Ordinary People

 We are going to look at PTSD through the character, Conrad, from  Ordinary People  by Judith Guest to prove that  PTSD can make a person push away those who are trying to help him or her and delays the acceptance process of grief.

 Conrad’s older brother, Buck, drowned in a boating accident, so this is the traumatic event that happened to him. Months after the accident, Conrad attempts suicide and then is hospitalized for several months. Now he is repeating the beginning of his junior year of high school Beth..............Calvin................Conrad

Conrad quits swimming, which is a reminder of Buck’s drowning. Conrad admits to Berger that, “(He doesn’t) want to swim anymore. (He) look(s) horrible, and (his) timing is for shit” (Guest 81).  Conrad quits swimming, which is a reminder of Buck’s drowning.   He also unfriends all his own friends because they were “just” Buck’s friends. Even though Lazenby is trying to help him and even wants Conrad to rejoin the team. Lazenby is just another reminder of who Conrad lost  so he pushes him away, too. He is,  “avoiding alls places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event” ( Post-Tramatic).

Conrad and his older brother were both on the swim team. Buck was a stronger swimmer than Conrad and didn’t make it. Conrad says that he doesn’t enjoy swimming anymore and just quits.  This correlates to PTSD because of his ,“lack of interest  in activities (he) once enjoyed” ( Post-Traumatic). His “feeling (of detachment) from friends ands family”s another of how he shows PTSD controlling his life ( Post-Traumatic).  Conrad was pulled back in school after missing several months of school because of his suicide attempt. All his friends are now one grade above him which starts the physical detachment and leads to a mental detachment. He justifies him pushing them away by thinking, “screw him screw them all they were Buck’s friends anyway” (Guest 97).  He felt like they weren’t his friends and pushed them away. He detached himself from them because he thought they were just Buck’s friends and were not going to be there for him. He did not even give them a chance t...

First example is one night Conrad got into an argument with his mom and his, “anger erupts, engulfing them all” (Guest 109). Afterward he was immediately sorry and said he didn’t know what happened.  Another time was when Conrad finally had enough of Stillman “Something explodes inside his head, the sound shattering the parking lot... he slams his fist, hard, against that face”(Guest 168). These two events just show that he un channeled anger and just channeling to anything that pises him off the slightest. This is a symptom of PTSD. This also shows that he is pushing his parents and his friends who are only trying to help him. This is not helping process through the death of his brother, since anger is only the second stage of grief. The PTSD is causing him to have, “ Irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior”, toward things that should not get you rationally angry  ( Post-traumatic).

  Guest , Judith. Ordinary People. Viking Press., 1976. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 6 July 2018,         www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967.