****Spoiler Alert****
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Two Distinct Manifestations of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Charlie is about to start high school, and he needs to turn his life around. At the beginning of the story, Charlie tells us that he has recently been hospitalized because of some psychiatric or emotional problems. We find out later that these problems were probably brought on by the suicide of his best friend, Michael. We learn through the story’s progression that Charlie has repressed memories of being molested by his Aunt Helen, whom he trusted, admired, and respected. He is very nervous about starting high school, and he lets us know early on that he believes making friends will help him cope with his problems. Charlie meets Patrick and Sam at a football game, and they in turn introduce Charlie to Bob, Mary Elizabeth, and Alice, who become Charlie’s circle of friends. Sam confides in Charlie that she was molested, seduced, or otherwise sexually involved with her father’s boss when she was eleven. We know very little about Sam except that she was promiscuous and drank too much when she was a freshman in high school and that she has problems with bulimia. Sam also tells Charlie that she used to date guys who treated her “like ****.” Sam’s current boyfriend has been cheating on her since before the story begins, and she does not know it until the end of the film.
II. Charlie: Sexual Abuse and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)? According to B. Christopher Fruch it is an anxiety disorder brought on by “exposure to an extremely traumatic event or events.” The traumatic event(s) experienced or witnessed must involve “actual or threatened death or serious injury” or “a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.” A response of fear, helplessness, or horror at the time of the events must also be involved. Sexual abuse victims often exhibit the symptoms of PTSD (Fruch 249).
Fruch identifies three primary symptom classes used to diagnose PTSD. The first class involves the victim re-experiencing the traumatic event(s). It is common for the victim to experience intrusive or disruptive memories of the trauma as well as frightening dreams or nightmares, with some victims experiencing flashbacks in which the traumatic event is relived. “Exposure to environmental stimuli that resemble an aspect of the traumatic event often evokes intense psychological distress, and/or psychological reactivity” (Fruch 249).This is what happens to Charlie when Sam touches him in a way that brings back memories of how Aunt Helen touched him when he was a child (1:26:46; 1:27:33).[1]
The second symptom class that Fruch identifies with PTSD is persistent avoidance. When an individual re-experiences a trauma, it often leads to avoidance of cues (stimuli that serve to guide behavior) associated with the traumatic event. This includes the subject seeking to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations about the trauma, as well as efforts to avoid activities or situations that arouse recollections of the trauma. On rare occasions avoidance may include amnesia of significant aspects of the trauma (Fruch 248). This appears to be what is happening when it becomes evident that Charlie does not seem to be consciously aware of the fact that Aunt Helen sexually abused him.[2]
The third symptom class is increased arousal or anxiety that was not present before the trauma. These symptoms include difficulty in falling asleep, irritability or outburst of anger, difficulty concentrating, hyper-vigilance, and an exaggerated startle response (Fruch 249). These symptoms also cause disruption in the lives of those with PTSD.
We know that Charlie has problems with anger. We see Charlie lose control in the cafeteria when he takes on three football players who are beating Patrick (1:12:00). It seems significant that he blacks out during this event. He tells us that this event is a negative turning point in terms of his self-control (1:19:55). After Sam leaves for Penn State, Charlie remembers what Aunt Helen did to him, which causes him to experience extreme anxiety and agitation. This leads to the breakdown that puts him back in the hospital (1:27:35). When Charlie reaches the hospital, his doctor persuades him to let her help him work through his issues (1:32:50). By the end of the film, Charlie is working on his problems and attempting to start his life anew. (1:38:00) This is more than we can say for Sam.
III. Sam: Sexual Abuse and a Female Gender-Specific Response to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Some may doubt that Charlie and Sam are experiencing the same psychological problem, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sam at least gives the impression that she has her life together. She seems to be very outgoing, with good friends and a steady boyfriend, and she performs in the Rocky Horror Picture Show every week (31:15:00). Our first impression is that Charlie has more problems than Sam, but is this a true picture of what is going on with Sam? I think not.
When Sam was a freshman she practically fell apart. She drank too much and let guys use her for sex (45:20). She had done this enough that even Charlie’s sister, Candace, knew that Sam had a reputation (30:50). Yet even as a senior, it does not appear that Sam has dealt with her PTSD. Sam tells Charlie about her problems with bulimia (14:30), and she still seems to be getting involved with guys who use her (1:22:30). It is also clear that Sam’s circle of friends is involved with hash and LSD.[3] Sam may have learned to use coping mechanisms to her advantage better than Charlie has, but she is still exhibiting signs of PTSD.
According to Maria Root, “persistent, disordered eating may disguise a post-trauma response to sexual assault in adolescent girls and women, and as such, can be a gender specific symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” (Root 100). “The ability to diet successfully has been held as a key to power, acceptance, and control—a triad that is shattered by physical or sexual assault. Child sexual abuse represents the ultimate violation of physical, psychological, and spiritual space “(Root 100).
Disordered eating occurs more frequently with females for physiological and socially conditioned emotional reasons. Right or wrong, social judgments regarding a woman’s psychological well-being and essential goodness are largely determined by how she looks. “This socialization increases the chance that a woman will attempt to resolve a physical boundary violation by attempting to control her body” (Root 100). “Additionally, the psychological and physiological stress created by overvaluation of norms of thinness creates a context for restrictive dieting, fasting, compulsive exercise, and even purging “(Root 100). Both clients and therapists are distracted by the symptomatology[4] associated with disordered eating and may attempt to behaviorally or cognitively treat it out of context (i.e., treat the eating disorder without identifying its relationship to sexual abuse or other source of PTSD). If this happens the symptoms can only get worse (Root 101). In Sam’s case, she is aware that she has been abused, and she is aware that she has a problem with bulimia. She also seems to see the connection between her abuse and these other problems. We do not know if Sam is getting professional help with these problems or not. I would guess that she is not getting help because from what we know about her she has become very adept at avoidance.
The addictiveness of the behaviors that comprise disordered eating occurs through a process of negative reinforcement. Through second-order conditioning,[5] disordered eating can become a generalized response to “negative internal affective states.”[6] “Additionally, these symptoms are reinforced through a woman’s ability to organize her immediate distress around a symptomatology that is normative to some degree among adolescent girls and young women rather than around the distress associated with having been sexually assaulted.”(Root 101) “Because of the various functions that binge eating, compulsive eating, vomiting, can serve giving up these behaviors because a cessation of these symptoms is invariably marked by a return of traumatic memories and a marked inability to properly function on a daily basis” (Root 101). This is what Sam will have to cope with if she is to deal with her issues so that she can overcome her PTSD symptoms.
IV. Conclusion
What have we learned from watching this film? (1) There is more than one manifestation of PTSD that results from sexual abuse. (2) Some of these manifestations may not be as obvious to an uninformed observer as other forms. (3) Individuals cannot avoid some of the more unpleasant aspects of PTSD if they hope to get better; they must go through the process of discovery and rehabilitation before they can get better. (4) Some women have a gender-specific experience of PTSD. (5) As serious as PTSD is, there is hope for recovery if one finds help.
Stephen Chbosky confronts some pretty heavy-hitting themes in this movie, considering that it has a PG-13 rating. It is my hope that there are some young people, and perhaps some adults, that can find help if they are facing or have faced the problems described in this movie.
Works Cited
Fruch, B. Christopher. “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.” Encyclopedia of Psychology. Ed. Alan E. Kazdin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 249-51.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Dir. Stephen Chbosky. Lionsgate, 2012. DVD
Root, Maria P. “Persistent, Disordered Eating as a Gender-specific, Post-traumatic Stress Response to Sexual Assault.” Psychotherapy. 1991: 96-102.
[1] All notes that are in the format 00:00:00 refer to the time stamp from the DVD The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
[2] As late as midway through the film Charlie is speaking of Aunt Helen as his most favorite person in the world (46:00:00)—a stark contrast to how he describes Aunt Helen to his doctor at the end of the film (1:33:00).
[3]Although we never see Sam do drugs, we know they are present among Charlie’s circle of friends, which includes Sam.
[4] Symptomatology is “the combined signs, markers, or indicators of a disease or disorder.
[5] A form of learning in which a stimulus is first made meaningful or consequential for an organism through an initial step of learning, and then that stimulus is used as a basis for learning about some new stimulus.
[6] Negative internal affective states refers to the internal feeling that occurs when one has failed to achieve a goal or to avoid a threat or when one is not satisfied with their current state of affairs.