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Essay on ptsd and soldiers
Essay on ptsd and soldiers
Essay on ptsd and soldiers
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In "Living the Dream" the author discusses his events and steps in the attempt to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder. The author mainly showed the reader the effects PTSD had on his life. Michael Jernigan explained that he had reoccurring nightmares of events that had happened to him in Iraq. Through the help of a disabled veteran and his wife, he began to view his dreams in positive manner. This helped the author create a more positive outlook on
life.
The novel Once a Warrior-- Always a Warrior, is a self-help book describing the effects and hardships of not only combat deployments, but the struggle of returning home following a combat deployment. The novel recognizes veterans who have deployed and left everything behind and returned with medical conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mTBIs and other conditions ranging from substance abuse to insomnia and addresses possible solutions to these issues. I want to look at a few things that I personally feel I could take away from the book and explain them.
“Post traumatic stress disorder is a debilitating condition that follows a terrifying event” (Marilyn 8). It occurs when one has witnessed or experienced a traumatic event, such as war, child abuse, or other types of violence. Victims may claim to relive or re-experience events that were traumatic to them. They may even “feel” or “hear” things from the event. Other symptoms may include: “forgetfulness…amnesia, excessive fantasizing…trancelike states…imaginary companion, sleepwalking, and blackouts” (Putman 2). A lot of times, coping mechanisms fail and the following inner dissonance can lead to a multiplicity of upsetting emotional and physical symptoms (Robert Saperstein 2). Some children suffering from PTSD may show traumatic play. This refers to the reenactment of a traumatic experience. Usually, children will change the ending to make it happier. This is an extreme example of using the imagination as a way to escape the terrible memories. Billy has all the symptoms associated with the disorder as he also used his imagination to escape his bad memories.
The article Keeping The Dream Alive by John Meacham is addressed to people who feel the American dream has died. The author compares historical events and today’s issues to encourage the reader that a simple call to action can revive the dream. Towards the end of the passage he quotes John Adams’ proclamation, “’If the American dream is to come true and to abide with us… it will, at the bottom, depend on the people themselves.” Assuming the reader is waiting on the government to provide a solution, Meacham presents ideas that encourage the readers to make the change themselves. The arrangement of historical feats and beliefs persuade the readers that the future of the American dream is in their hands.
In her award winning novel The Running Dream, Wendelin Van Draanen’s extensive research paid off tremendously. Draanen accurately depicts the life of a teenage girl who is learning how to function accordingly with the new disabilities that took her by storm. She captures the main character, Jessica, struggling to overcome both her physical and mental obstacles. Jessica’s running career comes to an abrupt halt as the bus she and the school track team are riding in, is struck by a large truck at high speed. Throughout her recovery journey, Jessica exhibits many psychological characteristics. Battling with isolation, reaction formation and projection, Jessica nevertheless powers through all of her struggles and ultimately becomes the person she
The American Dream provides a uniformed idea of a goal that is seldomly achieved. It includes having a successful job, a healthy family, and happiness achieved through hard work and determination. Those born and raised well with strict parents often attain the American Dream, but those raised with abusive parents that live separately often find the American Dream extremely difficult to achieve. However, this idealistic stereotype can be false. Surprisingly, in the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote the American Dream poses as a difficulty to maintain and achieve by the Clutter family, Perry Smith, Dick Hickock, and Floyd Wells.
It is estimated that anywhere between ten and thirty-one percent of Vietnam veterans have experienced post traumatic stress disorder sometime in their life. However, just because someone has not been labeled with that disorder, it does not mean there have not been long-lasting affects on that person. Throughout the book, we see the initial and long-lasting impacts that the Vietnam war has had on soldiers. This book is written in Tim’s point of view as he tells other soldier’s stories, as well as his own. Most of the book is told as Tim is looking back on his time as a soldier but there are times when we see him in present time with his family, over twenty years after the war. Over the course of the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Tim changes his personality for the worse, sees new sides of his friends brought out by
A dream is a deep ambition and desire for something; everybody tries to reach their dreams no matter how far away they may seem. The characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories strive for nothing less than “The Great American Dream”. This is the need to be the best of the best, top of the social ladder, and to be happier and more successful than anyone has been before. Fitzgerald writes about this American Dream that every character has but can never achieve; the dream is kept unattainable due to obstacles, the disadvantages of being low on the social ladder, and also the restrictions of having a high social status.
