffered from PTSD. It can affect everyone for an unlimited amount of reason ranging from natural disasters like a hurricane or earthquake to something more recent like the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Many civilians who escaped New York City that day saw and experienced some of the worst things imaginable, and one of the largest groups of people who suffered from that event was the members of the FDNY, NYPD, and PAPD. With the FDNY losing 343 firemen, the NYPD losing 23 police officers and the PAPD losing 7 officers, the first responders to the World Trade Center suffered heavy casualties. A lot of people lost fellow brothers and sisters going into the buildings attempting to save innocent civilians and lost their lives. A horrific event like 9/11 affects a larger amount of people and hits them harder than other things due to the severity, lives lost, and pointlessness of the attack. People who already may have underlying or prior mental health problems are more likely to develop PTSD. Genetics also play a role in making some people susceptible to PTSD and two people who are experiencing the same trauma can have two different outcomes. One person might be able to get through it and the other might be completely mentally exhausted and suffer the worst of the symptoms. People may not even know they have PTSD until the death of a close friend or relative or a divorce or something life changing brings them to an emotional low and can make them recall what they may have gone through. PTSD is a serious mental condition that affects more people than anyone might know. Some people are good at hiding feelings while others are not. Sadly some sufferers resort to using heavy quantities of alcohol and tranquilizers to numb their pain and make them able to cope with the disturbing recollections, nightmares and sleep problems and sadly many end up dependent on the drugs they’re using. PTSD can also lead to suicide if the victim experiences sever amounts of survivor’s guilt or feels as if they can’t take it anymore. Works Cited: . Vrana, Scott. â€Å"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. † Salem Health Psychology Mental Health. First edition. Editor: Nancy Piotrowski. Volume 4 Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2010. Print. 2. Miller, Allen, â€Å"Living With Anxiety Disorders† New York, Facts on File, 2008. Print 3. Jan Fawcett, â€Å"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder† The Encyclopedia of Mental Health Ada Kahn. First Edition. Volume 1 New York. Facts on File. 1993. Print. 4. nymag. com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers, New York Magazine, 11 September 2011. Web. 20 November 2011 How to cite Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Essay examples Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Free Essays He himself also suffers from OPTS, and has chapters about his thoughts, feelings, and family intervention when he was writing his memoir. â€Å"Speaking of Courage,† tells the story of another member of Tim O’Brien platoon, Norman Booker, following his return to his hometown In Iowa. Booker feels responsible for the death of Kiowa, who literally drowned In human excrement during a firefight when the platoon was encamped in what turned out to be a field of sewage. We will write a custom essay sample on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or any similar topic only for you Order Now Frozen in panic, Booker could not bring himself to move and pull the wounded Kiowa out of the stinking sewage. Now, back in Iowa, he simply drives In circles around town, feeling aimless and out of place. ‘How to Tell a True War Story Is a collection of small stones Interspersed with instructions about â€Å"true† war stories. The narrator tells the story of his friend Rat Killed, who writes a letter to the sister of his buddy who had been killed a week earlier. It is a long, heartfelt letter. He waits for two months for a reply to the letter, but the sister never writes back. The story then shifts to commentary. A true war story Is never moral† (O’Brien 65) the narrator Instructs. These two stories contain read examples of different symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, in a way that can further explain them to the reader. The Vietnam War was fought by an ideology against an Ideology, and ultimately solved very little while hurting so many. OPTS is a mental Illness that Is cause by a traumatic event that has happened In ones life and can be easily triggered by a daily activity. Pony close evaluation, Tim O’Brien collection, The Things They Carried, explores the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in relation to Vietnam, since characters possess prone to angry outburst, elapse, and suicidal tendencies. The tragic events that are witnessed during the war in â€Å"How to Tell a True War Story’ can cause immediate cases of anger outbursts. Anger is said to be a cover for other emotions such as fear or hurt, and can also be a way of pushing people away in order to protect oneself. However, tendencies for sudden outbursts of anger are Like a manifestation of hyper-vigilance and fear of loss of control. In â€Å"How to Tell a True War Story,† Rat Killed looses his best friend, Curt Lemon, after being blown up while playing a game of catch. This has caused some sadness and anger to build up inside him. Later that day, the troops come across a baby buffalo that the end up bringing with them to s deserted village. After the failed attempt of Rat trying to feed the baby buffalo, â€Å"he stepped back and shot it through the right front knee. It went down hard, 1 OFF to hurt†¦ There wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead† (O’Brien 75). In the article â€Å"Anger, Hostility, and OPTS,† written by Roth and Wielded, they say that â€Å"as a consequence, hostility causes an increase frequency of anger and aggression. Thus, anger and hostility may reciprocally activate each other and motivate the individual to aggressive behavior against others†(699). Rat Killed tortures a baby water buffalo because he cannot sit with his emotions about Curt Lemon’s death. Skills method of abuse to this animal was very strategic due to the way he stepped back; shot the buffalo in the ear and then the right knee. The shots were not random, but were very specific and thought through. What O’Brien meant by not wanting to kill the animal, but to hurt it, was that the pain that Killed was leaning he wanted to see someone else