What's Bothering Holden?: Amy, Celeste, Abby, AJ

Searching the few psychiatric illnesses Holden could be displaying, we ultimately found out that he may be suffering from depression. With the loss of his brother, Holden is still holding onto memories and things him and Allie use to do while his brother was alive. Whenever he sees someone in a situation that’s less fortunate then his own, he always says is depresses him. But like we said, we had to research a little before being able to give Holden a diagnosis. Here’s what we came up with.

The first thing Celeste researched was the 5 stages of grieving. Using the Kuebler-Ross model, she found that the first stage is denial. Denial includes denying the loss of someone, withdrawing from social situations, and this usually lasts for about a week or so. The next stage, anger, comes with a little more. The person who has lost someone may be angry with that person for leaving them or at themselves for thinking they may have caused their death. The third stage is bargaining. Bargaining usually includes the person trying to make deals with God to get the lost one back into their lives. “I’d be a much better person if he came back.” Stage four brings up the big one: depression. Depression over a loss can last for years. It’s an important step in the grieving process because the person has time to think about the loss and see the good side of the situation. Finally, accepting that the person is gone is the last stage. It gives the person and the other people involved closure.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an illness that usually comes after something traumatic or life changing has occurred whether it be good or bad. Sign of PTSD are: ---recurrent and intrusive recollections of an event, including images, thoughts or perceptions

-acting or feeling if the event were recurring

-intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of event

-recurrent distressing dreams of the event

-physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues.

Depression is the next thing we researched and think that Holden’s behavior matches pretty well. Depression is a serious psychological disorder where a person loses interest in activity, becomes more groggy and tired then usual, feels stages of extreme sadness or hopelessness, and sometimes experience thinking about suicide. Holden in the book says things about being so lonely and upset all the time, and even at one point takes it so far as to say he wanted to jump out of his window. These days, Holden would need to be diagnosed by a professional, put on medication, and attend therapy sessions to help manage his depression.

If Holden were to go through with his suicidal thoughts, even if his family isn’t that close to him, they would still feel horrible if he did decide to end his life. The impact of death on a family can go very many different ways. Here are some of the things families may go through after experiencing the loss of a member.
-Family seeks exclusion and retreats from others.
-Stays home more often does not go to the places they would normally go to when family member was still alive and avoids people as a whole. Families find it hard to talk about it even when it is the best thing to do. May avoid the subject all together. -Family members may encounter depression, anger.
- Siblings with loneliness or void. -Often family members’ room will be abandoned for x amount of years or until that use it needed. -If a family moves they may have others go through that family member’s room and get rid of everything except pics of that family member.
-Family feels no future and gets mad at every person that tries to tell them differently than what they want to hear.

Work Cited:
www.hospiceofmcdowell.org
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx32.htm
http://www.memorialhospital.org/library/general/stress-the-3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model