Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD) is a mental condition beset on people who are immersed in particularly stressful, rather dangerous, environments. Most commonly afflicting soldiers, PTSD can hit anyone. A victim of a terrorist attack, or even a bank robbery in which one was involved could open the door for PTSD. In a nutshell, PTSD is the aftermath of any traumatic event in which if an affected person encounters a trigger (like fireworks when their incident involved explosives, or a concert of people shouting when their incident was being held at gunpoint by criminals shouting commands) they, in a way, relive the trauma and have physical, emotional, and even psychological symptoms to show for it. Triggers come in all shapes and sizes and vary person to person. A trigger could be intense as a gunshot or as subtle as a car horn. Anything that can mimic or replicate something from the memory. Triggers aren’t restricted to sound, as someone seeing a plastic bag in the wind out of the corner of their eye could be triggered, thinking it was an IED (improvised explosive device, commonly used in roadside car-bombings).In Mother Jones’ article “Is PTSD Contagious?”, the author makes a proposition as to whether or not the symptoms of PTSD are transferable, specifically from a member of the army to his wife.

Much of the article is written as filler. Many parts are merely background on what PTSD is and what it’s like living with it. Some parts, however, offer more of an insight on to why it may be “contagious”.

“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, because a tiny elderly woman needs an extra minute to pay for her dish soap or whatever.”

I’m no doctor, but this just sounds like someone who’s impatient and has no anger control. It is mentioned that the change dropping on the counter is what triggers her, and again i’m no expert, change isn’t a very big trigger for anyone suffering PTSD.

“‘Sometimes I can’t do the laundry,’ Brannan explains, reclining on her couch. ‘And it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m too tired to do the laundry,’ it’s like, ‘Um, I don’t understand how to turn the washing machine on.’ I am looking at a washing machine and a pile of laundry and my brain is literally overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to reconcile them.'”

Washing clothes is a simple chore, probably repeated dozens of times by Brannan in her lifetime. How could secondary stress cripple someone so far as to not even be able to do laundry, something as routine as brushing one’s teeth.  Sounds to me like someone just doesn’t want to do laundry.

“Her schoolmate said something mean. Maybe. Katie doesn’t sound sure, or like she remembers exactly. One thing she’s positive of: “She just made me…so. MAD.””

Well here’s more evidence of simple anger issues. Spitting at someone for being mean or rude is a show of lacking anger containment. Again, this doesn’t sound much like PTSD. Where is the trigger here? Being rude?

I exceeded my time already by ten minutes (neglecting to mention I was also interrupted by a meeting with my RA, the time was subtracted from the hour). What I can add as a conclusion to my work this far is that I don’t believe PTSD is contagious. Maybe it’s blow-back can reach further than previously determined, but what I’ve been reading is just a case of personality mirroring, so to speak. If Caleb has never been to war, but his personality was as is with PTSD and we change the PTSD relationship to standard domestic abuse, the mirroring would be the same. If there were a PTSD victim who could suppress their symptoms or not show any at all, their PTSD would not be transferred at all, ever. Brannan and Katie don’t have PTSD, they just have anger issues.