Category: E03: Critical Reading

PTSD Claims- DudeInTheBack

Part 04

1. Granted, diagnosing PTSD is a tricky thing.

Claim: saying that ptsd diagnosises are tricky. explains in later passage saying how it is tricky

2. the incidence of PTSD goes up with the number of tours and amount of combat experienced.

Claim: does not give proof of this claim

3. As with most psychiatric diagnoses, there are no measurable objective biological characteristics to identify it.

Claim: saying that it cannot be identified with things causing the illness. its all in the brain

4. Doctors have to go on hunches and symptomology rather than definitive evidence.

Claim: should prove that doctors have to go on hunches and don’t have definite evidence to go on

5. Caleb knows that a person whose problem is essentially that he can’t adapt to peacetime Alabama sounds, to many, like a pussy.

Claim: saying calebs situation most people would say he’s a pussy for it.

6. Now if you’re knocked unconscious, or have double vision, or exhibit other signs of a brain injury, you have to rest for a certain period of time

Claim: stating the new rule for safety

7. but that rule didn’t go into effect in theater until 2010, after Caleb was already out of the service.

Claim: showing that the rule was made after calebs service, it could have helped caleb

8. Unlike PTSD, secondary traumatic stress doesn’t have its own entry in the DSM

Claim: secondary traumatic stress cannot enter the brain

  • end of one hour

Critical Reading

Section 6

“She mirrors…she just mirrors” her dad’s behavior, Brannan says. She can’t get Katie to stop picking at the sores on her legs, sores she digs into her own skin with anxious little fingers. She is not, according to Brannan, “a normal, carefree six-year-old.”

-it is a interesting thing to see their kids copy their Parents PTSD actions.Especially at such a young age they will pick up anything.

Different studies of the children of American World War II, Korea, and Vietnam vets with PTSD have turned up different results: “45 percent” of kids in one small study “reported significant PTSD signs”

-Kids who parents show up with PTSD 45% of them appear to have the same signs as their parents.

-I believe that kids show more signs than their parents because of their young ages they will pick it up faster and it will be apart of their personalty for a good part of their lives.

But then in 2003, a team of Dutch and Israeli researchers meta-analyzed 31 of the papers on Holocaust survivors’ families, and concluded—to the fury of some clinicians—that when more rigorous controls were applied, there was no evidence for the intergenerational transmission of trauma

-When there is a more controlled environment the chances of trauma is less.

Holocaust survivors “had more resources and networks, wider family members and community to support them to adapt to their new circumstances after a war.” They were not, in other words, expected to man up and get over it. 

– I don’t believe that the reason why the  Holocaust survivors trauma rates were lower because they had more resources to help aid them.

-I think that they had were just in a different environment then the solider coming back from the war.

-An their kids didn’t have any signs because they would just want to forget about their time there. An would just hide there trauma from them.

EO3 Critical Reading – thebeard

Section 17 

 1. Later, she reminds me that Lasagna Night can come apart in an instant, if Caleb has a “bad PTSD moment.”

  • Lasagna Night has probably fallen apart many times before since she says that she is reminded.
  • Caleb probably has PTSD moments a lot that causes problems at home.

2. These are supposed to be her easy months, she sighs, April and May and June, before the anniversaries of his worst firefights—many of them in Ramadi; a lot of bad things happened in Ramadi—exacerbate his flashbacks and nightmares.

  • These months are supposed to be easier, Caleb hasn’t had many PTSD moments in these months in the past from what it seems.
  • Caleb probably wasn’t deployed during these months when he was in war or he wasn’t in the fight.
  • The worst of his firefights must happen in month after June.

3. That’s usually September through January, the “really bad” months, whereas in the spring, she gets a bit of “vacation,” time to clean up the house and catch up on work, rest.

  • From September through January Caleb has a lot of bad PTSD moments.
  • He probably has bad flashbacks of what happened during those months when he was in active duty.
  • In spring Brannan gets time off from the PTSD moments. Caleb may not be home or he is more calm and doesn’t think about them that much then.

4. She used to ask Caleb what was wrong, why he was coiled so tight and poisonous, screaming and yelling at everybody. That just agitated him more.  