Not many people can relate to Louise Edrich’s story, “The Red Convertible.” It may be fictional, but there is more to it than a story to entertain the readers. The Red Convertible is about Lyman and his changed older brother, Henry who comes back from his service with Post-traumatic stress disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder can last for years or be lifelong. In Edrich’s “The Red Convertible,” the characters and plot conveys the theme “what doesn’t kill you, makes you wish you were
He has stated that he still has trouble sleeping at night; he must try to overcome the nightmares. Though the war has caused problems in his life, he has revisited sites in Vietnam where he had formerly served to repay his dues and never forget the past (Rosenwald). Despite the fact he was forced to serve in a war he did not agree with, he understands it was a necessary inspiration for him to be able to write. He keeps this thought in mind as he continues to write his novels today. O’Brien has shifted away from writing about war, and now emphasizes on the post lives of veterans. War, although painful, can bring success and a higher appreciation of life. O’Brien wrote his outstanding novels as a way to keep living (The WashingtonPost.com), meaning each one was deeply influenced by his
In the speech “I Have a Dream,” presented in the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr talks about his American Dream. This speech is recognized as one of the best speeches ever given at the Lincoln Memorial. As King gives his speech the reader would notice how the second half of the speech is what the world would see as the American dream. The first half consists of the actual reality, nightmare, of the world the constant state that seems never to change. Throughout the speech a person can hear one of the primary themes, dream, repeated constantly eleven times to be exact. Although King acknowledges the metaphor of reality, he explores the archetypical metaphor of a dream.
Oprah Winfrey once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” But, what actually is a dream and what do dreams really have to do with one’s everyday life? In essence, a dream is a series of mental images and emotions occurring during slumber. Dreams can also deal with one’s personal aspirations, goals, ambitions, and even one’s emotions, such as love and hardship. However, dreams can also give rise to uneasy and terrible emotions; these dreams are essentially known as nightmares. In today’s society, the concept of dreaming and dreams, in general, has been featured in a variety of different mediums, such as literature, film and even music. While the mediums of film and music are both prime examples of this concept, the medium of literature, on the other hand, contains a much more diverse set of examples pertaining to dreams and dreaming. One key example is William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the portrayal of dreams, in general, plays a prominent role in Shakespeare’s play, the exploration of many aspects of nature, allows readers to believe that dreams are merely connected to somewhat unconventional occurrences.
This is a paper is meant to show how Sigmund Freud 's dream interpretation is used to lay out the ground works for Bill 's life in the movie Its Such a Beautiful Day (2012). Many of the main character 's scattered dreams throughout the movie help show how he is feeling both physically as well as mentally and give an idea of what it is he is going through and as his mind begins to deteriorate some of his dearest memories of what is important to him still lay dormant in his unconsciousness mind slowly dribbling out, as possible dementia and other aliments begins to take hold of him. Many bizarre dreams, memories and hallucinations Bill has help him cope through his many hospital trips, loss of family members, and open a window to his unconsciousness and express how they are his subconsciousness helping explain what is going on around him.
Tragedy is an ever present part of life, whether it be illness, inability, death or anything else, it takes its toll on everyone. A very common tragedy found in literature and daily life is the loss of dreams, in Langston Hughes’s poem “A Dream Deferred” Hughes poses the question of what truly happens to a deferred dream: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up… Or fester like a sore… Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over...Or does it explode?” The outcome of lost dreams differs for each individual and their attitude. This is seen throughout America and also in The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner and The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
I chose this book to explore whether our dreams do mean anything, and whether it does symbolise and influence our past and future. The points that I will be talking about The Interpretation of Dreams in my review is the theories of manifest and latent dream content, dreams as wish fulfilments, and the significance of childhood experiences.
We all have a dream, but the difference is how we realise our dream, how we obtain our dream, and how our dream changes us. This is evident in our learning of dreams and aspirations through the texts Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? by Lasse Hallström, and through my own studies of Million Dollar Baby by Clint Eastwood. These three highly acclaimed texts represent the same ideas on dreams and aspirations, which can be defined as hope, desire or the longing for a condition or achievement, but these texts express the same ideas differently, shaping our understanding of dreams and aspirations.