When it comes to the traumas of life, we all encounter these unfortunate situations in our everyday and in order to get through the seemingly mindless dilemmas we must learn to cope with these events. But what happens when, due to such drastic circumstances, a person remains unable or unwilling to emotionally cope with the changes that have so emotionally affected said person. Pose Traumatic Stress Syndrome refers to the psychiatric condition in which a person is unable to emotionally come to terms with a traumatic event that has occurred to them in their lives. Due to this inability to come to terms with a said event, the subject or patient replays, relives, and possibly even retriggers this event for their entire lives or until they can come to terms with the events that have been plaguing them.
In the novel, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, the world has—for all intense and purpose—come to an end. Cannibalism has become one of the top fears for those who’ve survived, and staying in one place will surely get you killed, or there is the luxury of becoming someone else’s dinner. Humans have maintained their position at the top of the food chain due to their astonishing capability to adapt to most conditions. Some things though, cannot be accepted. Emotional cataclysm, death of family members, or any other catastrophic event can be categorized to a certain degree due to scientific field testing to understand hot subjects come to terms with the events they have encountered. But the end of world, that is something that no scientist has ever made any date on for the simple fact that there would be a minimal amount or no survivors to analyze after the destruction.
One area in the novel that showed signs from a character of PTSD, was in the father. Several point in the novel, we read of the father having many dreams about his wife, just around the time when she left him and their son. The father never has time to accept that fact that not only has his wife left him, but she also gave up on the fact of survival which— considering the conditions—was a smart idea for those surviving the end of the human civilization. Usually a person has sufficient time in order to accept and come to terms with a partner leaving them. But considering the condition of the world around him, the man in the novel never had time to accept the new changes that were affecting his life, like the fact that he alone would now have to take care of his son alone, not to mention that the one person who was supposed to support you through any and all troubles, has left you. Harsh reality.
In order to have PTSD, one must have the opportunity to come to terms with the fact that you can’t come to terms with a traumatic event. In this novel, the main character and his son never become able to deal with their pains because they are constantly trying to adapt to the severe changes they encounter after the end of the civilized human race. Most people who have experienced a traumatic event for the most part, come to terms, and eventually accept the change in their lives. But at the end of the world, coming to terms might be a little bit more complicated than one might anticipate. I could imagine that problems would be side swiping anyone left and right, leaving them emotionally vulnerable to over-analyze any and every situation, fear for the future, or finding themselves detached from the things they once loved. Essentially, terms cannot be accepted if a person cannot deal with the situation, this leaves them bewildered and lost to what is ahead, and what the road will have in store for the future.