What Happens Later?

                Behind every person in the world lies a different story. There can be great things that happen in these individuals’ lifetimes, but there can also be traumatic things that people go through as well. As those people move on with their life after the experience, the physical pain may leave but the memory of what happened never dies. Since everyone is different, the way they choose to go about their life may be different from someone else. Some people may always be paranoid from their traumatic experience and others could try and forget about it and just go about their life day by day. So my question is, what does literature say about adults who have gone through a childhood trauma?

            There is more about the effects of a traumatic experience than most people realize. The victims of an experience can go through a series of different consequences or even none at all. The consequences can range from certain disorders to emotionally scarring. The people who have gone through a traumatic experience are all different as are there experiences so what comes next is determined by how traumatized they were from their personal experience. 

            In some cases, individuals who have been affected by a traumatic experience can eventually start to show symptoms of having a personality disorder. In cases of personality disorders, latent variables can include factors ranging from genetic vulnerability to coexisting environmental risks. Latent variables are how someone starts acting after a trauma; it is not something you can see, you notice it rather. But, you can not always conclude someone to having a personality disorder. Personality disorders come from experiencing many traumas from childhood to adulthood (Paris, Joel).

            Every once in a while a news report or maybe in a local news paper has a topic of a child going through some type of traumatic experience. As awful as it seems, children are more vulnerable than adults, so the more severe the psychopathology, the earlier in life is its origin (Paris, Joel). As that child grows up, if they ever went through another or more traumatic experiences, it could damage them mentally, and hurt them for when they reach adulthood. If that actually happens, the child could very likely eventually get a personality disorder. No matter what the age of the trauma that the child experiences, it affects them the same way it would if they were older. Age is not a factor in disorders in individuals who have gone through a traumatic experience; it is if the trauma repeats itself later in that person’s life. So, the more traumatic and negative experiences in a child’s lifetime (or even an adult’s), the greater the outcome of negative consequences.

            When children grow up to be adults, the probability of them to receive a personality disorder or anything along the lines of something permanent to happen to them actually decreases. It is said that in general, only about 25% of children exposed to severe trauma develop demonstrable psychopathology as adults. Of course, 25% is still a large probability but at least it is not certain in adults who have went through any traumatic experiences. Only one fifth of adults with histories of childhood sexual or physical abuse, however, develop demonstrable psychopathology. Again, not a high probability but there still is a good chance of an adult who when through a childhood trauma to develop a demonstrable psychopathology.

            There may be low probabilities of personality disorders but that does not mean that the individual is immune to getting other disabilities. These traumas that these victim’s had faced left them with various feelings and emotions and if those happen continuously, it could damage the victim mentally. That being said, if you have high levels of stress, fear, and arousal, they can commonly induce learning deficits and memory loss (Joseph, Rhawn).  What most people do not know is that these are not uncommon when someone goes through a traumatic experience. In fact, amnesia or partial memory loss is not uncommon following severe stress and emotional trauma. Even high publicized national traumas may induce significant forgetting. Memory loss is a consequence of stress – induced disturbances involving the hippo campus, a structure which normally plays an important role in the storage of various events in long – term memory (Joseph, Rhawn). 

            When someone goes through a traumatic experience, to help cope with what happened, they seek a therapist. The patients present for therapy with a wide range of symptomotology include anxiety disorders, self – mutilation and suicidal behavior, sexualized behavior in children, sexual dysfunction in adults, substance abuse, complex post – traumatic stress disorder, and dissociative disorders (Brown, Angela and David Finkelhor).

            In my research of how adults dealt with a childhood trauma, it was stated that it was how the victim reacts to the trauma that they went through. If their trauma was reoccurring as the got older, the consequences would be much higher rather than if the victim only went through and experience once. But, what I did not find out was the immediate effects of someone who went through a traumatic experience.

Methodology;

            In this portion of my literature review, I decided to ask 10 of my teammates about what they think the emotional immediate reactions would be for someone who had gone through some type of trauma (an example that could be an immediate reaction of a trauma could be PTSD). I did not want to go and ask different people if they had gone through a trauma because I did not want to bring up unpleasant memories that the potential victims had been trying desperately to get rid of.