  • It is smart not to ask Caleb what was wrong when he was yelling. This made him more angry.

5. Haven’t you noticed I’m having a bad time? he’ll ask. And then she’ll just sit and listen while he says he cannot get it out of his head, about how if he had caught that fucking sniper, that enemy sniper he’d been trying to get, that’d been following them around, terrorizing their unit, if he’d have managed to kill him like he was supposed to, then the sniper wouldn’t have gotten off the shot that killed his buddy.

  • This is something that he has thought about a lot, Caleb lost a friend from this and it haunts him a lot. He always thinks “what if” something else would have happened.

 

E03 Critical Reading – Killroy513

Section 2

Killroy, you were assigned Section 7, several times, aloud, in class, MON SEP 25.

“Now, he’s rounder, heavier, bearded, and long-haired,”

Claim- He different in his original appearance.

-Many Veterans after service do not abide by AR670-1 physical appears codes. They go back to civilian life. A veteran can be anyone around you and you would not even be able to tell.

“obviously tough even if he weren’t prone to wearing a COMBAT INFANTRYMAN cap, but still not the guy you picture when you see his “Disabled Veteran” license plates.

Claim: Caleb is still as strong as he was but has changed.

-Many veterans take pride in serving in the military. Most wear hats displaying their unit, branch or time of service. The hat depicted in the reading is one that displays that the man saw combat as an infantryman. 11B MOS’s are rifleman that are in the heat of combat a good portion of the time. They are the infantry. Many things can be seen serving in the military and they are exposed to most of it. Even though someone isnt physically wounded, the thoughts of what was seen can mentally scare you for the rest of your life. This is basically what PTSD is.

“Not the old ‘Nam guy with a limp, or maybe the young legless Iraq survivor, that you’d expect.”

Claim: Not the typical disabled veteran.

-Many soldiers from the Vietnam war returned disabled, some physically and some mentally. Being in the heat of combat is different for everyone. It effects people in different ways. You could be physically wounded or mentally wounded. These wounds never truly seem to heal because the scares are left as a reminder.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/ptsd-epidemic-military-vets-families/

E03 Critical Reading – PlethoraGaming

Section 12

By this point, you might be wondering, and possibly feeling guilty about wondering, why Brannan doesn’t just get divorced. And she would tell you openly that she’s thought about it. “Everyone has thought about it,” she says

  • She is assuming that we all should be thinking that they should be divorced
  • This is a common thought for anyone who has to deal with someone who has PTSD

And a lot of Kateri’s eight-year-old son now counts the exits in new spaces he enters, and points them out to his loved ones until war or fire fails to break out, and everyone is safely back home.

  • Perhaps this is  normal to find a way to get out if someone has a PTSD breakdown.

in the wake of Vietnam, 38 percent of marriages failed within the first six months of a veteran’s return stateside; the divorce rate was twice as high for vets with PTSD as for those without. Vietnam vets with severe PTSD are 69 percent more likely to have their marriages fail than other vets. Army records also show that 65 percent of active-duty suicides, which now outpace combat deaths, are precipitated by broken relationships. And veterans, well, one of them dies by suicide every 80 minutes.

  • Claims: 38 percent of marriages fail within few months of their return
  • Claims: Divorce rate is 2x higher for vets with PTSD.
  • Claims: Broken relationship cause 65% of suicides while active duty
  • Claims: PTSD vets commit suicide every 80 minutes

But even ignoring that though vets make up 7 percent of the United States, they account for 20 percent of its suicides —or that children and teenagers of a parent who’s committed suicide are three times more likely to kill themselves, too—or a whole bunch of equally grim statistics, Brannan’s got her reasons for sticking it out with Caleb.

  • Claims: kids are likely to commit suicide as well if their parents have done so as well.
  • She has her reasons for staying with Caleb

“I love him,” she says.

Brannan fully supports any wife—who feels that she or her children are in danger, or in an untenable mental-health environment, or for whatever reason—who decides to leave. She’s here, through Family of a Vet, to help those people.

  • Claims: She loves him
  • They are not in a dangerous mental zone for the kids to be effected.

