Last Updated: Jun 1, 2023 8:32 AM
Subjects: Adults, Children, Fiction, Media, Self Help, Teens
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Introduction

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness

June 2023

This June, DUP acknowledges Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month. PTSD is an emotional-behavioral dysfunction brought about by an acute or long-term experience so overwhelming or pervasive that the mind cannot analyze and resolve it promptly or properly; it gets "stuck," like a psychic indigestion. This processing disturbance can produce entrenched chronic (“post-”), unconscious and uncontrolled (“traumatic”), persistently physically associated (“stress”), and maladaptive (“disorderly”) changes in thought and behavior.

First described in writing - at least as early as 440 BCE - as an affliction of military servicemen and veterans, PTSD is now understood to result from a wide variety of traumatic origins. It can intersect with any identity, age, or life circumstance, and absolutely no one is immune.

These titles are recommended (in Fiction) for their accurate, non-sensationalized portrayals of many kinds of traumatic experience and aftermath, and in Nonfiction for high-quality mental health communication, both contemporary and classic. Children's and YA suggestions introduce the concept of trauma and its repercussions from, and for, younger perspectives. Media selections provide even more access to well-drawn PTSD portraits.

It's worth noting the scarcity of many highly rated PTSD-focused titles in the BCCLS system, which constitutes an example of underservice to a known significant demographic.

If you don't happen to own many titles on this list, PTSD-germane plots and characters are easily found in feature films and fiction classics owned by almost every library, as seen in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 and Richard III, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Arthur Miller's young accused witches of The Crucible, the Tony Stark we see in Iron Man 3, and even Hitchcock's Norman Bates.

We hope this month's LibGuide helps you and your patrons to greater understanding of a chronic, debilitating distress disorder with which an estimated one in 11 humans worldwide will be diagnosed in their lifetime.

Recommended Titles

Picture Books

Why Are You So Scared? by Beth Andrews
ISBN: 9781433810459
Publication Date: 2011-08-15
When a parent has PTSD, children can often feel confused, scared, or helpless. Why Are You So Scared? explains PTSD and its symptoms in nonthreatening, kid-friendly language, and is full of questions and exercises that kids and parents can work through together. The interactive layout encourages kids to express their thoughts and feelings about PTSD through writing, drawing, and designing. This book can serve as a practical tool for kids to cope with and eventually feel better about their parent's PTSD. A comprehensive note to parents offers advice for using this book to help children communicate the emotions that may accompany their parent's PTSD recovery.
You Ruined It by Anastasia Higginbotham
ISBN: 1948340305
Publication Date: 2022-04-05
In You Ruined It, Anastasia Higginbotham, acclaimed author of Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, sheds light on the confusion and pain that many children feel in the aftermath of incest and sexual assault. When 11-year-old Dawn discloses that a favorite cousin sexually assaulted her, it's hard to tell what hurts more: the betrayal or the fall-out. After all, everyone always says to tell someone, but does this mean she'll never get to hang out with him again? What if he goes to jail? And the biggest question of all: How will she know if she can trust someone again? You Ruined It is a testament to a child's experience of a confusing betrayal, her broken heart, and the loved ones who help her piece it back together.

Middle Grade

The Canyon's Edge by Dusti Bowling
ISBN: 9780316494694
Publication Date: 2020-09-08
One year after a random shooting changed their family forever, Nora and her father are exploring a slot canyon deep in the Arizona desert, hoping it will help them find peace from the trauma they have both suffered. Nora longs for things to go back to normal, like they were when her mother was still alive, while her father keeps them isolated in fear of other people. But when they reach the bottom of the canyon, the unthinkable happens: A flash flood rips across their path, sweeping away Nora's father and all of their supplies. Suddenly, Nora finds herself lost and alone in the desert, facing dehydration, venomous scorpions, deadly snakes, and, worst of all, the Beast who has terrorized her dreams for the past year. If Nora is going to save herself and her father, she must conquer her fears, defeat the Beast, and find the courage to live her new life.
The Lost Things Club by J. S. Puller
ISBN: 9780759556133
Publication Date: 2021-08-17
When twelve-year-old Leah travels to Chicago to spend the summer with her little cousin TJ, she's shocked to discover that he's gone mute after surviving a school shooting. She knows there isn't a "right way" to deal with his pain, but when she learns that he's sneaking out to visit a laundromat at night, it seems all wrong. Determined to discover why the laundromat brings her cousin to life, Leah and her new friend Violet follow him, unwittingly falling into an imaginary world called "The Land of Lost Things," home to the socks and coins and buttons that disappear in the dryer. And when TJ hears about the wonders beyond the portal in the back of the dryer, he actually speaks! Eager to keep him talking, Leah and her new friends populate the world with characters, performing elaborate puppet shows that grab the attention of YouTube viewers everywhere. Soon Leah realizes that there's something in this special world that TJ has to find and get back. But as the Lost Things Club works together to try and make TJ's dreams a reality, they learn there are some lost things that can't come back.
No Slam Dunk by Mike Lupica
ISBN: 9780525514855
Publication Date: 2018-11-06
Wes has been selected for an elite basketball team with some of the best players his age, including Dinero, another player who is at the top of the game. But Dinero plays for himself, likes to show off, and feels a bit threatened by Wes's talent. Off the court, Wes is dealing with his dad, a former Navy Seal who has returned from Afghanistan with PTSD. If Wes is to lead the Hawks to the playoffs, he'll need to find new ways to dish out an assist--even if it means his most important one comes off the court.
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
ISBN: 9780803740815
Publication Date: 2015-01-08
Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn't waste a minute--she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan--and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?