Research methods;

-          Data collection process / Who I asked

To go about my research, I asked some of my friends from my soccer team about my question. I decided to ask them because they are from different towns and do not go to Norton so I wanted to know their opinion on my topic.

-                     Data Analysis

  From asking my friends on my team I collected my data. Seven out of the ten people I asked (70%) predicted that the victim would get PTSD, two other people (20%) predicted that the victim would get sleep loss, and one person (10%) predicted that nothing drastic would happen until they gradually got older.

            From the findings I found, I concluded that it can be possible to be effected by more than one effect from a trauma. With both answers my teammates said, I think someone who went through a traumatic experience could get both PTSD and sleep loss and probably more than those two effects as well.

        All in all, literature has given many facts about what is says about adults who went through a traumatic experience as a child. It gave me more knowledge about what could happen after a trauma; such as it could lead to memory loss or demonstrable psychopathology as an adult. In the seriousness of the trauma and how traumatized the victim was from their experience are also key factors for the consequences of the trauma. Luckily, there are trauma centers that doctors prescribe people to go to which have been proven to lower mortality and significantly decrease morbidity rates for patients that have gone through any sort of trauma (SMITH, J. STANLEY).  Traumatization is not to be taken lightly and the victims of it can get serious disabilities or be diagnosed with illness(es).

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Work Cited

 Finkelhor, David, and Angela Browne. "The traumatic impact of child sexual abuse: A conceptualization." American Journal of orthopsychiatry 55.4 (1985): 530.

Hartman, Geoffrey H. "On traumatic knowledge and literary studies." New Literary History 26.3 (1995): 537-563.

Joseph, Rhawn. "The neurology of traumatic “dissociative” amnesia: Commentary and literature review." Child Abuse Negl 23 (1999): 715-727.

Paris, Joel. "Does childhood trauma cause personality disorders in adults?."Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 43.2 (1998): 148-153.

SMITH, J. STANLEY, et al. "Do trauma centers improve outcome over non-trauma centers: the evaluation of regional trauma care using discharge abstract data and patient management categories." Journal of Trauma-Injury, Infection, and Critical Care 30.12 (1990): 1533-1538.

Biased Editorial

In the article, "Vague Cyber bullying Law" The writer feels very biased about people believing that it is okay to bully someone over some form of social media. The writer of the piece feels very strongly about how much cyber bullying has affected too many friends and families in the US and how no one seems to care that what they say about someone over the internet can negatively affect them so much that they go to the extreme and when someone finally takes a stand, it's too late. That being said, some of the different types of biases I picked up on were: bias blind spot, empathy gap, ostrich effect, and defensive attribution hypothesis.

Bias blind spot was the first one I noticed in this article. Bias blind spot is the tendency to see oneself as less biased as other people, or to identify more cognitive biases in others than oneself. In the article, it was mentioned that a mother had created a fake profile and then started to talk to the Mier's daughter, Meghan, as if they were a real person. Eventually, the mother who was faking the profile told Meghan that he didn't like her any more and thought that the world would be a much better place without her in it. What that mother did not think of is that with those few words, it can affect a person drastically and unfortunately for Meghan, she believed it and took her own life.

Another bias I had found in the article was "empathy gap". Empathy gap is the tendency to underestimate the influence of strength of feelings, in either oneself or others. What intrigues me most about this bias and the mother who faked a profile and told Meghan such horrible things, is that they were a grown adult who knows right from wrong but still thought it was okay to hit "send" after typing something so awful as to tell someone that the world would be a better place with out them. Under no circumstances should anyone ever tell someone else that. I don't care who you are or what the other person has done. It is not OK. Just think of the famous saying, "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all". If everyone thinks of this every time they're about to hit " send" I think the world would be a much better place. But this mother unfortunately did not and ended up causing a child to become so depressed they thought that their only way to escape it was to do what she had said.

