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Character Analysis Of PTSD In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

1206 Words5 Pages

Speak Have you ever gone through a trauma? “ Recovery doesn't erase the trauma as if it had never happened, it just makes it easier to deal with” ( American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress). The novel Speak is about a teenage girl going through her tough high school years. She started the school year with no friends and with a heavy secret weighing over her. One might think that her problems are just teenage normal ones, but what they don't know is that she was suffering from a sexual assault, rape. The whole novel develops in how she copes with her PTSD ( Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and tries to overcome her depression. The author of this book is Laurie Halse Anderson. Laurie is an American writer best known for children's and young adult novels. She won the annual award of The ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2009, which recognizes one writer and a particular body of work “for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature”. Anderson won the Golden Kite award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, for …show more content…

PTSD is a reaction to being exposed to an event which is outside the range of normal human experience. Everyone reacts differently to different situations and it doesn't have to be a life threatening experience for someone to respond in this way. PTSD affects hundreds of thousands of people who have been exposed to violent events such as rape, domestic violence, child abuse, war, accidents, natural disasters and political torture. A lot of people go through PTSD without even noticing it. PTSD needs special treatment, and if you don't get it treated it could get worse. People react and heal differently to PTSD, the faster you get help the faster you will heal. For a survivor to be told that what happened to them wasn't that bad, or was no big deal or continually being told it was time that they were over it, or just try and forget it ever happened causes secondary wounding in trauma

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