Young Adult

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
ISBN: 9780593202340
Publication Date: 2022-03-01
Lahore, Pakistan: then. Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young lives are shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start. Juniper, California: now. Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family, two wounded and traumatized children who find and accept one another. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does--until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding. Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him--and Juniper--forever. When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth--and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.
A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti
ISBN: 9781481415200
Publication Date: 2018-09-18
Then ... Annabelle's life wasn't perfect, but it was full: full of friends, family, love. And a boy ... whose attention Annabelle found flattering and unsettling all at once--until that attention intensified. Now ... Annabelle is running. Running from the pain and the tragedy from the past year. With only Grandpa Ed and the journal she fills with words she can't speak out loud, Annabelle runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, and toward a destination she doesn't understand but is determined to reach. With every beat of her heart, every stride of her feet, Annabelle steps closer to healing--and the strength she discovers within herself to let love and hope back into her life. Annabelle's journey is the ultimate testament to the human heart, and how it goes on after being broken.
The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
ISBN: 9780670012091
Publication Date: 2014-01-07
For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own. Will being back home help Andy's PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over?
Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
ISBN: 9780062422675
Publication Date: 2018-05-22
Monday Charles lives in an abusive household and doesn’t feel like she can tell anyone about the situation at home—she’s not only ashamed, she’s also afraid that social services might separate her and her siblings if they were to be placed in foster care. Now she's missing, and only fellow secret-keeper Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable--more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn't turn up for the first day of school, Claudia's worried. Now Claudia needs her best--and only--friend more than ever. But Monday's mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday's sister April is even less help. As Claudia digs deeper into her friend's disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she's gone? Monday’s Not Coming suggests that secrets—and the shame they create—can keep kids from getting the help they need.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
ISBN: 9781627792127
Publication Date: 2015-09-29
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price--and no one knows that better than PTSD-symptomatic criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But Kaz can't pull it off alone: His crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction--if they don't kill each other first: a convict with a thirst for revenge; a sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager; a runaway with a privileged past; a spy known as the Wraith; a Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums; a thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist.

Adult Fiction

Beloved by Toni Morrison; A. S. Byatt (Introduction by)
ISBN: 9780307264886
Publication Date: 2006-10-17
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile, Sethe's house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe's terrible secret explodes into the present.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
ISBN: 9780735220683
Publication Date: 2017-05-09
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. These coping habits keep her post-traumatic world in order. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of traumatized isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
ISBN: 9780385539258
Publication Date: 2015-03-10
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome--but that will define his life forever.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia. Woolf
ISBN: 0156628708
Publication Date: 1990-09-24
Clarissa Dalloway, fiftyish and recovering from recent illness, begins her day running errands for a party she will host that evening, while internally reflecting on the meanings of her past and present, including the inhabitants of her regulated society and her marriage choices. Septimus Smith, a shellshocked war veteran, struggles with the aftereffects of the war, hearing voices and feeling that life has little meaning. In a time-distorted, stream-of-consciousness London street scene, Virginia Woolf wields the power of the modernist literary form to compare and contrast Clarissa's mundane, stratified sanity with the hypervigilant and introspective trauma disorder of Smith, whose psychological damage is aggravated by a culturally prescribed silencing and marginalization of war veterans. By drawing her characters’ portraits from their pre-speech levels of consciousness, Woolf gives each a narrative that reflects their fragmented versus unfragmented consciousness. The characterization of Septimus Smith illustrates not only the psychological injuries suffered by victims of severe trauma such as war, but also the need for them to give meaning to their suffering in order to recover from the trauma.
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
ISBN: 9780802122513
Publication Date: 2014-05-06
Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti's richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father's Port-au-Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself "The Commander," Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents. An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places.

