The Mind Changing Disease : From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

One of the hardships Holden must cope with is his inability to come to terms with death, in particular that of his younger brother, Allie. Holden seems to have experienced a

Firstly, Holden’s PTSD derives from an event that happened in Holden’s past regarding his brother. He tells me that he had a brother named Allie who he was very close to, but sadly Allie passed do to Leukemia. Holden didn’t know how to deal with the death of

What is grief and how does it affect someone? Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield narrates his experiences during the “madman” period of his life (Salinger 3). As he tells his story, one can clearly tell Holden is grieving and is going through the five stages of Grief. Grief is a cycle of five stages that a person experiences after undergoing a loss of some kind. Before a person is able to move on from the loss, he or she has to go through the stages of grieving and make it to the fifth stage of acceptance. The time frame for this process varies from person to person but can range anywhere from six months to four years (staff). Holden grieves over the loss of his little brother, Allie, who died of cancer. By the time Holden reaches the acceptance stage at the end of the novel, he has been grieving for roughly four years. The stages of grieving include denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Holden suffers from the five stages of grief, with depression being the stage he maintains throughout most of the novel, which leads others to believing that he is only clinically depressed; however, he clearly is suffering from more than just depression.

To start off with, Holden has symptoms of Post traumatic stress disorder, such as flashbacks and mistrust. He often has flashbacks about his disesaed brother Allie. One example from the novel says,”[Allie] got lukemia and died when we were up in maine, july 18th, 1946”. That is a very specific thing for somebody to remember, considering he doesnt do well in school, proving thatthis event still remains clear in his head. As does his brother. He describes him as” He

Holden reveals to the reader that he, “almost wished he was dead” how is the plight of his mental health shown?

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a known mental health condition triggered after experiencing or seeing a life-threatening event. It is very common around the world, and my new patient, Holden Caulfield, has this kind of disorder. A friend of mine recommended him, knowing that I will probably help him. Throughout our session, I could tell that Holden doesn’t have a normal mind. The death of his brother Allie and witnessing another death, his friend Jame Castle, who committed suicide, may have caused his PTSD. The outcome of experiencing all these tragic events changed his life. His relationship with his parents is vile, and he also does an appalling job in school. Reliving the past, detachment, and agitation, are the main symptoms of Holden’s PTSD.

     Throughout life, an individual may endure emotionally and physically straining moments causing the person to become downhearted, and or irate. These feelings are normal, but may however become a problem when these feelings prohibit someone from living a ‘normal’ life. An estimated 5.2 million American adults ages 18 to 54, or approximately 3.6 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have PTSD (Narrow, Rae, Regier). This purpose of this report is to prove whether or not Holden Caulfield, the main character of J.D. Salingers’s book The Catcher In The Rye, is depressed.

He is not intensely preoccupied with academic achievement like many more modern teenagers, having failed out of several prestigious preparatory schools, but he is clearly intelligent and tends to dwell on“heavy” topics like death and loss of innocence. His cynicism and sensitivity, in addition to the trauma he experiences from losing his brother Allie, suggest that he has depression or another untreated mental illness, an interpretation which is common among readers and supported by Holden’s visit with a psychotherapist at the end of the novel. Despite the risks he faces through having an untreated mental illness, shown when he is warned that he is “riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall” through self-destructive behavior, the conformist culture and social niceties of the 1950s prevented him from being able to discuss his thoughts for a large portion of the novel. (186) This culture, specifically the “phony” prep schools, is clearly toxic for Holden and likely contributed heavily towards his negative mental state, and therefore the negative image he often has of

Holden seems to struggle with depression. In many places throughout the novel, Holden describes to us his deep sadness. A lot of times his depression is unpredictable and triggered by tense situations. In one situation while he was explaining his feelings about the Elkton Hills headmaster’s phony and rather boring conversations with well-built and

Holden has several insecurities that are displayed throughout the book that hint at his condition.

Post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a known mental health condition triggered after experiencing or seeing a life threatening event. It is very common around the world, and my new patient, Holden Caulfield, has this kind of disorder. A friend of mine recommended him, knowing that I will probably help him. Throughout our session, I could tell that Holden doesn’t really have a normal mind. The death of his brother Allie and witnessing another death, his friend who committed suicide, may have caused his PTSD. The outcome of experiencing all these tragic events, changed his life. His relationship with his parents is vile, and he also does an appalling job in school. Relieving the past, detachment, and agitation, are the main symptoms of

Depression, alcohol or other substance abuse, or other anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with PTSD (Breslau, Davis, Andreski 216-22). Holden shows many signs of alcoholism: "I kept sitting there getting drunk…" (Salinger 149). "Boy, I sat at that goddam bar till around one o 'clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard. I could hardly see straight" (150). Holden realizes himself that he is somewhat depressed. "Boy, I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can 't imagine" (98). Headaches, stomach and intestine complaints, immune system problems, dizziness, chest pain, or discomforts in other parts of the body are also common (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill). As the book The Catcher In The Rye progresses, more and more of Holden 's symptoms that accompany PTSD come through.

The final symptom Holden experiences is his irrational behavior which is displayed several times throughout the novel. "You're a dirty...and you'll be-" (Salinger 103). Holden angrily backfires at Maurice, a man who began attacking Holden, clearly stronger than the teenager, thus only adding fuel to the fire. Holden's careless attitude results in him making ruthless decisions, such as agreeing to have a prostitute such as Sunny or willing to run away with Sally Hayes. "If you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you're probably aware of the strong connection between your condition and impulsive behaviors. Most of the time, you do something impulsively as a way of finding relief from a stressful feeling--for example, a painful emotion"

Holden has experienced clusters of severe trauma throughout his entire life. His brother Allie died of Leukemia a few years ago and Holden was so upset that he punched all of the windows out in his garage that night. Neither Holden, nor his family have yet to deal with the loss of Allie, which clearly affected Holden very much. Also Holden was a witness to James Castle’s suicide at a private school that he once attended. James Castle had been bullied and could no longer handle the situation, so he resorted to suicide by hurling himself out of a building window and falling to his death. Although Holden was not incredibly close with James Castle, he was still affected deeply by the sight of the incident.

Throughout the novel, Holden is shown to be protecting over those he truly loves. Although a common symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is turning away from loved ones, with that, survivors may also be prone to be more protective over loved ones in fear. According to ‘Everyday Health’ and ‘The U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the National Center for PTSD’, it is common that those affected feel guilty about not being able to protect their ones. “I was there for about half hour… bastard Stradlater was,” (Salinger 34). Holden has experienced so much trauma throughout his life, that he does not want Jane, someone of whom he is very close with, to experience what he has gone through. Holden fears that if Stradlater, Holden’s “secret slob”