How Society looks Upon RTS and PTSD.
Autumn Belizaire
Department of English, Noble Street College Prep
Honors English I
Ms. Ellis
June 2, 2023
Introduction
“Tryna to get over you, tryna convince myself every night It’s just another night, even though deep down i'm traumatized.”(PARTYNEXTDOOR, 2020, 0:40 - 0:47 ). Speak by Luarie Hales Anderson, published in 1999 follows the struggle of Melinda Sordino, a thirteen year old girl in highschool who struggles with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, after being date rape over the summer by Andy Evens, an upperclassmen. Melinda struggles with bullies and friends leaving her for calling the police at the party, causing arrests to be made. At home, Melinda's parents are unconcerned with her new behaviors, where she is
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Most adults are afraid of being dianois with a mental illness due to prejudices and stereotypes of people with mental illness being unpredictable, incompetent and dangerous. With these stereotypes it makes it harder for a person to find a job or find a landlord that would rent to them, leading to more undiagnosed cases of mental illness producing more self stigma inside of a victim, and creating lower self esteem, reduced hope and difficulty at work. More can include bullying and harassment, lack of understanding from family and friends, and fewer opportunities for work, social gatherings and housing problems. The 2019 national poll from the American Psychiatric Association shows that mental illness stigma is a problem in the workplace and only one in five workers feels completely safe talking about mental health but luckily almost half works felt safe talking about mental health. (Stigma, Prejudice and Discrimination Against People With Mental Illness,
“Speak” is a novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson in 1999, which follows the life of Melinda Sordino. Melinda, a freshman at MerryWheather High School has entered her first year as an outcast because she called the police at a summer party. As Melinda navigates through her first year in high school, she faces constant bullying and resentment from her classmates and former friends because of this decision. Melinda struggles with PTSD and decides to remove herself from any social circle and becomes a selective mute as a result of a traumatic event that took place at this party. Through Melinda’s internal monologues and interactions with her peers, the novel explores themes of trauma and the power of communication.
Speak The book I am responding to is called Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson. This book is about a teenage girl named Melinda Sordino, who begins her high school year with a big secret. Over the summer she and her friends went to a party where Melinda was raped, she called the police, causing her friends and everyone at the party to reject her. Later Melinda befriends a girl named Heather, a new student at her school.
Speak is a book that deals with a very dark subject. It is something that will need an open-mind and also a lot of empathy to comprehend. Our protagonist Melinda Sordino is a girl who was abandoned by her friend due to something she did at the end of the summer party. When school starts for her freshman year of high school,she an outcast, a nobody, someone who was forgotten, and a mute. The author Laurie Halse Anderson does a very magnificent job of putting the reader almost exactly as through what the protagonist experiences.
In this scholarly article researcher Tai Hawk evaluates PTSD as a whole analyzing the causes, effects, and possible outcomes of the self-described “epidemic”. Hawk analysis over 40 different forms of literature to bring forth his own conclusions and feasible theories. Hawk begins by giving a brief overview of why the cases of PTSD are increasing now then in earlier more violent wars, the answer is with advancing technology, and better healthcare soldiers outlive the trauma that they would have killed them 20 years earlier. Hawk later does an in depth review of the three forms of PTSD and their distinguishing features. The final criteria Hawk addressed was rehabilitation of veterans with PTSD and the difficulties that they must overcome, including
and she didn’t talk to anyone. Melinda has been trying to overcome her trauma since the start of her freshman year but she hasn't been able to find the courage to overcome it until the end of the year. The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melinda that had a traumatic experience at a party during the summer because of this Melinda has a hard time making friends going into the 9th grade. Melinda is also conflicted about her individuality and questions if she can trust anyone with being herself.
Laurie Halse Anderson Mr. Emmons ENG1D1.62 Trauma portrayed in Speak April 4, 2023 “Don’t expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself” (Anderson 159). Melinda saying this displays her growth, as this fact strongly contrasts her more timid, shy behavior at the beginning of the book. Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, has a character named Melinda Sordino slowly gain the strength to speak up after being raped during a party that previous summer.
