PTSD In 'The Perks Of Being A Wallflower'

The four symptoms of this mental illness consists of “reliving the event through memories or nightmares, avoiding situations that remind you of the event, negative changes in beliefs and feelings (fear, guilt, shame, etc.) and being hyperarousal (jittery, on the lookout for danger, trouble concentrating and sleeping)” (“PTSD”).

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a relatively new diagnosis that was associated with survivors of war when it was first introduced. Its diagnosis was met largely with skepticism and dismissal by the public of the validity of the illness. PTSD was only widely accepted when it was included as a diagnosis in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association. PTSD is a complex mental disorder that develops in response to exposure to a severe traumatic event that stems a cluster of symptoms. Being afflicted with the disorder is debilitating, disrupting an individual’s ability to function and perform the most basic tasks.

PTSD Journal When learning about PTSD we watched a couple films and my favorite was Legends of the fall. This movie is about Albert, Tristan and Samuel three brothers who go off to war. The movie starts when Samuel brings home his fiancée Susannah and that’s a problem because both his brothers are attracted to her, problems start until the war gets bad and they ship out. Samuel gets out of Tristan’s sight during battle and ends up getting stuck in barbed wire and gets killed right in front of Tristian.

“The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brien 68). In Tim O'Brien's’ novel, The Things They Carried, the author creates an overall reflection of war and the memories that come from the experiences. O’Brien describes his experiences in the Vietnam War and how the outcomes can lead to PTSD. Soldiers can not possibly capture these experiences in literal truth, but by storytelling. Tim kills an enemy and feels the guilt from it, so he makes up a backstory for

Charlie shows symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. He seems to also suffer from depression, which can root from PTSD. The symptoms that were correct of PTSD were having flashbacks of traumatic events. The symptoms of anxiety that were correct were worrying about feeling guilty, and not becoming happy. The symptoms of depression that were correct were blaming yourself for everything, and always putting yourself down. The things that were realistic about PTSD were having flashbacks, feeling guilty, not wanting to become happy, blaming yourself, putting yourself down, and worrying; for example, Charlie became mentally unstable as a result of being sexually abused as a child. He blocked (repressed) thoughts like that out, and they never come

PTSD is a disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event.The following three characters, Norman Bowker, Azar, and Rat Kiley in The Things They Carried exemplify post-traumatic stress disorder tremendously in the book.Additionally, they weren’t eligible to work due to the hardships of the Vietnam War. Rat Kiley starts to see people around him dying. Rat Kiley experienced a passing of his close friend Curt Lemon. Firstly, Rat’s PTSD is exemplified greatly after Curt’s death, Rat Kiley kills a baby water buffalo. Therefore, this is an excellent example of how he has PTSD. Rat Kiley mainly wanted to take his frustration and pain out on the buffalo. Norman has made it home after the war,

Billy Pilgrim has not come unstuck in time; Billy has become a victim of violent warfare. Common to many soldiers of war, he has witnessed such horrific events during the bombing of Dresden that he has acquired Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In order to avoid the reality of his cruel life and of the war, Billy has become dependant on escapism. Through escapism he has created the planet of Tralfamadore and the Tralfamadorians.

We get to know Charlie through letters he writes to the unnamed “friend”. Charlie has a lot of internal conflicts which he deals with every second of his life. He deals with his best friend’s death and his aunt’s death and his past with his aunt. These internal conflicts make him withdrawn. Moreover, Charlie has a need to tell someone about his life and thoughts, maybe to feel less lonely. In the very start of the story Charlie expresses: “I don’t want you to find me”, which emphasizes that he does not want a concrete person to help him, he only needs to let his thoughts out. Charlie is absolutely a dynamic and round character. He is an intelligent, observant high school freshman who hides his beautiful personality because of having dealt with a lot of trauma in his childhood. Through the relationships he develops over the course of the school year, Charlie suddenly comes out of his shell and grows as a person. For example, what he tells Sam who has also dealt with a troubled past: “Even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there”. However, it is not until the very end of the book that he uncovers the repressed memories of sexual abuse of his aunt that are at the foundation of his internal

Charlie Kelmeckis is described as a “wallflower.” He is socially awkward and likes to keep to himself. He also really enjoys reading and writing. Charlie cares deeply for others, but has a lot of guilt about past events. For example, Charlie believes that the death of his Aunt Helen is his fault, because she was killed in a car accident on an errand to get Charlie a birthday gift. Charlie has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression. His mental instability was mostly caused by being sexually abused by his Aunt Helen before the age of seven. Charlie experiences flashbacks of his Aunt over the course of the movie, but all are portrayed in a positive light.