A third bias I had also noticed in this article was the ostrich effect. The ostrich effect is ignoring an obvious (negative) situation. This relates to the article because its showing how it takes an action so horrible like someone taking their own life, to make people start paying attention to this situation. Many kids and even adults had taken their own life because of nasty things being said to them over social media. Unfortunately it took that amount of people to die to make people become aware about how much of a big deal this is and to make specific laws against cyber bullying so it wouldn't cost any more lives of people who had so much ahead of them.

Lastly, the last bias I had noticed in this article was defensive attribution hypothesis. This is attributing more blame to a harm - doer as the outcome becomes more severe or as personal or situational similarity to the victim increases. By what I read in this article, by the mother bullying that 13 year old girl and having no one stop her, she was only putting herself into a deeper hole for when she gets blamed for having an innocent young girl who doesn’t know any better, take their own life.

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/opinion/08tue2.html?_r=0

Peer Interview

The other day, I got to “interview” two of my classmates who I did not know very much about. I interviewed Liam and Meghan. Fortunately, after asking them various questions about many different things, I got to know each of them a little better. Some of their answers I was a little shocked about. But, after asking them the questions I had for them, I feel like I know them a lot better.

One of the questions I asked was, “What was the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen a stranger do in public?” and with both of their answers and after thinking about it myself, I have definitely not seen either of the things they have. Liam answered first; he explained that, “The people just kept doing very awkward movements.” Then Meghan answered sounding very amused that “Some lady started putting on deodorant in the middle of a restaurant!” After she finished laughing, she also explained that it was one of the grossest things she has ever seen. Another question I asked each of them was if they had ever broken a bone. Liam explained that he has broken three bones; his finger, his leg, and his arm, while Meghan on the other hand has only broken her toe. After that I asked Liam and Meghan if they could travel anywhere in the world, without having to worry about money, where would they go and what would they do while there were there. Again, Liam answered first and stated that he would, “Go to Hawaii or even Australia to see all of the different animals that we don’t have here.” Then Meghan answered, much like Liam, that she would also go to Hawaii as well and she would learn to surf if she ever got the chance to go there. Also, Liam’s biggest fear is being buried alive and after thinking for a bit, Meghan explained that her biggest fear has to be either spiders or drowning. Lastly, I asked each of my partners in all of their lives, what has got to be the worst present they’ve ever received? Liam answered first again and he said that the worst present he has ever gotten was “Definitely socks!” Meghan was soon to answer and had a similar answer to Liam’s. She said that the worst present she has ever gotten was either, “Socks or toothpaste.” Both seem pretty boring to me!

I’m glad I got to ask questions to both Liam and Meghan and I am glad I got to know them each a little better! Hopefully over the year I’ll get to know all of my classmates better.   

Checked something off of my bucket list!

I finally tried sushi for the first time! I only got a basic California Roll unfortunately but it still counts. As you can see, I liked it a lot which is why I ate all six. Don't get me wrong, the sushi was good and all but I would not get it all the time. I think I would only get it if I was in the mood for one. But, I'm glad I got the opportunity to try it. Someday, I want to try other kinds of sushi.

Incentives

Kristin Lynch

1)         Incentives are what motivates or drives someone to do something. More importantly, to make someone want to do better than how they normally do. Even though you should always strive to do your best with anything that you do, not everybody lives up to their potential. Sad to say, the thing that motivates people the most is money. Don’t get me wrong, I would have no problem in getting money in reward for every time I accomplished something, but money can get you everything you want. I can understand why money is such a successful incentive though. Money is a very important factor in everyday life. It gives you a place to call home as well as buy you food for when you’re hungry. Incentives are bribing people to do things they should have been doing anyway. It’s always a great feeling to get something for doing something correctly, but an even better reward is proving yourself you can do something out of your own pure motivation and being able to say you did it.

