Beginning of Hour One

Is PTSD Contagious?

• How can something that is non-viral or non-bacterial be contagious?
• Possibly the signs of PTSD can be passed from one person to another, but I do not know if contagious is the right word.
• Very controversial statement and there can be arguments for and against it.
• Does this statement mean all PTSD symptoms? I do not think it can include flashbacks if someone was never in war.

“Brannan Vines has never been to war. But she’s got a warrior’s skills”

• What exactly are warrior skills?
• How did she acquire these skills?
• Who is Brannan Vines?

“hyperawareness, hypervigilance, adrenaline-sharp quick-scanning for danger, for triggers. Super stimuli-sensitive. Skills on the battlefield”

• These are skills that most average people do not need.
• How did she even become that way if she has never been to war?
• Hyperawareness and hypervigilence could also be signs of paranoia.

“Her nose starts running she’s so pissed, and there she is standing in a CVS, snotty and deaf with rage”

• Maybe being sick is making her angry?
• Most people do not like waiting in lines, but being full of rage is extreme.
• Something else is making her full of rage. Just waiting in line at the CVS is not something that usually makes people very upset.
• Perhaps her home life?
• Is a runny nose a sign of stress?

End of Hour One

You can’t see Caleb’s other wound, either.

• We can assume that it may be a head injury.

It’s called traumatic brain injury, or TBI, from multiple concussions.

• Had a few concussions.

In two tours, he was in at least 20 explosions—IEDs, vehicle-borne IEDs, RPGs.

• Being in 20 explosions can do serious damage to the human body.
• We don’t know how serious each explosion was.
• He was on two tours.

In one of them, when a mortar or grenade hit just behind him, he was thrown headfirst through a metal gate and into a courtyard.

• He definitely suffered a lot of head trauma here.
• His head went through a metal gate which probably weighed a ton.
• Blunt head trauma like this can cause severe concussions.

His buddies dragged him into a corner, where he was in and out of consciousness while the firefight continued, for hours.

• In and out of consciousness for hours.
• Never specified how many hours.
• We don’t know what the extent of his injuries were.
• Was he bleeding from his head?

When it was over, they gave him an IV and some Motrin, and within hours, he was back on patrol.

• Not given enough time to let the body heal.
• Not given proper check up.
• He most likely need something with a higher dosage than Motrin.

The Army has rules about that sort of thing now. 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, but that rule didn’t go into effect in theater until 2010, after Caleb was already out of the service.

• Finally made it a protocol to have a longer rest period.
• Took a long time to have the rule passes and go into effect.

He wasn’t diagnosed for years after he got back, despite Brannan’s frantic phone calls to the VA begging for tests, since her husband, formerly a high-scoring civil-engineering major at Auburn University, was asking her to help him do simple division.

• Information withheld from the family about his test scores.
• Teaching/helping husband with simple division.
• Most likely to have nerve damage in the brain.

When Caleb was finally screened for the severity of his TBI, Brannan says he got the second-worst score in the whole 18-county Gulf Coast VA system, which serves more than 50,000 veterans.

• Had the second worse score in the entire 18 county Gulf Coast VA system.
• System serves more than 50,000 veterans.
• Suffered severe damage to the brain.

But there’s still a lot about brain damage that doctors, much less civilians, don’t understand.

• There are things we still need to learn about brain damage.

Is PTSD Contagious?: A Brief Analysis

“Like traumatic brain injury.”

-My only assumption is that this article was not properly proofread before publishing.

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

-This sentence assumes that there are people researching this problem and different things correlated to it but what researchers? Who are they? Are we supposed to figure that out ourselves or just take the badly written article’s word for it? What credibility does this provide its claims? Even if the this statement were entirely crap I’d be far more inclined to believe them if the supposed researchers had been named.

-It also makes the assertion that you can’t have PTSD without suffering these symptoms. I’m aware they’re often the most common but I was also under the impression the symptoms and their severity vary greatly depending on the person.

“They’re not positive about that, or about whether TBI makes PTSD harder to treat.”

