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PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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War. War never changes. Since the dawn of time humanity has been at war whether it be with other humans, nature, or themselves. War is never moral, and it takes a toll on the people fighting it. “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity” (O’Brien, 2). What was never intended was for the brave men and women fighting our wars to carry problems back home. Sadly, they do. Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is very common problem in America currently, largely due to our lack of understanding for diagnosis and treatment. Let me tell you about the history of PTSD, how it relates to a book by Tim O’Brien called The Things They Carried, and my personal connection to PTSD. Firstly, the history of PTSD. For the very same reason the hair stands up on our arms and we get goosebumps people who experienced something tragic like war or in ancient time being attacked by a tiger you develop a fear of the things that have happened. Since 1980 the United States has been devoted to diagnosing and treating PTSD for veterans. This can’t possibly cover the veterans who went years with being undiagnosed or …show more content…

PTSD is an underlying topic in the book. There are many people in the novel who have problems dealing with the things they have done or seen during their time in the war. One man shot himself in the toe to get sent home, another killed himself after the war was over. Tim O’Brien himself said “I’ll never die. I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dar and come down thirty years later, I realize it as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.” (O’Brien 246) That shows even the author has problems with PTSD and probably the only reason he does not have the usual night terrors is the fact that he writes, just writes out everything that happened to escape the problems the author

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The main point is how he has to deal with death from a young age to the combat zones. In a way he blames himself for the deaths of his friends or failing to save them, but he failed to understand that it is not his fault. He just needs to find a way to understand since he is forty three years old and has to find closure, O’Brien at the conclusion of his book said “I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story.” (233) He realized through his writing that he was carrying things with him that needed to be explained to him or it was going to hurt him mentally and physically.

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There are several instances in which he sheds light on part of himself, and when those are all strung together, it is revealed that Tim O’Brien has post traumatic stress disorder. The Black Hole of Trauma outlines the symptoms of an individual with PTSD quite well, and it can be used to show how Tim is affected by it. It states that “the past interferes with the ability to pay attention to both new and familiar situations”. This applies to O’Brien in the fact that he does not accept new things, he is fixated on the war.

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