Suicide In The Red Convertible By Louise Erdrich

Post Tramatic Stress Disorder and Suicidal tendencies Why do numerous PTSD patients turn to suicide as a way out of their own thoughts and memories. In the short story The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich, discusses how the protagonist Henry lived his life pre-Vietnam, as a free spirited individual, who was full of life and always ready for the next adventure in life. Post-Vietnam Henry came back a changed man like many war veterans. Henry was quiet and reserved. In this short story the themes of brotherhood and the effects that war has on relationships and the individual. In this short story Erdrich hones in on how Henry and Lyman’s relationship is tested after Henry returns from the Vietnam war. “Henry was different, and I'll say this:

PTSD is “intrusive thoughts of trauma, avoidance of reminders related to trauma, negative cognitions and moods, arousal of the nervous system, overall anxiety, irritability with distorted perception.” (Page number, author). In the article “A review of PTSD and shame in military veterans' ' written by, Gaudet, C.M., Sowers, K.M., Nugent, W.R., & Boriskin, J.A. “summarizes what is currently known about the construct of shame in a military population across varying life stages and shame vs. guilt,”(page number, author). In this article throughout the research that was conducted the authors concluded that through all measures of shame were reported to have strong reliability and consistent through internal validity with those who are diagnosed with PTSD. The first point that the authors talked about is shame; the perception that others are judging one as defective or intolerable. A second form of perception that lots of PTSD patients have is the perception of oneself as defective and intolerable. Another major point that was talked about in this article was the symptom of avoidance. Avoidance is seen happening in large quantities in PTSD patients, which leads to a PTSD patient inviting self-punishment, which prevents connection to family members. Avoidance leads also leads to emotional numbing, disassociations, suicide, and compulsive behaviors. Another correlation that was found was that there is a positive correlation between self-blame and suicide. In addition to this correlation a researcher found that shame was also highly correlated with hopelessness and suicidal