Adult Memoir

Civilianized by Michael Anthony
ISBN: 9781936976881
Publication Date: 2016-12-27
After twelve months of military service in Iraq, Michael Anthony stepped off a plane, seemingly happy to be home--or at least back on US soil. He was twenty-one years old, a bit of a nerd, and carrying a pack of cigarettes that he thought would be his last. Two months later, Michael was stoned on Vicodin, drinking way too much, and picking a fight with a very large Hell's Angel. At his wit's end, he came to an agreement with himself: If things didn't improve in three months, he was going to kill himself. Civilianized is a memoir chronicling Michael's search for meaning in a suddenly destabilized world.
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
ISBN: 9781619023345
Publication Date: 2018-02-06
Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder, Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial to Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father, an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame. Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.
Man's Search for Meaning by Harold S. Kushner (Foreword by); William J. Winslade (Afterword by); Viktor E. Frankl
ISBN: 0807014273
Publication Date: 2006-06-01
Viktor Frankl's riveting account of his time in the Nazi concentration camps, and his insightful exploration of the human will to find meaning in spite of the worst adversity, has offered solace and guidance to generations of readers since it was first published in 1946. At the heart of Frankl's theory of logotherapy (from the Greek word for "meaning") is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but rather the discovery and pursuit of what the individual finds meaningful. Today, as new generations face new challenges and an ever more complex and uncertain world, Frankl's classic work continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living, in spite of all obstacles.
Things We Didn't Talk about When I Was a Girl by Jeannie Vanasco
ISBN: 9781947793453
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her. When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides--after fourteen years of silence--to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person. Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and after the assault, asking the brave and urgent question: Is it possible for a good person to commit a terrible act? Jeannie interviews Mark, exploring how rape has impacted his life as well as her own.

Information and Self-Help

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
ISBN: 9780143127741
Publication Date: 2015-09-08
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments--from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga--that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal--and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller (Text by)
ISBN: 9780465012619
Publication Date: 2008-07-22
Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided millions of readers with an answer--and has helped them to apply it to their own lives. Far too many of us had to learn as children to hide our own feelings, needs, and memories skillfully in order to meet our parents' expectations and win their "love." Alice Miller writes, "When I used the word 'gifted' in the title, I had in mind neither children who receive high grades in school nor children talented in a special way. I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb. ... Without this 'gift' offered us by nature, we would not have survived." But merely surviving is not enough. The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.
It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn
ISBN: 9781101980361
Publication Date: 2016-04-26
Depression. Anxiety. Chronic pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: The roots of these difficulties may reside not in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains, but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited: that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood. It Didn't Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that, in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.
Widen the Window by Elizabeth A. Stanley; Bessel van der Kolk (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9780735216594
Publication Date: 2019-09-24
A pioneering researcher gives us a new understanding of stress and trauma, as well as the tools to heal and thrive. Stress is our internal response to an experience that our brain perceives as threatening or challenging. Trauma is our response to an experience in which we feel powerless or lacking agency. Until now, researchers have treated these conditions as different, but they actually lie along a continuum. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley explains the significance of this continuum, how it affects our resilience in the face of challenge, and why an event that's stressful for one person can be traumatizing for another. This groundbreaking book examines the cultural norms that impede resilience in America, especially our collective tendency to disconnect stress from its potentially extreme consequences and self-sabotage our need to recover. It explains the science of how to direct our attention in order to perform under stress and recover from trauma. With training, we can access agency, even in extreme-stress environments. In fact, any maladaptive behavior or response conditioned through stress or trauma can, with intentionality and understanding, be reconditioned and healed.

Media

The Best Years of Our Lives
ISBN: 0027616850133
Publication Date: 1946
Recounts the problems faced by three returning veterans of WWII as they attempt to pick up the threads of their lives. Captain Derry is returning to a loveless marriage, Sergeant Stephenson is a stranger to a family that's grown up without him, and sailor Parrish is tormented by the loss of his hands.
The Deer Hunter
ISBN: 1417054441
Publication Date: 1978
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Iron Man 3
ISBN: 0786936836745
Publication Date: 2013
When Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) finds his entire world reduced to rubble, he must use all his ingenuity to survive, destroy his enemy, and somehow protect those he loves. But Stark denies his PTSD and its symptoms, including the loss of his signature confidence, arrogance and fearlessness. Misconceptions of PTSD are challenged: It can happen to anyone — even the toughest of all. So a soul-searching question haunts Tony Stark: Does the man make the suit, or does the suit make the man?
Martha Marcy May Marlene
ISBN: 0024543771630
Publication Date: 2012
Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

Introduction

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness

June 2023

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