Sunday, September 23, 2018

Exploration Four: Holly Galvin

1. One theme I noticed in the last five chapters of TTTC was the truth in storytelling. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the book. This theme is important to the book because the whole thing is a story Tim is trying to tell us. He uses the words story-truth and happening-truth and O'Brien explains the difference and the importance of both. Story-truth is what happened in your head with your thoughts and emotions while the event was occurring and happening-truth is literally what you saw and what happened for real. O'Brien tries to explain to the reader why he told the story about the man he killed by saying "But Listen. Even that story is made up. I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth" (O'Brien, 171). This quote holds truth for the whole book and any story that he "lied" about, he wanted the reader to feel what he felt in the moment. This is true in my life when I feel like I have to make things seem more exaggerated than they really were because I want people to feel what I felt in the moment.

2. Why do some soldiers develop PTSD and other don't? According to the Association for Psychological Science there are many factors as to why some veterans develop PTSD while others don't. Some of the factors included age, pre-war vulnerability, and exposure during combat. Research found that if the men were 25 years of age or younger then they were sevens times more likely to develop PTSD than men who were older when they entered the war. Another factor was what their life was like before the war. If they were abused as a child then they were more likely to develop PTSD. The study found that combat exposure was the leading cause to PTSD but pre-war vulnerability was just as important in deciding who got the disorder and who didn't. I was curious about who got PTSD and who didn't because I didn't understand how some veterans could have it and some didn't have it. I found this information on psychologicalscience.org.
Image result for veterans with ptsd

This photo helps explain my research topic because in the story Tim O'Brien tells us how his friend Norman Bowker committed suicide due to his PTSD and not being able to forgive himself for not saving Kiowa.

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4 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 23, 2018 at 7:14 PM

    Hi Holly!
    I really enjoyed reading about your research topic because I was really interested in that as well. I think it is crazy how many veterans still commit suicide to this day! I think it is important to know the factors that go into someone potentially developing PTSD because it could potentially save a life

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  2. UnknownSeptember 24, 2018 at 6:31 AM

    It’s amazing (but not in a good way) how many veterans are impacted by PTSD. I wonder if it could ever truly be cured.

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  3. Ben BergerSeptember 24, 2018 at 11:50 AM

    I find your research question super interesting. I also did my question on mental health issues in Veterans and how much of a problem it is in todays society. Hopefully it gets better soon.

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  4. Joey TinnerelloSeptember 25, 2018 at 7:18 AM

    Holly, after reading other student's explorations on their research topics, I found that a lot of us had similar questions about mental health. While reading I asked myself the same thing about PTSD. I found your information very interesting on the topic. I would've never guessed that people who were abused at a young age are more likely to develop PTSD.

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