But she’s also there for those FOV users who, like her, have decided to stay. “I have enormous respect for Caleb,” she explains if you ask her why. “He has never stopped fighting for this family. Now, we’ve had little breaks from therapy, but he never stopped going to therapy. I love him,” she repeats, defensively at times.

  • Others have stayed with people with PTSD like her
  • She respects and loves Caleb
  • Therapy is helpful and they go to it continuously, even if they take short breaks

He is her friend, and her first love, and her rock, and her lifeline, her blossoming young daughter’s father, her ally, and her hero, she tells Caleb when he asks. Because the person who most often asks Brannan why she stays with her husband is her husband.

  • Caleb is very important to her
  • She stays with him because of who he is

Critical Reading – Jadden14

Section 5

Secondary Traumatic Stress has been documented in the spouses of veterans with PTSD from vietnam. And the spouses of Israeli veterans with PTSD, and Dutch Veterans with PTSD.

  • The author is claiming that Secondary Traumatic Stress has been recorded from previous veterans, by their wives.
  • The author then proceeds to list two more valid points: the spouses of Israeli veterans and the Dutch Veterans also reported this. The tone seems very repetitive, and is said in a way that the author finds this almost not suprising, and uses this to point out the big picture.

In one study, the incidence of secondary trauma in wives of Croatian war vets with PTSD was 30 percent. In another study there, it was 39 percent. “Trauma is really not something that  happens to an individual,” says Robert Motta, a clinical psychologist and psychology professor at Hofstra University who wrote a few of the many medical-journal articles about secondary trauma in Vietnam vets’ families. 

  • The first sentence is backing the theory in the previous sentence. The author presents a statistic to properly support his claim.
  • “In another study there it was 39 percent” – the author presents another study, one with a higher incident rate, to show the importance of this issue.
  • “Trauma is really not something that happens to an individual” – claiming that PTSD not only effects the person with the disorder, but the families as well. This quote is from a well known psychologist professor from a university, a credible source.

“Trauma is a contagious disease; it affects everyone that has close contact with a traumatized person” in some form or another, to varying degrees and for different lengths of time. “Everyone” includes children. Which is something Brannan and Caleb lose not a little sleep over, since they’ve got a six-year-old in the house.

  • “Trauma is a contagious disease; it affects everyone that has close contact with a traumatized person” – continuation of the point made, labeling trauma as a contagious disease, spreading and infecting anyone close to them.
  • “”Everyone” includes children.” – the author is trying to create a form of innocence by adding in the fact that children are being subjected to this issue. This is to bring the audience’s attention to the fact that PTSD is a very serious issue that needs to be addressed.
  • The author then lists an example of a kid who is suffering from this, losing sleep over this disorder. This continues to drive the point that everyone is affected by PTSD.

Katie Vines, the first time I meet her, is in trouble. Not that you’d know it to look at her, bounding up to the car, blondish bob flying as she sprints from her kindergarten class, nice round face like her daddy’s. No one’s the wiser until she cheerfully hands her mother a folder from the backseat she’s hopped into. It contains notes about the day from her teacher.

  • The author introduces a new character, Katie Vines, who apprears to be in trouble.
  • “not that you’d know it to look at her, bounding up to the car, blondish bob flying as she sprints from her kindergarden class” – a vivid description of the scene is provided. Katie seems to be a very hidden character, who resembles her father.
  • The mother recieves her progress in the form of notes from the teacher.

“It says here,” Brannan says, her eyes narrowing incredulously, “that you spit on somebody today.”

“Yes ma’am,” Katie admits, lowering her voice and her eyes guiltily.

“Katie Vines.” Brannan was born here in Alabama, so that’s drawled. “Wah did you do that?”

  • Katie now comes off as mean after reading the first line of dialog, as she spit on someone in school.
  • She lowers her eyes as she responds, she knows it was wrong, and admits to doing the act. If she knew it was wrong, then why did she do it?
  • The response from the mother, she is stunned. The author notes she was born in Alabama, and uses a southern accent in the mother’s response.