-Wow this is a massive contradiction. In the previous sentence, the author claims that “Researchers posit…” The definition of posit is to assume as a fact or put forward as a basis of argument. Now the author is telling us that they’re not as sure about themselves as they were a few words ago. What changed?

“James Peterson’s post-injection chill-out wore off after a month, faster than it does for other patients—maybe because of his TBI.”

-This sentence bothers me just because of the astounding lack of information. How long are the injections effects supposed to last? Is James one of few or many who metabolize the injection this quickly? It makes the assumption that the reader is already of aware of this information.

“Either way, as for TBI, well, “there is no cure,” says David Hovda, director of UCLA’s Brain Injury Research Center and an adviser to the Department of Defense.”

-I’m not a director of anything, much less UCLA’s Brain Injury Research Center but this is a highly generalized statement and very misleading. Traumatic Brain Injury is not a disease so there’s no antidote. Also, TBI is an umbrella of sorts which includes all severe brain injuries. To say that there is no cure to any of them seems to marginalize those situations that don’t fit this criteria. In many cases, with time and rehabilitation, it is more than possible to return to normalcy.

Analyzing Some PTSD Claims from the Article
“Is PTSD Contagious?”

“In 2006, the British Ministry of Defence pardoned some 300 soldiers who had been executed for cowardice and desertion during World War I, having concluded that many were probably just crippled by PTSD.”

• Some 300 soldiers out of how many?
•  Although it can be guessed that they belong to Britain, the article doesn’t explicitly indicate that the pardoned soldiers were from that country.
• How could the British Ministry of Defence tell which of the many soldiers actually suffered from PTSD, and which were very much cowards and deserters?
• “Probably just crippled by PTSD” is not a strong conclusion. There is no indication that the Ministry actually did any scientific research to come to this general conclusion. How did they decide that PTSD was the probable cause?
• This doesn’t completely have to do with the comment, but I would like to know how the country dealt with soldiers suffering from PTSD during World War II.

” Granted, diagnosing PTSD is a tricky thing. The result of a malfunctioning nervous system that fails to normalize after trauma and instead perpetrates memories and misfires life-or-death for no practical reason, it comes in a couple of varieties, various complexities, has causes ranging from one lightning fast event to drawn-out terrors or patterns of abuse- in soldiers, the incidence of PTSD goes up with the number of tours experienced.”

•  Based ON how many soldiers has the incidence of PTSD gone up with the number of experienced tours?
• Having the words “varieties” and “various,” both of which are spanning from the same root meaning, bothers me.
• The author is saying that it is hard to get any conclusive information about PTSD. And yet they finish by factually saying that soldiers experience PTSD based ON the number of tours they have.
• What are the “couple of varieties,” “various complexities,” and “causes”? I would like specific examples to illustrate the point!

“The Army has rules about that sort of thing now. 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, but that rule didn’t go into effect in theater until 2010, after Caleb was already out of the service.”

• The author says that the Army has rules pertaining to a traumatic brain injury, and yet right after, they only state one rule-“to rest for a certain period of time.”
• “to rest for a certain period of time,” is the best that the Army could come up with to deal with a traumatic brain injury?
• Having one sentence end in “now,” and another begin with “Now” right next to each other bothers me.
• What was the Army recommending the soldiers do for brain injuries before 2010?
• What does “didn’t go into effect in theater” mean? Is it a synonym to “taking center stage”?

“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.”

• How many wives took part in the studies?
• How were both studies different? Did they use a different number of wives? Were the studies conducted by different institutions? Why is there such a difference in the percentages?

“I asked the lead scientist, Marinus van IJzendoorn of Leiden University, what might account for other studies’ finding of secondary trauma in vets’ spouses or kids. He said he’s never analyzed those studies, and wonders if the result would hold up to a meta-analysis.”

• Why include the lead scientist in the argument when he hasn’t analyzed the studies pertaining to it?!
• As a lead scientist in this field of study, shouldn’t he have already taken note of every possible related factor, and had pretty researched answers as to why they take place?

