P1. PTSD is a psychological disorder that is caused by traumatic events that many soldiers experience at war.  It is rarely heard that PTSD is passed onto people as if it were the cold or flu. Some believe that this is what is happening with Brennan. Instead it is absolutely possible that the characteristics of PTSD can be contagious when someone, such as Brennan, is constantly around a person with PTSD.

P2. The article begins by explaining how Brennan, Caleb’s wife, acquires all the characteristics as a soldier who had battled in war. The author states, “hyperawareness, hypervigilance, adrenaline-sharp quick-scanning for danger, for triggers. Super stimuli-sensitive” (McClelland), when reading these words readers can picture a person who is more jumpy or easily startled. These are symptoms that are generally associated with someone who has returned home from war, not a normal everyday housewife. An incident occurs when Brennan is waiting in line to check out and a elderly woman is fiddling with her change maybe taking longer than an average person. This triggers Brennan’s temper and causes her to become infuriated. When the incident with the elderly woman counting her change is explained, it is typically something that a normal person would not even think twice about. Instead it causes Brennan’s ears to ring describing the infuriating incident as “Her nose starts running she’s so pissed, and there she is standing in a CVS, snotty and deaf with rage, like some kind of maniac” (McClelland). Using such dramatic phrases like deaf with rage give the reader incite into how serious the matter at hand really is.

P3. When McClelland goes on to describe the lack of attention PTSD patients receive she says, “It’s hard to say, with the lack of definitive tests for the former, undertesting for the latter, underreporting, under or over-misdiagnosing of both” (McClelland). She uses a repetition of the prefix under to draw attention and emphasize just how neglected it is.

P4. An extremely terrifying situation is used as an example: McClelland says to imagine a murderer in your home at night with the electricity out. That anxiety and nervousness that is felt is what a PTSD patient feels all the time. This draws the readers attention because that is something that everyone can relate to as being absolutely terrifying. Living with a person who has PTSD is similar to living with a murderer in the house, the person is always forced to be on his or her toes not knowing what to expect.

P5. McClelland describes the area the Vine’s live as, “small town in the southwest corner of Alabama, is often quiet as a morgue. You can hear the cat padding around. The air conditioner whooshes, a clock ticks” (McClelland). This description could be interpreted as somewhere that could make someone go crazy. Listening to the clock tick tock in the middle of nowhere with a sick husband is a recipe for anyone to loose it. Is that what it really is and not PTSD? I believe the author wants to provoke a question in their reader’s minds.

P6. When Caleb is described as rounder and heavier after war as compared to his wedding album when he is smiling in every picture may indicate his depression. Eating can be a way of comfort and that may result in weight gain, or a way to cope with PTSD. The author mentions that Caleb has a disabled veteran license plate, when we think of injuries it is mostly physical not mental in Caleb’s case. Even though his disability is not physical it has similar restrictions. Like being light sensitive, waking up screaming or confused, this goes back to the beginning of war itself.

P7. The word coward is thought of as an insult and weakness. When someone calls a soldier with PTSD a coward it just shows the ignorance people have for the disease and its seriousness. People who are not aware of the seriousness of PTSD associate people like Caleb with cowards. When in reality it is a disease that one can not control.

P8. McClelland says, “Doctors have to go on hunches and symptomology rather than definitive evidence. And the fact that the science hasn’t fully caught up with the suffering…” this shows just how serious the disease is and how it still remains a mystery. They can not pin point why some soldiers like Caleb contract PTSD from war but not some other soldiers. It must be something so complicated since the disease has been around for so long without a cure or end. This may be because PTSD has no blood tests or x-rays that can diagnose that it is present.

P9. Some claim that PTSD is not just an incident that happens to an individual, but it is in fact contagious and affects everyone that is in contact with a person with PTSD. The longer the person with PTSD is around others, the more likely it is to spread and affect others. Brennan seems to have all the characteristics of a PTSD patient, and his daughter will further develop these characteristics as well. Katie is a young girl who learns from watching. If she is constantly watching and hearing her father have episodes of screaming and yelling all the time, it is no surprise that Katie models these behaviors. This is shown by her spitting on one of her classmates and acting up in school.

P10. When McClelland explains the immense pressure on Brennan to get sleep, feed her family, take her daughter to and from school, take care of her husband it leads the reader to believe that all these pressures have an affect on her. Leaving her condition of contagious PTSD worse. Yes plenty of woman are exposed to these different stresses, but Brennan’s situation is unique. Her husbands sickness and random episodes make her more likely to become a person with PTSD herself.