Her schoolmate said something mean. Maybe. Katie doesn’t sound sure, or like she remembers exactly. One thing she’s positive of: “She just made me…so. MAD.” Brannan asks Katie to name some of the alternatives. “Walk away, get the teacher, yes ma’am, no ma’am,” Katie dutifully responds to the prompts. She looks disappointed in herself. Her eyebrows are heavily creased when she shakes her head and says quietly again, “I was so mad.”

  • The audience finds out that one of katie’s schoolmates said something mean to her. But there is a certain disbelief from the author.
  • The mother then presents how the daughter should have appropriately handled the situation. The daughter shows signs of dissapointment, the mother is furious.
  • The author describes with great detail the anger within the mother.

 

E03 Critical Reading -NewEditionLover

(Section 9)

Fix your Categories, NewEditionLover

 “to help you find your way, find the information you need, and find a way not only to cope with life after combat…but to survive and thrive!”

-We can assume that Brannan is kind of nervous

-Also that life after serving is something that requires work and time

-people can assist you on the journey of regrouping

“Things were a little…off,”

-Can probably say things and life changed

-maybe a different outlook on-life being away

“What choice do I have?”

  • Brannan had no choice and is very aggressive
  • wants to help people in need
  • wants to educate and inform others on the condition

E03: Critical Reading—pdqlover

Section 10

Today she’s fielding phone calls from a woman whose veteran son was committed to a non-VA psychiatric facility, but he doesn’t want to be at the facility because he, a severe-PTSD sufferer, was already paranoid before one of the other resident loons threatened to kill him, and anyway he fought for his fucking country and they promised they wouldn’t abandon him and he swears to God he will have to kill himself if the VA doesn’t put him in with the other soldiers.

– The author is explaining that the son does not want to be in a regular facility with non veteran patients and he has served for the United States and he struggles with PTSD and wants to be around his fellow soldiers. He feels as though the USA needs to obey his request.

Another veteran’s wife calls from the parking lot of a diner to which she fled when her husband looked like he was going to boil over in rage.   

– Assuming that the husband is suffering from PTSD he might have saw, heard or had a flashback about something from war that made him upset and begin raging.

Another woman’s husband had a service dog die in the night, and the death smell in the morning triggered an episode she worries will end in him hurting himself or someone else if she doesn’t get him into a VA hospital, and the closest major clinic is four hours away and she is eight and a half months pregnant and got three hours of sleep, and the clinic’s website says its case manager position for veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan is currently unstaffed, anyway.

-The dog may have died from not being taking care of. The wife is eight months pregnant and the husband sounds like he needs to get help from a VA hospital as soon as possible.

-The clinic’s website may be telling a lie because the are over loaded with patients already. The clinic may be having a hard to finding someone to fell the position because they know the job is hard work.

The phone never stops ringing. If it does for 14 seconds, Brannan writes an email to help get whatever someone needs, or publishes a blog post about her own struggles.

-Assuming that she never gets a break from the phone line, sounds like that is what she does her entire work shift. Which means that there are a lot of veterans that are suffering with PTSD and need help.

 

he’s been “sleeping or hiding,” Brannan describes it, 20 or so hours a day for a few days. He leans forward to put his glass of orange juice on the table; it takes many, many long seconds for him to cover the few inches; today, like most days, he feels “like a damn train ran over me.”

-PTSD is making him do things differently such as sleeping 20 hours a day. It is also effecting is motor skills. The images in his mind or flashbacks he has about war affect his entire day.

“Breathe,” Brannan says to nearly every woman who calls, though when I ask her if she follows her own advice, she says no. “If I stopped, and started breathing,” she says, “I would be too sad.”

-Telling each woman who calls to breath is stating that when they all call with urgency and wanting to receive help immediately.

So she doesn’t. If she’s not saving lives on the phone or blogging, she’s offering support via Facebook, where thousands of Family of a Vet users and nearly 500 FOV volunteers congregate and commiserate.

-She wants to help Vets and their family in any way she can, she knows what they are going through because she is dealing with the same situation.