“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 am no history major, but weren’t most of the Holocaust survivors Jewish, who after the war, had to learn that most of their brethren and families had perished during that harsh period of time? What wide family members and community were there after the war? I believe that most of the survivors found themselves alone after all the fighting had ended.
• How focused were the Allied powers on helping out the Holocaust survivors? I would think that they would be more focused on giving Germany some punishment and dealing with issues much greater than taking care of Holocaust survivors (much like how veterans were treated after they returned to the US following World War I). Basically, the survivors were expected to “man up and get over it.”

Brannan is a force of keeping her family together.

• Brannan is the matriarch of the Vines family.
• Without her, the family would likely run into problem.

She sleeps a maximum of five hours a night, keeps herself going with fast food and energy drinks, gets Katie to and from school and to tap dance and art, where Katie produces some startlingly impressive canvases, bright swirling shapes bisected by and intersected with other swaths of color, bold, intricate.

• For undisclosed reasons, Brannan can’t sleep for longer than 5 hours. Perhaps because of Caleb’s PTSD, her own form of PTSD, or because she simply can’t afford to.
• 5 hours isn’t enough sleep for her.
• She needs the aid of energy drinks and fast food to get through the day.
• Katie goes to school, tap dance, and art daily. Brannan is responsible for transportation.
• Katie is unexpectedly good at art.

That’s typical parent stuff, but Brannan also keeps Caleb on his regimen of 12 pills—antidepressants, anti-anxiety, sleep aids, pain meds, nerve meds, stomach meds—plus weekly therapy, and sometimes weekly physical therapy for a cartilage-lacking knee and the several disintegrating disks in his spine, products of the degenerative joint disease lots of guys are coming back with maybe from enduring all the bomb blasts, and speech therapy for the TBI, and continuing tests for a cyst in his chest and his 48-percent-functional lungs.

• It is normal for a parent to get a lack of sleep because of their children.
• Caleb is on a regimen of 12 pills and needs help with his treatment.
• Caleb has numerous mental and physical ailments.
• Brannan is responsible for making sure Caleb stays on his regimen.
• Caleb needs weekly therapy for his mental issues.
• Caleb has a degenerative joint disease. He has disintegrated disks in his spine and lacks cartilage in his knee as a result of the disease. He occasionally needs weekly physical therapy to treat both.
• Many men are returning with degenerative joint disease. It is possible that repeated bomb blasts are to blame, but this is not supported with evidence.
• Caleb has developed a speech disorder from his traumatic brain injury.
• Caleb has a cyst in his chest that has not been completely diagnosed, and requires monitoring.
• His lungs are less than half as functional as a healthy person.
• It isn’t normal for a parent to have to take close care of their spouse the way Brannan does for Caleb.

She used the skills she learned as an assistant to a state Supreme Court justice and running a small newspaper to navigate Caleb’s maze of paperwork with the VA, and the paperwork for the bankruptcy they had to declare while they were waiting years for his disability benefits to come through.

• Brannan has had at least two other jobs. Both dealing with paperwork in some form.
• The experience from both jobs has helped her with taking care of Caleb.
• “maze of paperwork” implies that Caleb has a lengthy record with the VA.
• For some reason, it’s a lengthy process to receive disability benefits. Perhaps because of the amount of applicants, or because of the aforementioned lack of understanding of PTSD.
• While waiting for years, the Vines encountered money problems and were forced to declare bankruptcy.

She also works for the VA now, essentially, having been—after a good deal more complicated paperwork, visits, and assessments—enrolled in its new caregiver program, which can pay spouses or other family members of disabled vets who have to take care of them full time, in Brannan’s case $400 a week.

• The author feels as though Brannan works for the VA now, since she receives payment from them.
• The process of being accepted into the new caregiver program requires more work than receiving disability benefits.
• Brannan has to take care of Caleb full time.

 

First off, I listened to this whole article, and I now dislike the Kardashians more than ever. The author sounded like their long lost sister. I know I could’ve just read the thing myself, but that would’ve taken too long. This has nothing to do with the assignment, but I had to let you know.

