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Essays on the effects of ptsd in the military/veteran populations
Essays on the effects of ptsd in the military/veteran populations
Causes and consequences of ptsd
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According to The Nebraska Department of Veterans´ Affairs, ¨an estimated 7.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, at some point in their lives with women (10.4%) twice as likely as men (5%) to develop PTSD. About 3.6 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 to 54 (5.2 million people) have PTSD during the course of a given year.¨(The Nebraska Department of Veterans’ Affairs) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is set somewhere in the 1950s and is narrated by a struggling teenager named Holden Caulfield. In the book Holden recalls his time in Pencey Prep, a private school Holden was expelled from. After Holden's fight with his friend/roommate Stradlater, he decides to leave school early, exploring New York before he has to go home and face the wrath of his parents. He interacts with all different types of people including teachers, nuns, an old girlfriend, a prostitute and his sister. Holden is faced with questions throughout the book that he doesn't know the answer …show more content…
According to Christine Adamec, “...it is a severe despondency that puts average people into a state where they may feel paralyzed with excruciating hopelessness.” A feeling Holden has felt all too many times. Depression and PTSD are mostly triggered by a certain event. Holden’s trigger, his younger brothers death. Allie was Holden’s younger brother and he very suddenly died of leukemia. Holden found out rather suddenly, “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage.” (Salinger 44) Holden’s brother died of leukemia and he had no idea how to deal with it other than break windows. He now admits it was a mistake, “It was a very stupid thing to do, I’ll admit, but I hardly didn’t even know what I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie.” (Salinger 44) That was a very significant thing that changed Holden’s life forever and led to his
One of the best known novels in English-speaking countries, J.D Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye deals with Holden Caulfield’s past trauma which is the triggering factor in his depression, anxiety and alienation. Holden tells an unnamed person what has happened in the three days prior to his mental breakdown. Through Holden’s relatable characteristics and Salinger’s narrative treatment, the book continues to engage audiences across generations.
The experience of being in a state of grief is not limited by age but by experience. The symptoms of a person experiencing bereavement and grief are found throughout the book. These symptoms not only apply to Holden and his situation, but also are accepted as classic symptoms recognized by the Grief Counseling Community. The story is replete with the phrases "I felt so lonesome; I almost wish I was dead; it was so depressing; it was so quiet and lonesome out; feeling sort to lousy; made me sad; I felt miserable; felt like committing suicide; jumping out the window; sitting on an atomic bomb; blue as hell; felt like getting stinking drunk; can't sleep."
People’s shortcomings cause them to look at themselves and the environment around them, Holden does this multiple times throughout the book. “It’s a funny kind of yellowness, when you come to think of it, but it’s yellowness, all right. I’m not kidding myself,” (100). Holden doesn’t delude himself into thinking he’s perfect, which will allow him to better understand himself and his needs, but it also causes him some problems, like depression. Depression is said to ail everyone at least once at some point in their lives, Salinger makes it apparent that Holden is suffering it throughout the novel. “What I really felt like doing, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would have done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed,” (116-117). Depression and suicide are still present in today’s society, and unfortunately a part or many people’s lives, contributing to the American
Each year in the United States depression affects over 17 million people of all ages, races, and economic backgrounds. One in every eight teens are affected by depression (“Understanding Depression”). Depression can be defined as a mental illness where the person affected feels very sad and melancholy. Most people have passed through a stage or a short period of time where they have felt downhearted. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield, a 16-year old boy, can be viewed as insane in the eyes of many readers because of his behavior and actions. Despite this common belief, Holden most likely suffered from depression. Some symptoms which convey Holden was depressed was his mood, lack of sleep, and his suicidal
From the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the youthful protagonist Holden Caufield, employs the word “phony” to describe the behavior of a number of characters including Mr. Spencer and Ossenburger, however it is not them who are“phony”, it is the young main character. First, Mr. Spencer, Holden’s ex- history teacher, is not described as phony, but according to the adolescent, his choice of words are. Secondly, according to our main character, Ossenburger is not the generous philanthropist he portrays himself to be, but rather a greedy undertaker. Lastly, the protagonist could quite possibly be the authentic phony. All in all, the main character’s use to describe many other characters in the book is with the single word phony, when in fact the word phony would be the most probable word to describe the lead character.
The novel Catcher in the Rye, was written by J.D.Salinger. Where he vividly tells the story of the narrator, Holden Caulfield and his negligence towards becoming an adult in his alienated society. Holden’s continuous struggle of developing into an adult can be attributed to his persistent efforts towards preserving his innocence. Maturing into an adult where one loses their innocence occurs at various ages. However, that transition could generate a multitude of emotional reactions. Holden finds the loss of innocence disturbing, he is not able to grasp the concept of change. Which also influences his actions and the way he perceives various situations and memories. Holden is frequently victimized by society
J.D Salinger’s novel, Catcher In The Rye is about a teen, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the narrative. Holden is full of unique problems and most of the time lost in his own world, that can’t face reality. The psychoanalytic theory arranges a lens of definition when working at Holden Caulfield. Holden is seen as a lonely, rebellious teen who flunked out of an all boys private school, Pencey Prep. Failing school exemplifies how Holden controls his own decisions in the real world. As stubborn Holden is, opening up his persona and experiences to people is very hard for him, “I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me…” (Salinger 1). From a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective Holden would seem to keep all his thoughts all bottled up, not speaking, and opening up to people. “The preconscious holds information we’ve stored from past experience or learning. This information can be retrieved from memory and brought into awareness at any time.” (Nevid 469). Holden is one step closer to becoming a better changed person by speaking to his psychiatrist, and there is only way to find out if he did.
