PTSD Claims:

1. Factual Claim:
   “James Peterson was so anxious and so suicidal that he couldn’t even muster the self-preservation to get into inpatient treatment.”
   • Analysis: This statement highlights the severe impact of PTSD on James’s ability to seek help, it emphasizes the urgent need for effective treatment options.
2. Factual & Categorical Claim:
   “With three kids, eight, five, and two, and Kateri’s full-time job—as a VA nurse, actually—she could no longer manage his emotional plus physical problems: rheumatism consults, neuro consults for TBI, plus a burning rash on both feet he got in Fallujah in 2004.”
   • Analysis: This claim categorizes the various challenges Kateri faces, illustrating the complicated impact of PTSD and TBI on the entire family.
3. Factual Claim:
   “Finally they enrolled him in a private clinical trial to get a needleful of anesthetic injected into a bundle of nerves at the top of his collarbone.”
   • Analysis: This demonstrates James’s bold approach to managing his PTSD, it highlights the lengths individuals will go to find relief from their diseases.
4. Causal & Evaluative Claim:
   “Moments after the injection, he ‘went from balls-to-the-wall PTSD to BOOM chill.’”
   • Analysis: The vivid language suggests a significant reduction in his PTSD symptoms, indicating the potential effectiveness of the treatment.
5. Causal & Factual Claim:
   “‘They’d “assumed the normal positions,’ she with her back to the restaurant, he facing it so he could monitor everyone, and suddenly, a server dropped a tray out of her periphery, setting her circulatory system off at a million miles a minute. ‘He just ate his steak like nothing,’ she says.”
   • Analysis: This describes an incident where James’s sudden calmness shocked Kateri. It shows that she had become so used to being aware of her surroundings like James, but now that he was better, she was the one who was still suffering.
6. Comparative & Evaluative Claim:
   “Kateri, despite wishing her system hadn’t learned to run at a heightened state, at this point is like a drug addict, needing stimulation to maintain it.”
   • Analysis: This compares Kateri’s need for constant attentiveness to a drug addict’s dependence, it emphasizes her emotional strain and exhaustion.