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.

1. Katie goes to school with another girl.
2. She is disappointed in herself, therefore she is unhappy with decisions that she didn’t understand that she was making before.
3. It seems like she might be disappointed because she knew that is how she should’ve reacted to the situation.
4. She doesn’t understand emotions yet because she only knows one adjective to explain her feelings.
5. She might be experiencing symptoms from her father of PTSD.
6. She doesn’t realize that either.

She’s never been diagnosed with anything, and Brannan prefers it that way. “I’m not for taking her somewhere and getting her labeled. I’d rather work on it in softer ways,”

1. Katie never had any abnormalities before.
2. Brannan believes it would be problematic if she did.
3. Doctors only diagnose and do not actually help with the issue.
4. If they did, it would be too harsh for his daughter.

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.

1. The phone rings all the time, even when someone is uses it.
2.  It only takes 14 seconds to write an email or a blog post.
3. She writes about her experiences.
4. She is a very busy woman.

 

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

1. “The house is often as quiet as a morgue. You can hear the cat padding around.”

• House: The word “house” indicates a wholeness or collectiveness assessed in the argument here. The author wants to show the environmental effects of Caleb’s illness by describing the home.
• As quiet as a morgue: Perhaps, to make the claim more effective, the author uses a simile to compare the quietness in the house to that of death.
• The downfall of this claim starts when the cat is introduced because it is irrelevant to the idea presented.
• The claim would be more effective if the the author had touched more upon the idea of death. The cat fails to paint a picture in the authors head.

2. “After making sure she’s at least an arm’s length distance away.”

• A household effect of PTSD
• Eliminates any type of injury in the bedroom
• This claim reveals that Brannan’s carefulness is nearly installed into her way of life
• The distance that the author talks about is not the point at all
• The “making sure” is a reflection of Brannan’s hesitant and anxious personality that is merely a reflection of Caleb’s PTSD.

3. “This PTSD picture is worse than some, but much better, Brannan knows, than those that have devolved into drug addiction and rehab stints and relapses.”

• Brannan infuses her personal opinion
• Someone who has abused drugs has it bad certainly. But this author has no authority to categorize different levels of PTSD.
• There is no data to support her point, which leads to a generalization.
• This claim would have been more effective if she gave first hand examples of people who have devolved into drug addiction in an effort to cope with their PTSD.

4. “Some hypotheses for why PTSD only tortures some trauma victims blame it on unhappily coded protein, or a misbehaving amygdala.”

• This is a categorical claim because it groups the opinions of PTSD patients into one category.
• Some. From the word “some” we can make the assumption that there is at least two people in the argument.
• There is more opinions and ideas that have yet to be tested
• This claim is made to amplify that this field of study has a lot more information to uncover

5. “But whatever people have called it, they haven’t been likely to grasp or respect it.”

• This claim is unclear, but it seems to be an attempt to stand up for PTSD victims in a sense that not many people can relate to what they are going through.
• Who is “they”?
• The term “they” suggests there is more than one person who has failed to understand PTSD and its side effects.
• This author fails miserably in her claim because the author is not a credible source, therefore, cannot relate to people with PTSD. The claim is entirely subjective.

6. “You can’t see Caleb’s other wound, either.”

• This claim makes a comparison between Caleb’s physical signs of distress as opposed to his internal battle
• The author talks directly to the audience by using “you” to focus on Caleb’s internal wounds.
• We feel obligated to show remorse for Caleb.
• See. This sensory detail allows for an effective, persuasive argument, yet could be more efficient if the author used other senses such as feel or sound to paint a more vivid picture for the reader

7. “The Army has rules about that sort of thing now.”

• What rules? What “sort of thing” do they have rules for?
• This claim is technically true, but it does not convince me that the Army is doing everything in its power to help people affected by war.
• Sort of thing. This broadens the horizon significantly. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a specific sickness that should be identified as such. There are numerous injuries that result from war. The author is being too vague here. The author should focus specifically on PTSD instead of making a blurred claim that may confuse the reader.
• It seems entirely unclear what the Army is actually doing to support its non-active duty members. This claim fails to specify any sort of moral or physical support for people that suffer from PTSD.