Schizophrenia is not a new mental disorder. Through written documents, it can be traced to the Pharaoh days in Egypt and even further back to the second millennium before Christ. The disease was first identified as a mental illness by German psychiatrist Dr. Emile Kraepelin in 1887. Kraepelin, identified by H.J. Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psychiatric gene, was the first to make a distinction in the psychotic disorders between what he called dementia praecox and manic depression. He believed that dementia praecox was primarily a disease of the brain, and particularly a form of dementia. Kraepelin named the disorder 'dementia praecox' (early dementia) to distinguish it from other forms of dementia (such as Alzheimer's disease) which typically occur late in life. It wasn’t until 1911 when Swiss psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler, coined the term "schizophrenia". Bleuler changed the name to schizophrenia because Kraepelin's name was misleading as the illness was not a dementia (it did not always lead to mental deterioration) and could occur late in life as well as early. Schizophrenia" comes from the Greek roots schizo (split) and phrene (mind) to describe the fragmented thinking of people with the disorder. He was also the first to describe the symptoms of schizophrenia as "positive" or "negative." Both Bleuler and Kraepelin subdivided schizophrenia into categories, based on symptoms and prognosis. There are five types described in the DSM-III: disorganized, catatonic, paranoid, residual, and undifferentiated. The first three categories were originally proposed by Kraepelin. The DSM- III stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders whic...
In the beginning of the book the reader immediately starts to see these symptoms. Before Holden left Pencey he said “ what I was really hanging around for, I was trying… to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that”(Salinger 7). One of the symptoms of PTSD is living in fear everyday and this is how Holden felt. In the quote he says that he hates not feeling some kind of good-bye but what he is really trying to say is that he fears he will not feel it. Holden is trying to change his fear into other feelings, like hate. Another symptom of PTSD that Holden experiences is depression. Many times during the novel Holden says “It makes me so depressed I go crazy”(19). During the story Holden often talks about things that make him depressed and this quote is just one of the multiple examples of the suffering he goes through because of his depression.Throughout Holden's journey there are so many questions constantly going through his mind. A couple of these questions were should he make phone calls to his old friends and if he should go home to his family. “Boy did I feel rotten. I felt so damn lonesome”(62-63). He has an opportunity to cure his loneliness by calling his old friends but he never follows through. “Then I went over and laid down on Ely’s bed…. Boy did I feel rotten. I felt so damn lonesome”(62-63). This quote shows that even when Holden isn’t alone he still suffers from overwhelming loneliness, which is also a symptom of PTSD. In the novel Holden experienced many of the symptoms of PTSD and this story accurately showed the difficulties that PTSD sufferers experience when trying to live their daily
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder which causes people with this disorder to misinterpret reality. It is one of the top ten causes of long-term disability. Schizophrenia patients may hear voices that may not be there, they will believe that people are out to harm them, reading their minds, and controlling their thoughts. Because they have these feelings a person can become withdrawn and paranoid. The name schizophrenia leads us to believe that the illness causes a person to have a split personality. This was the old way of thinking about the illness, but it is not the case today. Although the causes of schizophrenia are still not determined data suggest that environmental, social, and genetic factors can play a part in developing the illness. People with schizophrenia develop this illness around the ages 16 and 30 years old. The illness does not develop quickly. Onset is gradual and subtle and usually takes places over a course of five years.
Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that strikes teens and young adults crippling their brain and fragmenting their mind. Victims of schizophrenia remain in endless mental agony constantly confused and in terror. They suffer constantly from hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. Approximately 1% of the world population live with this disorder making it one of the most common mental disorders in the world. Despite the numbers, there is no known cause or cure for schizophrenia. So what is the disorder, why is it so hard to eliminate, and why do so many people fall victim to the fragmented mind?
In the book, “The Catcher in The Rye” by J.D. Salinger, the main character is very strange in numerous ways. His name is Holden Caulfield and boy has he got something wrong with him. He rambles on and on about nonsense for the first 20-something chapters of the book. He only likes 3-4 people in the book. He smokes and drinks heavily at the ripe age of seventeen. He has been expelled out of numerous prep schools, and feels abandoned and not wanted. He has some sort of mental illness and I think I know what it is. I believe that Holden Caulfield has a mental illness known as Borderline Personality Disorder, also known as BPD. The reasoning for my thinking is that Holden’s actions match up with the symptoms of this illness and the isolation he
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, portrays Holden Cawfield a New York City teenager in the 1950's as a manic-depressive. Holden's depression starts with the death of his brother, Allie . Holden is expelled from numerous schools due to his poor academics which are brought on by his depression. Manic depression, compulsive lying, and immaturity throughout the novel characterize Holden.
There is one event that unites all human beings. This event is the process of growing up and becoming an adult. The transition into adulthood from childhood can be very long and confusing. As a kid most of them can not wait to become an adult but once you experience adulthood you miss your childhood. The novel Catcher in the Rye shows how a teenager on the break of entering adulthood can get scared. Through the main protagonist Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger captures the confusion of a teenager when faced with the challenge of adapting to an adult society. Holden is faced with many problems as some teens
Mental health refers to the state of individuals psychologically, emotionally and socially. Mental health affects a person’s emotions, feelings, thoughts, and sections when exposed to different situations. Furthermore, mental health is responsible for a person’s reaction to stress and other social conditions. Generally, mental health affects how a person relates to others and their ability to understand and interact with them. Therefore, problems that affect a person’s mental health affect the abilities to socialize, their feelings, moods, reaction to situations. The person experiencing mental health problem may portray different behaviors when confronted with different issues. Mental health issues have several