feel it to. Rotor’s thought of reciprocal activity is shown through Skills obsession of seeing this living thing suffer, Just as he was suffering from the loss of his dear friend. Skills angry outburst was Just the start of his OPTS that was caused from this traumatic event that he had witnessed, since anger can motivate to lash out with aggressive behavior. While one can reduce the severe-news of OPTS, there’s always a possibility for a relapse, which is the case for Norman Booker in â€Å"Speaking of Courage. † In the case of OPTS, relapse is the worsening of symptoms or the recurrence of unhealthy behaviors. As a way of marking time, Norman Booker repeatedly drives a loop around the local lake remembering old girlfriends, hoping one day to track down high-school buddies who have moved to Des Monies or Sioux, and how he would explain Kiosk’s death in the field. When Booker was in â€Å"high school, at night, he had driven around and around it with Sally Kramer†¦ Or other times with friends, talking about urgent matters†¦ Then, there had not been war†(O’Brien 132). Booker came home to find hat Sally was married, his friends were gone, and his father was at home watching TV. He made it seem like it wasn’t a problem, but that was when he went â€Å"he took [his dad’s] Chevy on another seven-mile turn around the lake (O’Brien 133). According to John H. Attainment, author of Twentieth Century Literature, Norman Bookers’ â€Å"aimless circling works then to demonstrate his inability to settle back into the routine of the world and exemplifies the psychological distance between his former and present selves† (108). O’Brien shows Booker’s relapse by circling the lake before ND after the war, as the relapse is encapsulated by his trip around the lake back in high school with Sally and doing it again after the war, with out her this time. Booker aimlessly circling the lake shows that he is unable to break free from its pull, since lake triggers a relapse by his inability to settle back into civilization. Booker portrays Attainment’s psychological distancing when he talks about the time before the war. So, the fact that Norman Booker circles the same lake as he did before the war, and constantly is thinking about what he has lost from being at war, shows that Booker is experiencing a relapse as a side effect of his OPTS. Thoughts of suicide are a major symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and are explored in the short story â€Å"Speaking of Courage†. War Veterans experience so much when in combat that their lives can hardly ever be normal and having to adjust to being back home can be a struggle. Booker had two friend, Max and Kiowa, both who which drowned in lakes, which had a major impact on Booker. Norman Booker a time he got out, walked down to the beach, and waded into the lake without undressing. The water felt warm against his skin. He put his head under. He opened his lips, very slightly, for the taste, then he stood up and folded his arms and watch the 148). In an interview with Tim O’Brien, he mentions that this story â€Å"came from a letter [he] received from a guy name Norman Booker, a real guy, who committed suicide after [he] received his letter. He was talking to [O’Brien] in his letter about how he Just couldn’t adjust to coming home. It wasn’t bad memories; it was that he couldn’t talk to any about it (Unapparent 7). That was when O’Brien followed that story with the essay â€Å"Notes,† to inform that â€Å"three years later hanged myself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown of Iowa† (O’Brien 149). In â€Å"Speaking of Courage†, Booker didn’t go into the lake to watch the fireworks; instead it was a mere thought of suicide, indicated by how Norman was fully dressed, submerging his entire body under water, and opening his mouth. Folding of his arms may hint that Booker is content with ending his life the way his buddies did. O’Brien point on Booker not being able to adjust to coming home, and attempt of suicide could have been a foreshadow of his actual suicide that happen a few years later. Booker was suffering many symptoms of OPTS, but it is evident that his suicidal thoughts had taken what was left of him, as it does to many war veterans. Angry outbursts, relapse, and suicidal thoughts are only a few of the Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms that are discussed through out Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried, but they are not the only ones that these characters possess. Norman Booker and Rat Killed are two characters that suffer from OPTS. Booker experiences relapse and suicidal thoughts as his symptoms; where as, Killed suffers from angry outburst. O’Brien is a credible source for authenticating what fines a true story due to the fact he was part of the Vietnam war and he also suffers from OPTS. From the research gathered about OPTS symptoms, it is clear over the struggles that some go through dealing with this disorder. OPTS is a fracture’ in your experience of life, caused by a traumatic event. You and no one else cause this fracture in your mind because it is response for attempting to cope with what happened. But unfortunately, it’s an ill-informed response. So the next time a song is on repeat in your mind, Just imagine it’s a repeat of your most horrific memories. How to cite Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Papers Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Free Essays Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very serious psychological disorder many ordinary people can develop. It causes large scale depression and can severely damage relationships and lives. Its main causes are from a person experiencing or witnessing an event involving death or serious injury. We will write a custom essay sample on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or any similar topic only for you Order Now A person’s response to the trauma usually involves fear, helplessness or horror. In children evidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be exhibited in disorganized or agitated behaviors. One of the most common side effects of PTSD in adults is the recurring thoughts, images and perceptions about the specific trauma they endured. Consistent, frightening dreams of the event are also signs of developing PTSD. For children, they may also experience frightening dreams but with unrecognizable content they might not understand too well. Adults can also exhibit signs by acting as if they were reliving the