“I am now more hypervigilant than my husband,” volunteer Kateri Peterson posts to her Facebook page, and people comment things like “I know that even if my husband is having a decent day I am still in that alert mode and he is asking me to please relax and for the life of me, as hard as I try, I just can’t, I am still on the lookout.

-She is more hypervigilant than her husband because she cares for her husband and family and doesn’t want anything to happen to them.

-Her husband is asking her to relax because he does not want her to stress about his condition of PTSD. He does not want to put the burden of her.

On a private Facebook group, Kateri tells the story of how her family was at Olive Garden when she started sobbing into her Zuppa Toscana. Just the general overwhelmingness of her distress, of that awful overstimulating hypervigilance, the sort of thing you develop sometimes when you live with someone who looks out the living room window for danger literally hundreds of times a day, or who goes from room to room, room to room, over and over to make sure everyone in each one is still alive.  

-Stating that PTSD is a very serious and stressful condition to go through for that individual veteran and their family.

E03: Critical Reading– Splash305

Section 15

“There are trials where patients take MDMA (ecstasy’s active ingredient) while talking about trauma to promote more positive and less scary associations with the events.”

  • Trials, suggests they have done this test more than once to find different results.
  • MDMA, found that using a drug helps patients be more comfortable talking about their experiences.
  • casual claim: helps promote positive talk of the trama

“Some of the most interesting research involves beta-blockers, drugs that suppress the adrenaline response.”

  • some is indicating that not all the research is interesting and involves the beta-blockers.
  • some also indicates the amount of adrenaline responses it suppresses.
  • categorical claim: telling us it suppresses adrenaline responses.

“In one small study, trauma victims given beta-blockers within six hours of the incident had a 40 percent less likelihood of developing PTSD. ”

  • small study indicates they have only minorly tested these facts.
  • within is indicating they have only tested in within that time frame, but what about after the six hours?
  • 40 precent less likelihood gives us evidence of this claim.

“patients take beta-blockers while talking about trauma so their reactions are weakened and then presumably lessened the next time it comes up, so far with promising results.”

  • taking beta-blockers while talking about trama is claimed tp weaken reactions
  • also being claimed that it is lessoned the next time it comes up
  • so far is indicating that there hasn’t been problems yet but the more they test this the more different their results could be

“Researchers posit that TBI can make the brain more vulnerable to PTSD, or that it can exacerbate its symptoms of exhaustion, agitation, confusion, headaches.”

  • can indicates that it is a possibility but it isn’t certain or proven
  • this claim is categorical, it states different symptoms

 

E03: Critical Reading- phillygirl20

Section 11

  1. “She’s not a normal kid. She does things, and says things. She’s a grown-up in a six-year-old’s body in a lot of ways.”

Claim: She’s not a normal kid.

2.  “Brannan gave the packet to Katie’s kindergarten teacher, but thinks the teacher just saw it as an excuse for bad behavior.”

Claim: thinks the teacher just saw it as an excuse for bad behavior.

3. “Last fall, she switched Katie to a different school, where she hopes more understanding will lead to less anxiety.”

Claim: she hopes more understanding will lead to less anxiety.

4. “She certainly looks like a normal kid when she comes down from her room dressed for tap class. In a black leotard, pink tights, and shiny black tap shoes, she looks sweet as pie”

Claim: “she looks sweet as pie”

5. “One time, a bad guy in Iraq had a knife and my dad killed him,” she says, apropos of nothing.”

Claim: a bad guy in Iraq had a knife

6. “Brannan is stern but impeccably patient.”

Claim: Brennan is stern.

7. “That kind of small talk recently ruined a birthday party one of her classmates was having at Chick-fil-A. “

Claim: That kind of small talk recently ruined a birthday party

8. “Katie is sorry—God, is she sorry, you can see it in her face and guilty shoulders, but she seems to feel like she can’t help it”

Claim: Katie is sorry

9. “Once, she asked Brannan to take her to a hypnotist, so he could use his powers to turn her into a good girl.”

Claim: use his powers to turn her into a good girl

10. “She doesn’t know why Katie adapted this story about confiscating a weapon from an insurgent into a story about bloodshed, but she isn’t too happy about it.”

Claim: she isn’t too happy about it.