This causes her to be unable to speak as normal and express herself only through self physical acts of hurting herself. However, through her pain, she begins to grow from a victim to a survivor and understands that the only way to go against evil is to speak out against it. Melinda in Speak is a high school freshman who is raped by Andy Evans who is a senior in high school. Due to him raping her she loses her ability to speak normally and say what she feels and how she feels. Melinda gains her confidence to speak in public freely again by the end of the story.
Anabia Durrani Mrs. Costley ENG1DB-04 21 April 2023 L.M. states, “Today in science class I learned every cell in our body is replaced every seven years. How lovely it is to know that one day I will have a body you will never have touched.” Melinda Sordino, the protagonist of the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, experiences sexual assault at a party that deeply and emotionally scars her. As a result, Melinda constantly displays two symptoms of assault throughout the novel, depression, and trauma, which drastically impact her character and life. To begin, Melinda suffers from depression, evident through her attempts at self-harm or suicide.
Sexual assault remains the most underreported crime for teens as well as adults, (Why Don’t They Tell? In the award-winning novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson writes about a character named Melinda Sorinado who was raped in the summer of freshman year and during freshman year we read about her dealing with the trauma she experienced. “Its choppy, nonlinear narrative gradually reveals that shortly before the first day of school, Melinda went to a party, where she was raped by a handsome, popular senior… But also, I had been sexually assaulted a month before ninth grade started,” (Interview with Author). Due to him being so popular, she didn’t tell anyone, some of the reasons that may have happened could be.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that develops after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. It is a severe and debilitating disorder that affects a person's ability to function in daily life. In this paper, we will discuss the case of Jeff Culhane, a 35-year-old male veteran who was diagnosed with PTSD. The paper will explore Jeff's symptoms, prevalence rate, etiology, and sociocultural factors that may have contributed to his condition.
“At night I sometimes drank too much. I’d remember getting shot and yelling out for a medic and then waiting and waiting and waiting, passing out once, then waking up and screaming some more, and how the screaming seemed to make new pain, the awful stink of myself, the sweat and fear, Bobby Jorgenson’s clumsy fingers when he finally got around to working on me. I kept going over it all, every detail.” (O’Brien, 191) Though this quote may be quite long, but it is very crucial in the example of how this book really portrays PTSD.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder , commonly referred to as PTSD , is a chemical imbalance in the brain due to an individual experiencing a traumatic event. Those who suffer from this disorder are more likely to be a war veteran. Although, this term hasn 't always been used. This disorder wasn 't recognized for its name until 1980, years after the Vietnam War. Many terms have been used around different time periods , but the most recent, prior to PTSD, is the term “psychological problems”.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in The Things They Carried During the turbulent times of the Vietnam War, thousands of young men entered the warzone and came face-to-face with unimaginable scenes of death, destruction, and turmoil. While some perished in the dense Asian jungles, others returned to American soil and were forced to confront their lingering combat trauma. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides distinct instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and reveals the psychological trauma felt by soldiers in the Vietnam War. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for short, is the most common mental illness affecting soldiers both on and off the battlefield.
Though they both experienced PTSD everyday, they fight through it. Through the tears in their eyes from the stories they spoke struck a nerve in a lot of students here, especially Ravyn. Hearing another person besides her grandfather’s agony show her that PTSD was a really extreme
Stigmatization of mental illness existed well before psychiatry became a formal discipline, but was not formally labeled and defined as a societal problem until the publication of Goffman’s book (1963). Mental illnesses are among the most stigmatizing conditions, regardless of the specific psychiatric diagnosis. Unlike other illnesses, mental illness is still considered by some to be a sign of weakness, as well as a source of shame and disgrace. Many psychiatric patients are concerned about how people will view them if knowledge of their condition becomes public Mental health stigma can be divided into two distinct types: • social stigma is characterized by prejudicial attitudes and discriminating behavior directed towards individuals with mental health problems as a result of the psychiatric label they have been given and has those types stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination Stereotypes are based on knowledge available to members of a group and provide a way to categorize information about other groups in society Prejudiced persons agree with these negative stereotypes, and these attitudes lead to discrimination through negative behaviors toward mentally ill individuals those negative perceptions create fear of and social distance from mentally ill persons. • perceived stigma or