8. “But there’s still a lot about brain damage that doctors, much less civilians, don’t understand.”

• This sounds like a repetition of the fourth claim about the lack of knowledge in this field of study, but the addition of society allows the claim to make a connection with the reader
• Why the writer chooses this point in his argument to add civilians to his argument is unclear.
• Why is the author focusing more on what we don’t understand instead of giving advice to people with PTSD?
• This claim fails because it is irrelevant to the subject matter. It is more of a topic sentence rather than an analysis on Caleb and Brannan.

“Caleb has been home since 2006, way more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms. The house, in a subdivision a little removed from one of many shopping centers in a small town in the southwest corner of Alabama, is often quiet as a morgue. You can hear the cat padding around. The air conditioner whooshes, a clock ticks. When a sound erupts—Caleb screaming at Brannan because she’s just woken him up from a nightmare, after making sure she’s at least an arm’s length away in case he wakes up swinging—the ensuing silence seems even denser. Even when everyone’s in the family room watching TV, it’s only connected to Netflix and not to cable, since news is often a trigger. Brannan and Caleb can be tense with their own agitation, and tense about each other’s. Their German shepherd, a service dog trained to help veterans with PTSD, is ready to alert Caleb to triggers by barking, or to calm him by jumping onto his chest. This PTSD picture is worse than some, but much better, Brannan knows, than those that have devolved into drug addiction and rehab stints and relapses. She has not, unlike military wives she advises, ever been beat up. Nor jumped out of her own bed when she got touched in the middle of the night for fear of being raped, again. Still.”

1.How does someone catch these symptoms just by staying home for a long time. PTSD is not contiguous.

2.  How is the house that quite ? Maybe this is the only peaceful place he had since the war.

3.But he stated that the house is really quite but you can hear a cat paddling  around.

4. Is this the first time he ever had a nightmare and she woke him up?Usually people with PTSD are paranoid when people are around. It seems like he doesn’t like noise because he probably is thinking about the war.

5.How can the news be a trigger but not Netflix ; On the news stories come up about war and people dying but on netflix you can pick what you want to watch.

6. Brannan and Caleb are helping each other with the PTSD. By them helping each other it is helping them both stay calm.

7. They have a dog to let them know when something is wrong just in case they are not listening. Usually when dogs jump on people that shows that they happy not that something is wrong.

8. People can have PTSD depending on their background.

9. Brannan developed PTSD differently then all the other military wives. Hers came from being around he husband and having to deal with him and his issues all day which probably triggered her.

Different studies of the children of American World War II, Korea, and Vietnam vets with PTSD have turned up different results:

• They did “different studies” on the children of veterans with PSTD

“45 percent” of kids in one small study “reported significant PTSD signs”;

• 45% of children show signs of PSTD

“83 percent reported elevated hostility scores.”

• They claimed that 83% had elevated hostility scores.

Other studies have found a “higher rate of psychiatric treatment”; “more dysfunctional social and emotional behavior’; “difficulties in establishing and maintaining friendships.”

• “Other studies” their were more than this one study going on. Those studies showed “higher rate of psychiatric treatment.”
• Listed the claims of the type PSTD hat some of the children have inherited from their parents

The symptoms were similar to what those researchers had seen before, in perhaps the most analyzed and important population in the field of secondary traumatization: the children of Holocaust survivors.

• Researchers claimed that the same results are the same as the last time they did this study.
• Another claim in this sentence is that the children on Holocaust survivors showed that they were traumatized the most because their parents had PSTD after the holocaust.

Of course, the Army only helps families of active-duty personnel.

• The army doesn’t help peoples families with anything that could have stemmed from the war they were in unless the person is “active-duty personnel.”

It’s the Department of Veterans Affairs that’s charged with treating the problems that can persist long past discharge.

• Only the people of the department of Veterans affairs are in charge of helping the veterans after they get out of the military.