His mother had taught him to not look at girls, and after the operation when he started to develop more feelings, he had a hard time talking to Alice Kinnian because he had the thought that he liked her, and that he shouldn’t. Due to the hard nature of his mother, Charlie’s emotional life was not maturing with his new-found intelligence. Emotionally, he was still a little kid. “I knew she would give herself to me, and I wanted her, but what about Charlie?” Whenever he would get near Alice, he would start to panic because he felt that there was still a part of his old self within him, keeping him from taking his relationship further with

The disorder did not become more common until it was affecting the veterans at war who are haunted by the tragedies of war. “PTSD did not become an official disorder until the American Psychiatric Association added it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-III in 1980.” (Friedman) The DSM-III is a criterion for the classification of mental disorders that was first published in 1952. In today’s world, it is known as the DSM-V. PTSD in the DSM-III was classified as an anxiety disorder. However, today PTSD is now diagnosed as a trauma and stressor-related disorder. What we know now about PTSD is that under the classification of trauma and stressor- related disorder, a person must be exposed to a life stress related event to cause the disorder. What we also know now about PTSD is that it can occur in one of four ways: “direct exposure to trauma; witnessing trauma in person; learning a close friend or relative experienced trauma (indirect exposure); and repeated or extreme indirect exposure to aversive details of the event”

He feels lonely, blames himself for his aunt’s death, abuses substances at parties, and has thoughts of suicide. Before he returns to the mental hospital, the camera shows him reaching for a knife. This moment suggests he would have committed suicide if his sister had not sent the police to his house. His depression could have been caused from his PTSD and feelings of loneliness. He was lonely on the first day of highschool because his best friend had also committed suicide the May before. He even describes to his new friends, “I didn’t think that anyone noticed me” (Perks of Being a Wallflower). He describes himself as “getting bad again” when his best friend dies, when he has not seen his friends for two weeks, and when his friend group leaves for college. These are all times when he may have been feeling lonely. He reveals his PTSD and depression through his relationships as well. Charlie is close to his family and reveals he has not spoken to anyone outside his family since the school year, but he meets seniors who help him find his way. He is loving, caring, and thankful for his friends and is sad when they leave, and he even stands up for them after they had asked Charlie to stay

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is extremely common among certain individuals such as veterans, rape, and natural disaster victims. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is life altering, once diagnosed, the most efficient way is look for a solution to cope with it. Known as PTSD for short, “is a mental disability that occurs when experiencing or witnessing a life threatening events such as military events, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents or physical/sexual abuse in adult or childhood.”(1) The symptoms of PTSD include reliving a person’s traumatic experience, avoiding situations or people that remind the individual of said experience, emotionally detached, hyperarousal, and a sense of self guilt. In the novel, The Kite Runner, there is a child by the name of Sohrab, who was the son of the late Hassan’s son. Sohrab was sexually abused by one of the antagonists of the book named Assef which caused Sohrab’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sohrab faces a largely misunderstood trauma: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) just like most of the children who suffered from sexual and physical abuse trauma.

Charlies expresses confusion and fear. It all comes from his adversities as a child. His anxiety comes from many events that happened in his life, his emotions and memories were heavily damaged, but charlie seems to be unaware of it. Only when this anxiety attacks happened to him he realizes something is wrong inside his head. But the truth is, the symptoms are not as discreet as he thinks. Charlie seems to be constantly having trouble “fitting in”, due to a lack of social skills. Back to the effects of an ACE, people with adversities face a lack of social

His meltdown in Alan's office one could have seen from a mile away, with it the ultimate heralding of displacement for Charlie's pain, and final straw to let Charlie live his life alone. (Displacement is but one of many defense mechanisms that involves shifting aggressive or hurtful emotions away from one’s self to a more “acceptable” or less threatening outlet.) Yet for most who watched the movie most likely, Charlie didn't get immediately better right away to their surprise. In honest words taken from an episode of House I once watched, he uttered a line that rings particularly true in this circumstance: "We tell ourselves it helps. To make [them] talk about it. To help... heal. When all you've done is make [someone] cry." After Charlie's reveal of his true past he seems to be by all standards progressing. That is until he sets out to kill himself, if not by his own gun then a police officer's. In all three main areas of his mental make-up Charlie has been both affected and ravaged, his entire being but a husk of what he accomplished four years prior. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is illustrated through Charlie as a life-changer, a psychological diagnosis that alters your entire core of being without proper therapy or treatment. (Diagnosis in