Autumn Johnson
March 30, 2014
MS.Chitaphong
PTSD Research Paper
Does Henry have enough symptoms to be diagnosed with PTSD?
In the short story "The Red Convertible" Louise Erdrich does a great job explaining how war can affect a person's mind and emotions. Henry is a great example of how veterans come home from war. Families are torn apart, some of them don't make it after war often because of suicide, or they become distant from the outside world. Erdrich explains this clearly and gives specific examples about it. The goal of this research paper is to explain how Erdich shows the effects of war and examples of how Henry has symptoms of PTSD.
PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) is a type of anxiety disorder. It can often occur after going through an extreme emotional trauma that involved the threat if injury or death. Symptoms are reliving the event, avoidance, and hyper arousal.
A person with PTSD symptoms may also show signs of stress, anxiety, and tension. You may have something that reminds you of the event, dreams that may be about the event, flashbacks like the event is really happening again. You try to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event and you may avoid places activities or people that remind you of the event. You have negative changes in your thinking and mood. You may have negative feelings about yourself or other people, inability to experience positive emotions, feeling emotionally numb, lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed, hopelessness about the future, memory problems including not remembering important aspects of the event and difficulty maintaining close relationships.
An Egyptian veteran wrote about his emotions before he went into battle. PTSD can also be found in survivor of the Holocaust, car accidents, sexual assaults,