My father has lived a long and harsh life, being born into an abusive family and having lived through a few incidents while in the military, there are times he will talk of his PTSD. He will sit down after having watched a movie that included either topic and he will shine some light into those parts of his life. He copes with it in healthy ways and it hasn’t severely hindered his activities but it is present. It manifests itself more when he is reminded of it by something else, a retrieval cue. This powerful tool has been experimented with and it has shown than it can be beneficial but it can also cause great harm as in the case with PTSD.

A retrieval cue is anything that helps a person remember anything associated with that retrieval cue. “PTSD is a disorder that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event,” pervasive thoughts disrupt the afflicted individual and they relive that moment. (Health, 2016) A retrieval cue will trigger the memory and the person will experience the fear and the threat to various degrees. As time goes by the person might only remember semantic information and not so much episodic information on the episode that caused the trauma but those specific retrieval cues will flood the person with episodic information, on daily conversations they might not be able to tell you exactly what happened but when a retrieval cue is presented they will feel as though they were there. While stationed in Germany, my father witnessed a terrorist bombing during Oktoberfest which left a huge mark in his life. He could talk about the event during a regular lunchtime meal but in other occasions you can see through his facial expressions that he is vividly recalling the moment.

In War Wounds That Time Alone Can’t Heal, we get a better view of how PTSD affects the individual. PTSD is explained as a “violation of your moral compass that you felt unable to forgive yourself, undeserving of happiness, perhaps even unfit to live” while the person can be self-destructive. (Brody, 2016) The person engages in self-destructive behavior such as drinking in order to numb their own thoughts. I expressed how retrieval cues can be detrimental yet some people live in constant thoughts of the events as though they never left that situation. The process of healing involves letting those thoughts dissipate, clearing your moral compass and accept the situation. From there it’s about managing those retrieval cues and not letting them be so pervasive.

It’s a lengthy process that doesn’t necessarily need the involvement of a therapist as my father was able to not become into a deranged person but handled it as best he could. Of course, it is recommended to do so but it is possible to do without. It’s interesting to think how retrieval cues and priming can affect how you think and what you recall. Seeing or hearing a stimulus that can then help the person remember a plethora of information relating to that stimulus. PTSD happens to be a negative aspect of both terms but with help its severity can be far less than anticipated.

Works Cited

Brody, J. (2016, June 6). War Wounds That Time Alone Can’t Heal. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/war-wounds-that-time-alone-cant-heal/?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FVeterans%20and%20Post%20Traumatic%20Stress%20Disorder&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest

Health, N. I. (2016, February). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Retrieved from National Institute of Mental Health: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml