Sirius: PTSD (was: Sensory Deprivation and Slashing the Fat Lady)

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 47746

Before I jump back into the fray of whether Sirius has PTSD (Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder), let me make some general comments about
anxiety in the Potterverse.  JKR says that she values bravery over all
other characteristics, and that's why she made bravery the
characteristic associated with Harry's house, Gryffindor.  Given this,
one wouldn't really expect to find many major characters with anxiety
disorders such as PTSD, especially not "good guys."  It's difficult to
show a character as being brave while also having an anxiety disorder.
Frank Bryce definitely fits the description, and Neville might too,
but it's not an easy set of characteristics to work into a novel. 
When we do see evidence of anxiety disorders in the Potterverse, it's
usually in a very minor character (Mrs. Mason, and her severe phobia
of birds), or in an unsympathetic character (Peter Pettigrew.)  So,
given JKR's emphasis on bravery, I wouldn't expect to find many (if
any) examples of PTSD among her main characters, even though the
Potterverse has *plenty* of danger and stress.   

Ok, onto my response to Monika's latest post.  I've tried to organize
my comments into two general topics, 1) whether Sirius has PTSD and 2)
whether past trauma is an excuse for violence. 


1) Does Sirius have PTSD?

a) Did Sirius develop PTSD implausibly fast, and/or get over it
implausibly quickly? 

When discussing the time frame of Sirius' symptoms, a theory was put
forth that Sirius was traumatized by the Potters' deaths, not by his
own suffering.  I said he'd have to be a saint for that to be the
case. 
In response, Monika said: 
> no offence meant, but you obviously haven't understood 
> what causes PTSD or ASD and how it works. You definitely 
> don't need to be a saint to get traumatized by the death 
> of someone else

I was saying that Sirius would have to be a saint to be ONLY
traumatized by the Potters' deaths, and not by his own imprisonment. I
think it's perfectly plausible that Sirius was traumatized by the
death of the Potters.  He doesn't have to be a saint for that.  What I
think would not be very plausible is if he found the Potters' deaths
traumatizing BUT did not also find his own situation (Azkaban, etc.)
traumatizing.  


On the subject of timing, Natasha had said 
> "It's pretty obvious that he doesn't have PTSD. I completely agree
> that if he did have it in PoA he made the recovery of the century 
> by GoF. I can't imagine anyone getting over PTSD that quickly."

And Monika replied:
> Well, this is a statement without proof like any other. No offence
> to Natasha, but if she isn't a psychiatrist or a psychologist 
> and/or can point me to some literature which supports her 
> statement and proves everything I have read about it myself wrong,  
> I don't see why I should take this for granted.

Monika, I don't see where you *or* Natasha has cited any articles on
the speed of recovery from PTSD, so Natasha could just as easily say
this to you.  


Regarding Sirius' recovery time, Monika said to me: 
> I'm still perplexed you insist he is "over it" [in GoF]. 
> I really can't see this. The fact that he is able to 
> think clearly again in GoF is not a
> proof that he just got over it, or anyone who is suffering from PTSD
> would be a "maniac" all the time and completely dysfunctional. 

I don't expect a person with PTSD to show symptoms *all the time*. 
However, I would say that Sirius doesn't show symptoms *at all* in
GOF.  he is very different in GoF from how he was in PoA.

Also on the issue of timing, Monika said: 
> there is an artificial distinction between post-traumatic stress 
> disorder and acute stress disorder because of the  
> different onset, the symptoms are the same. 

I've already said that the time frame does fit better for an acute
stress response than for PTSD.  However, the question being discussed
before was whether Sirius was suffering from *PTSD*.  So, that is what
I was addressing. 


b) Does Sirius show the symptoms of PTSD (or Acute Stress Disorder),
particularly anxiety?

I said: 
> The classic symptoms of PTSD are anxiety and 
> an inability to stop thinking about the trauma, 
> not choking people and slashing things. 

To which Monika replied:
> You thoroughly ignore one of (several) of the hallmarks 
> of PTSD, that is the hyperarousal symptoms...
> You can't just claim they don't exist

Actually, I see hyperarousal as *central* to PTSD.  I just called it
by a different name, "anxiety."

This brings us to the question of whether Sirius shows anxiety.  
Monika said:
> Please go and read the Shrieking Shack chapters and the chapter at
the
> end of GoF when Harry meets Sirius in Dumbledore's office again.
> Sirius' face actually *is* twitching at some point in the Shrieking
> Shack (even though I personally wouldn't see it as a sign of
> anxiety, so I just mention it for the sake of completeness here), 
> he is at the verge of tears when he talks about James and Lily,  
> and there are*two* "shaking incidents".... 
> And when Harry and Sirius are meeting at the end of GoF,
> Sirius' hands are shaking, at least in my British first edition they
> do. Then there's the moments when the "deadened, haunted" look in
> his eyes is mentioned...

OK, fine, I went back and read them again. In GoF, yes, Sirius is
upset when he sees Harry, but Harry had been in mortal danger and
another student had been killed, so I don't see Sirius' response as
being pathological or showing excessive fear.  I'd interpret the
"deadened, haunted look" in GoF as probably a sign of depression, not
anxiety.  (Depression often occurs in people with PTSD, but is not a
diagnostic criterion.)

In the Shrieking Shack scene, JKR uses a huge amount of emotional
terms in describing Sirius' behavior. Sirius grins (three times);
snarls (also three times); growls (twice); roars (also twice);
bellows; says things harshly (twice), savagely, or derisively; shows
hatred or terrible fury in his facial expression;  looks evilly at
Scabbers; cries at the thought of the Potters' deaths; hides his face
in his shaking hands; hisses (twice, once venomously);  jumps when
Hermione calls him "Mr. Black"; laughs horribly and mirthlessly;
ponders; kicks out at Peter; and turns pale when he's tied up and told
he's about to get the dementor's kiss.  (I may have missed a few, but
that's the gist of it.)

Of all those emotional moments in the Shack, the only time Sirius
really seems worried to me is when Snape threatens to feed him to the
dementors.  His fear here seems to be a reasonable response, not a
pathological one.  Even if one wants to count both hiding his face and
being startled when called "Mr. Black" as fear responses (and I tend
to doubt that either of them are), anxiety certainly isn't his
predominant emotion.  I'd say he's pretty low in anxiety for someone
with a bunch of angry dementors on his tail.  People suffering from
anxiety disorders show excessive anxiety for the amount of danger that
they're in.

Monika continued:
> JKR very well portrays Sirius as having signs of
> anxiety, only you refuse to see them. And given the fact that she
> was an active member of Amnesty International for some time, she
> apparently knows very well how people like Sirius 
> react in certain situations. 

I guess I'm still refusing, because I see Sirius displaying quite a
lot of anger and a fair amount of evil grinning, but not a whole lot
of anxiety.  Yes, JKR can do a good job of portraying PTSD (look at
Frank Bryce), but who says she intended Sirius to have PTSD?  I don't
believe she's ever said anything about that.  



2) Is Past Trauma an Excuse for Violent Behavior?

As I've said before, this is a philosophical question, a question of
values, rather than a factual question.  I feel violence is justified
in order to defend oneself or someone else.  Period.  The idea that
having experienced trauma in the past is an excuse for traumatizing
others doesn't fit my value system at all.  

I said that:
> judging by the books, JKR agrees with me that trauma is no excuse
> for violence. Just look at how she portrays the hero of her books,
> Harry. He's been mistreated by the Dursleys most of his life, 
> is in constant danger from Voldemort and his followers, and 
> suffers greatly during PoA from the flashbacks of his 
> parents' murder.  Yet, he doesn't go
> around choking people and slashing things. 

Monika replied:
> Well, Harry is 11, 12, 13 and 14 in the books. This disqualifies him
> from displaying "adult" PTSD symptoms, I'm sorry. That's a fact, not
> just an assumption of mine. Go and do some reading about PTSD in
> children (and adults, including about gender differences) and we
> discuss this point again later....
> And children never get violent, so your argument 
> that Harry doesn't show any violent
> behaviour doesn't hold up

I'm not saying that Harry has PTSD.  I'm saying that in the
Potterverse, people can suffer all sorts of traumas without becoming
violent. In particular, Harry suffers a great deal but still tries to
avoid violence.  As the hero of the books, Harry to a large extent
serves as the model of how a person should be. This implies that JKR
believes that the idea person avoids violence, even after being
traumatized.  How is doing some reading about PTSD supposed to change
this? 

I'm not sure what you mean by "children never get violent." There have
been a number of murderers who are younger than Harry, unfortunately.
 


I said:
> Most people who have been traumatized do not attack others. If
> someone responds to a trauma by becoming violent, I'd say that's
> strong evidence that the person had a tendency to 
> violence all along.
> ... most people having an acute stress reaction aren't violent. 

And Monika replied:
> No, no, no. Sorry, but here I am adamant. You just tend to repeat
> everything that was put forward in the past to deny that the
> disorder even existed and that those behaviours were 
> merely a character flaw in those who suffered from it....
> You seem to like to say "most people" and rule out the rest who
> actually *do* get violent. Your argumentation isn't scientific, I am
> sorry to repeat it.

I *definitely* believe that PTSD exists.  But, I also believe that
behaving violently generally indicates a character flaw.  The two
beliefs are not mutually exclusive.  

Here's why I keep referring to the fact that most people with PTSD
aren't violent. Suppose we have a group of people with PTSD.  Some of
them will be violent; most will not be.  So, how do we explain these
individual differences in violence level?  It's not as if some
stressors routinely produce violence, and others don't.  (If you've
read something to the contrary, Monika, I'd be very interested to hear
about it.)  It's not as if all the people with severe PTSD are
violent, and all the people with mild PTSD are non-violent.  So, it
seems likely to me that pre-existing differences in violent tendencies
provide the most likely explanation of why some people with PTSD are
violent, and others aren't. 

Now again, we may be running into a philosophical difference here. 
Suppose we have a person with a fairly high tendency towards violence.
(Yeah, I know there's no real way to measure this, but suppose there
were.)  Now, suppose this person experiences trauma which results in
PTSD.  Suppose the person becomes violent, and we know for sure that
it was the combination of the person's original violent tendencies and
the PTSD that caused the violence.  (Again, there would be no real way
to tell this, but suppose there was some way to tell exactly why the
violence happened.) Monika, you seem to be saying that the person
should not be held responsible at all for the violence, because the
violence wouldn't have happened without the PTSD.  I say the person
*should* be held responsible for the violence, because the violence
wouldn't have happened without the underlying violent tendency.  (If I
were a judge, I'd be willing to consider the PTSD as a mitigating
factor that reduces the punishment, though.)  We have different views
of what constitutes moral responsibility.  This concerns opinion, not
fact. 


Regarding PTSD causing violence, Monika also said:
> Note that it is only a problem in male
> patients, and this has to do with the evolutionary path humankind
> has followed. It's a fact that the so called "fight and flight"
> mechanism doesn't function in the same way in men and women....
> And while most people (all women, children and a
> percentage of male patients) aren't violent, a rather high
> percentage of men are, and it's just too easy to 
> say they get violent because it
> is their nature and/or bad character. 

So, Monika, you are saying that if Sirius had been female, choking
Harry and so forth would have been wrong, but since he's male, it's
OK?  

That *no* women or children with PTSD are violent seems like an
exaggeration to me.  However, I definitely agree that men with PTSD
are more likely than women or young children with PTSD to be violent.
But, even in people *without* PTSD, men are more likely to be violent
than are women and children.  My explanation for this pattern is that
men are more likely to have violent tendencies than women.  (Whether
these tendencies are inborn or learned is another question, but they
are formed by early adulthood.)  PTSD can lead these violent
tendencies to be expressed as behavior, but doesn't cause them in the
first place.  Your explanation seems to be that there are two
different forms of PTSD, once which only affects men, and a second
form which affects women and children. The two forms are identical in
their causes and symptoms, except that for some unexplained reason,
the form that affects adult men causes violence (even in the absence
of underlying violent tendencies), while the form that affects women
and children does not cause violence.  This seems implausible to me,
mostly because it is (as we unscientific types like to say)
unparsimonious. 

Monika also said that I:
> think people should be punished for something they actually can't 
> control.

No, I don't think that.  But, I think it's rare for violence to be
truly out of a person's control.  There are many men who beat their
wives and say that they couldn't control it, yet, for some strange
reason, these same men never attack their bosses or random large men
on the street.  This suggests that the violence *is* under some
control, because these men don't act violently unless they think they
can get away with it.  If Sirius had attacked Fudge, or the dementors,
or lunged at Lupin when Lupin had a wand and he didn't, then I'd be
more inclined to think that Sirius had no control over his violent
behavior. 

I suspect this debate isn't resolvable, because it is not really about
factual matters.  (We actually agree on things such as that the death
of a friend can cause PTSD; it was a misunderstanding that made it
seem that we disagreed on this.)  The debate is actually over things
like what constitutes responsibility, how we interpret Sirius'
behavior in the books (anxious or not), what we think Sirius is doing
during the periods (especially in GoF) when we don't see him, and
whether we want to analyze Sirius' behavior as it appears in the
books, or as it might have been written if JKR wasn't constrained by
the plot.  These aren't questions that depend on facts.

We might get further if we changed the question.  For example, we
could ask whether people think that Sirius is good, or evil.  I see
Sirius as flawed, but think that he is more good than bad.  I don't
think his violence is justified, I think he lacks empathy, and I
suspect he was something of a bully when he was young.  I also suspect
that if I had been at Hogwarts with him, he would not have liked me,
and so I don't like him.   But, I also think he has a highly developed
sense of honor and responsibility, and is willing to sacrifice himself
for his friends.  So, I don't think he's evil (let alone
Ever-so-Evil.)  

By the way, I see Sirius and Snape as similar on the continuum of good
to evil -- both are flawed, but on balance are mostly good.  I like
Snape while disliking Sirius, but this doesn't mean that I think Snape
is better morally. 


One last thing. Monika said:
> I really don't know if you are as familiar with PTSD as you say, but
> I have the impression that this is not the case.

I haven't said anything at all about how familiar I am with PTSD, so I
don't see how I can be accused of having exaggerated my knowledge. 
But since you want to know my educational background, Monika, I will
send you that information via email. 

-- Judy Serenity