But “if you asked the VA to treat your kids, they would think it was nonsense,” says Hofstra’s Motta.

• They wouldn’t do their job if it came to the veterans kids instead they would basically say “shake it off.”
• The government only helps who they want to help.

When I asked the VA if the organization would treat kids for secondary trauma, its spokespeople stressed that it has made great strides in family services in recent years, rolling out its own program for couples’ counseling and parenting training.

• She claims that the Department of Veterans affairs would lie to her if she asked about their efforts on treating kids that have created symptoms of PTSD from their parents.

Our goal is to make the parents the strongest parents they can be,” says Susan McCutcheon, national director for Family Services, Women’s Mental Health, and Military Sexual Trauma at the VA; according to Shirley Glynn, a VA clinical research psychologist who was also on the call, “for the vast majority of people with the secondary traumatization model, the most important way to help the family deal with things is to ensure that the veteran gets effective treatment.

• Susan McCutcheon says the families that have veterans that are traumatized from the things they saw during the time they were overseas try to find the best way to help them and their families.

In cases where children themselves need treatment, these VA officials recommended that parents find psychologists themselves, though they note “this is a good time [for the VA] to make partners with the community so we can make good referrals.” Or basically: “You’re on your own,” says Brannan.

• The Department of Veterans Affairs don’t help wen the family need help with their children that have gotten traumatized from the parents that as in the military.

It’s kind of hard to understand Caleb’s injuries. Even doctors can’t say for sure exactly why he has flashbacks, why he could be standing in a bookstore when all of a sudden he’s sure he’s in Ramadi, the pictures in his brain disorienting him among the stacks, which could turn from stacks to rows of rooftops that need to be scanned for snipers.

1. Diagnosing someone with PTSD is something hard to decide.
2. Doctors have no idea what to diagnose Caleb.
3. What causes these flashbacks is it something he hears or sees?
4. The doctors aren’t even sure what Caleb has so how can they accuse the family of having PTSD.
5. Maybe all those shocking and life changing scenes that he witnessed bring back bad memories that cause him to react like that.
6. Places that he is in or little images he may see in his surroundings flash back to the times he was in war
7. Pictures or books may remind him of his time at war and being at the bookstore may remind him of his past.

Sometimes he starts yelling, and often he doesn’t remember anything about it later.

1. PTSD cause lots of problems and maybe yelling is a reaction to him visualizing a flashback.
2. He gets so caught up in his flashbacks that he doesn’t even remember why he was yelling.

They don’t know exactly why it comes to him in dreams, and why especially that time he picked up the pieces of Baghdad bombing victims and that lady who appeared to have thrown herself on top of her child to save him only to find the child dead underneath torments him when he’s sleeping, and sometimes awake.

1. These flashbacks of war could be on his mind all the time so, it is the last thing he thinks of before he goes to sleep.
2. A time in Baghdad could have been a sad point in his life witnessing all these deaths and having it live with him all of his life.
3. These horrible scenes that he has seen like the death of a child is something most people never witness and just being around something like that can make him have nightmares and relive that moment.

They don’t know why some other guys in his unit who did and saw the same stuff that Caleb did and saw are fine but Caleb is so sensitive to light, why he can’t just watch the news like a regular person without feeling as if he might catch fire.

1. People react to terrible scenarios differently
2. The way each soldier was grown up could have been different
3. There emotional side could play a big part in how they react to these events.
4. Caleb could have different views on war and what they should be like.
5. Caleb might not have known what to expect when he went to war and those things he viewed could have harmed him in a mental way.
6. Updates on news might bring back some images he might have seen while he was at war, and they aren’t pleasant thoughts going on in his mind.

Some hypotheses for why PTSD only tortures some trauma victims blame it on unhappily coded proteins, or a misbehaving amygdala. Family history, or maybe previous trauma.

1. Are bad proteins the blame for PTSD?
2. Is it you’re born with these proteins and you’re waiting for something to trigger it to go off like going to war?
3. Does it come from a family tree with long history of PTSD, or just many actions that happen that eventually lead up to PTSD.