Unpacking the Trauma: Exploring PTSD in the Film Closet Monster Stephen Dunn’s Closet Monster is a critically acclaimed independent film that addresses the issue of posttraumatic stress disorder through the story of a young teenager who struggles to come to terms with his traumatic past while trying to navigate his queer identity. The main character of the film is Oscar, an imaginative and artistic teenager who is afflicted by memories of a violent incident he witnessed as a young child. Oscar seeks comfort in his love of special effects makeup and his relationship with his talking hamster as he attempts to figure out his complicated relationships with his family, his sexuality, and his own identity. Closet Monster offers a powerful and moving …show more content…
This could be perceived by a person as being emotionally, physically, or even life-threatening, which could have an impact on their mental, physical, social, and/or spiritual health. Examples include violent acts against intimate partners, serious accidents, terrorist attacks, war and combat, rape, and sexual assault, as well as historical trauma (2020). Additionally, there are many stressors that can affect queer people, but the ones that happen most frequently are violent assault, minority stressors like discrimination and violent victimization, as well as internal experiences like internalized stigma, expectations or fears of rejection, and identity concealment (Valentine et al., …show more content…
In fact, every year, three-point-five percent of adult Americans suffer from PTSD. For adolescents aged thirteen to eighteen, the lifetime prevalence of PTSD is eight percent. Moreover, approximately one in eleven people will receive a PTSD diagnosis during their lifetime. PTSD is twice as common in women as it is in men. In comparison to non-Latino whites, PTSD rates are higher among three ethnic groups: U.S. Latinos, African Americans, and Indigenous people (2020). Regarding queer people, due to their range of stressors, they are more likely to develop PTSD in their lifetime, with prevalence estimates up to forty-eight percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people while forty-two percent of transgender and nonbinary individuals meet the criteria for the disorder (Valentine et al.,