2)         Aesthetic experiences are when all of your senses are awake. One of my aesthetic experiences is when I am playing in a big game like a championship and everyone is screaming all around me and I can literally feel the clock ticking down to zero. In those last few minutes of the game I hear so many voices in my head telling me what to do. In regular games I don’t experience these things nearly as much I do in big games. Just the feeling of knowing that you made it that far and you’re so close to achieving your goal just gives you a rush. When the time finally reaches zero and the game has been called and you win, you get a wave of happiness all around you and you aren’t just proud and happy for yourself, but also for everyone you get to go through this experience with.

My Short & Long Term Bucket Lists

Long Term Bucket List

1)      Hang glide. I want to hang glide because skydiving seems to extreme to me and hang gliding seems like the next step down. I also want to hang glide because you just get to go where the wind the wind takes you with a little help from “steering” it. Hang gliding just seems very relaxing to me.

2)      Pet an okapi. I would like to pet an okapi because they seems like very interesting animals to me. I have no idea if you ca find them in zoos or not but if they are I need to find which zoo(s) have them so I can pet one. Anyway, who wouldn’t want to pet a zebra giraffe?

3)      Eat a lion fish. I want to eat a lion fish because I have swam where a few were swimming in the ocean. Even though they are poisonous, if you prepare them correctly, they taste very good. I want to see if I also think they’re good.

4)      Go on a game show. I want to be on a game show because every time I watch one on TV all of the contestants and people in the audience are laughing and smiling. I would like to have fun just like everybody else and see how well I would do competing against everyone else.

5)      Drive on the left side of the road. This is on my bucket list because I have always wondered what it would be like to drive on the left side of the road. Obviously, I have never driven on the right side yet because I am not old enough but I would just like to see how different it would be and if I would ever get confused and find myself driving on the opposite side.

6)      Ice skate at the TD Garden. I love hockey and I grew up with it all around me from my family and friends paying it all the time. I have been to the TD Garden more times than I can count to see the Boston Bruins play and I want to see what it feels like to ice skate somewhere where your favorite players play.

7)      Be in a movie. I’m not talking become an actress and star in every movie with other well - known actors and actresses, but to just be an extra. Personally, I think it would be a very fun experience and I could have more of a chance to meet a famous actor or actress instead of hoping for a “follow” from them on Twitter.

Short Term Bucket List

1)      Zip line. Zip lining is on my bucket list because I feel like all of my friends have done it and im the only person who hasn’t. I also want to zip line because I think it would be nice to see wild life I may have not seen before or to just see the nature around me.

2)      Get a detention. I don’t exactly know why I actually want a detention but I feel like everyone has to once in their life get a detention. If I ever do, my mom will probably be very angry with me. But, she can’t get too mad because I haven’t even gotten a session once in my life.

3)      Go to a Celtic’s game. There are probably many other sports and teams who I’d rather see than the Celtic’s but since I like basketball more than football (I’ve never been to a Patriots game either), I think I would enjoy it more.

4)      Spray paint an entire wall. I see people spray paint walls and other things in movies and what they spray paint always seems and looks very cool to me so I want to try to do it as well.

5)      Try sushi. I want to try sushi because I get different types of Asian food all the time but I’ve never felt compelled to try sushi even though some of it looks and smells very good.

Why You Should Exercise (Ethos, Pathos, Logos)

          Ethos:

·         In my opinion the best reason to exercise is that it's really fun!

·         When people actually take the time to try exercising they realize it's an enjoyable experience.

·         When you having fun you don't even realize that your exercising and you look forward to it everyday.

·         There is no greater feeling than achieving a weight lose goal and being able to feel good about your body. It makes exercising well worth it.

Pathos:

·         In conclusion, exercising is the key to making your life healthier, longer, and happier.

·         It is one of the most important things in life and it's one hundred percent beneficial.

·         So next time you are deciding whether or not to exercise just think of the benefits you will experience from it. It is extremely rewarding and worthwhile.

Logos:

·         More that 1.6 billion people in the world are either overweight or obese and United States has the highest rate of obesity.

·         One out of every four Americans are suffering from some form of heart disease, which results in more than forty-five percent of deaths annually.

·         Exercising not only helps prevent heart diseases, but it also helps prevent strokes, type 2 diabetes, and even certain types of cancer.