Perks Of Being A Wallflower Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Charlie’s Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
The character, Charlie, from “Perks of Being a Wallflower” faced a lot of trauma during his life just before high school. From many different ages, he had to overcome some very difficult and scarring experiences. Because of these experiences, he becomes very introverted and has trouble opening up to people. He keeps everything bottled up until something puts him over the edge and he lashes out. For Charlie, one bad thing happens after another and he has to deal with all this sadness inside of him. Charlie should be diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder because due to his aunt molesting him, he was never the same.
Charlie’s favorite person in the world was his Aunt Helen and when she died in a

car accident going to get Charlie’s birthday present, he took all the blame upon himself. And by doing this, it affects his personality and mood. Due to Charlie being such an introvert, he is never able to open up to anyone about these feelings he had after his Aunt Helen’s death. Before high school, his best and only friend Michael committed suicide, which left Charlie having to start high school all my himself. Michael committing suicide brought back memories to Charlie of his aunt having self-inflicted cuts on her wrist.
Consistently throughout the film, Charlie has flashbacks of the night his aunt died. And every time he has these flashbacks, he is always put in a bad place. But one particular time when his friends that he had very much struggled to make, left for college, he began to have flashbacks of every bad thing that happened to him and he then attempted suicide. He was then brought to a psychiatric hospital to receive help and therapy. During the therapy, something was found out that Charlie had only thought was a dream. Before his Aunt Helen died, she had begun to live with Charlie’s family because she was suicidal. During her stay at their house, she molested Charlie when was very young, around the age of seven. Being molested completely changed Charlie and affected him in his life, he was never the same.
Charlie is depressed and writes letters to a friend, whom he addresses as “Friend.” Charlie has good days, then some bad days, but when the days are bad, they become very bad and they affect everyone around him.

He was involved in a fight defending his friend and always tries to do the right things, but sometimes they do not always have the best outcome for Charlie. He does not remember the fight because he completely blacks out, but it is after this fight it is when he begins to, as he puts it, “starting to get bad again.” Finally, when all of his friends leave for college, he has a flashback of all the bad things that he has not talked about with anyone else. And this long flashback, makes him attempt suicide. If a Charlie was a real psychiatric patient, he would diagnose with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Throughout the movie, Charlie experiences flashbacks of what he once thought was a dream of his Aunt Helen and him alone, the night his aunt died, and other scenes that show how much anger and sadness he is building

up.
Before Charlie went to high school, he did not talk to anyone else other than his family. He did not communicate with anyone else around him. Another symptom of PTSD is detachment from family and friends, which is exactly what Charlie did. He never told anyone about what his aunt did to him, even though he was not sure that it actually did happen. Charlie had a violent outburst, another symptom, when one of his friends was being hurt. He helped them because he was not able to help his Aunt Helen when she died.
According to the DSM-V, to be diagnosed with PTSD the patient must apply to the following criteria.

They must have exposure to a serious injury, witnessing a death, or sexual violence. Charlie has personally experienced the traumatic event of his Aunt Helen molesting him as a child. “He avoided situations in which he had to discuss the trauma. He experienced alterations in cognition and mood including an inability to remember aspects of the trauma and negative beliefs about himself related to his aunt’s death and feelings of detachment from others” (McGuire). The patient has recurring memories associated or from the traumatic event. Constantly, in the movie Charlie has flashbacks. Also the patient avoids the stimuli associated with the traumatic event. Charlie avoids any physical contact he has with girls, but he does not realize until why. But it is when he went to the hospital to become treated for PTSD is when he finally finds out why he is constantly in a bad mental state. And the reasoning being his aunt molesting him when he was a child. The patient has mood swings that get worse and worse after the traumatic event takes place. Charlie refers to this as “getting bad

again.”
The treatment plan needed for Charlie is a lot of therapy. In the film, when Charlie is in the psychiatric hospital, his doctor sits and talks to him about all the trauma he has experienced. There is no cure for PTSD so the only way to help someone with it is therapy. More specifically psychotherapy or talk therapy. Charlie would need to talk about his aunt and what she did him because he has kept it bottled up for years and years and that is why he was in a bad state. A more specific type of talk therapy is cognitive therapy. It would be used to help detect the patterns in Charlie’s behavior to determine how he is feeling and how the treatment is helping his condition. The therapy sessions could be done in groups or an individual setting, Charlie, along with his therapy, should take an antidepressant to help with his PTSD. This would help with his depression and anxiety. Because Charlie is now aware of his sickness and is aware of his past situations, he will do well in his treatment plan.
It is possible to diagnose Charlie with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder because he meets all of the criteria that one must have in order to be diagnosed. Charlie is willing to help himself, which is one of the most important things when being diagnosed with something that can only really be helped by therapy. Unfortunately, with all the trauma that Charlie has been through he will never be cured of PTSD. But every therapy session will help him deal with his depression and anxiety.