events over and over again. Another sign of PTSD is the avoidance of thoughts, feelings and conversations with others about what happened, and the restricted range of affections and emotions exhibited by the individual. Many people feel like they are unable to have loving feelings and can have a sense of a foreshortened future where they can’t picture themselves having a career, marriage, children or even a normal life span. In most cases, the symptoms of PTSD begin to surface around 3 months after the specific event, but can be seen or experienced earlier as well. The symptoms generally tend to stay around for not too long of a time but for some people it can become chronic and never go away for as long as they live. Victims can begin to feel detached from society and estranged by their peers and others, as if they were all alone with no one there for them. Victims can also have difficulties concentrating, become hyper vigilant, which means a person has an increased state of anxiety and is constantly scanning their surroundings for threats, and exaggerated startled responses which is a side effect of all the anxiety they’re putting their minds through. Along with high states of anxiety, difficulty sleeping, extreme irritability, outbursts of anger for non-important reasons and severe depression are seen in many PTSD patients. Symptoms have been known to be worse when the trauma experienced is from intentional human actions rather than something like a natural disaster. Also, when something involves mass casualties like war, someone who survives can experience something known as survivor’s guilt where they feel guilty for getting through it meanwhile they lost loved ones and friends. The most vivid, disturbing way to experience PTSD is through a flashback. A flashback is when a person has recurring images flash before him when looking at normal things and cause the victim to be transported back to where the trauma took place and even begin to make the person feel, see, and smell the things he might’ve on that day or time period. This is especially common with war veterans like Vietnam War veterans. Vietnam War veterans can and have been known to be upset by war movies, hot humid weather, and even Asian cooking as it brings them back to the times when they were overseas and where they lost a lot of friends. PTSD has always been closely tied to the history of human warfare, not just the Vietnam War. PTSD is also known to soldiers and veterans as soldier’s heart, combat neurosis, and battle fatigue, meaning a soldier can lose their will to live and fight and just want to give up. Combat veterans who have witnessed or committed violent acts are more likely to develop PTSD. The men who liberated the Nazi war camps in the 1940’s could have been Severely distressed by the things they saw were being done to people. And through to today in the prisons the United States has where they keep war criminals and suspected terrorists like Abu Ghraib. Soldiers who were stationed there had seen some horrific things done to people, and those images could stick with them for a very long time. However, it was not until after the Vietnam War that PTSD became a well-known and serious mental health condition and captured the interest of doctors and psychiatrists. A study done on Vietnam War veterans showed that at least 1. 7 million veterans had experienced a serious case of PTSD when their tour was over or after the war. The attention received by the Vietnam War veterans also helped shed a light onto victims of other wars and events and allowed the still living Holocaust survivors to seek help if they wished. Another study showed that 55% of women were victims of a violent crime and that one in four of these women suffered from PTSD. It can affect everyone for an unlimited amount of reason ranging from natural disasters like a hurricane or earthquake to something more recent like the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Many civilians who escaped New York City that day saw and experienced some of the worst things imaginable, and one of the largest groups of people who suffered from that event was the members of the FDNY, NYPD, and PAPD. With the FDNY losing 343 firemen, the NYPD losing 23 police officers and the PAPD losing 7 officers, the first responders to the World Trade Center suffered heavy casualties. A lot of people lost fellow brothers and sisters going into the buildings attempting to save innocent civilians and lost their lives. A horrific event like 9/11 affects a larger amount of people and hits them harder than other things due to the severity, lives lost, and pointlessness of the attack. People who already may have underlying or prior mental health problems are more likely to develop PTSD. Genetics also play a role in making some people susceptible to PTSD and two people who are experiencing the same trauma can have two different outcomes. One person might be able to get through it and the other might be completely mentally exhausted and suffer the worst of the symptoms. People may not even know they have PTSD until the death of a close friend or relative or a divorce or something life changing brings them to an emotional low and can make them recall what they may have gone through. PTSD is a serious mental condition that affects more people than anyone might know. Some people are good at hiding feelings while others are not. Sadly some sufferers resort to using heavy quantities of alcohol and tranquilizers to numb their pain and make them able to cope with the disturbing recollections, nightmares and sleep problems and sadly many end up dependent on the drugs they’re using. PTSD can also lead to suicide if the victim experiences sever amounts of survivor’s guilt or feels as if they can’t take it anymore. Works Cited: . Vrana, Scott. â€Å"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. † Salem Health Psychology Mental Health. First edition. Editor: Nancy Piotrowski. Volume 4 Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2010. Print. 2. Miller, Allen, â€Å"Living With Anxiety Disorders† New York, Facts on File, 2008. Print 3. Jan Fawcett, â€Å"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder† The Encyclopedia of Mental Health Ada Kahn. First Edition. Volume 1 New York. Facts on File. 1993. Print. 4. nymag. com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers, New York Magazine, 11 September 2011. Web. 20 November 2011 How to cite Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Papers