Routh Case Study Essay

Inevitably, the pivotal moments in life can take a turn for the worst. It is a day of recovery and healing for Eddie Ray Routh as he is going to make his first real attempt at socializing, and with other veterans nonetheless, since his last departure from the Veterans Affairs hospital in Dallas. Just as this day of recovery and healing is beginning, things take that turn for the worst; Eddie murders his two companions, Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. A man craving to interact with someone that has faced the problem he is facing, post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, suddenly had a mental break. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a life altering disorder, which took quite the toll of the life of Routh on a daily basis. In this case, PTSD …show more content…
However, in the case of Routh, I believe it was quite an obvious diagnosis. Some of the symptoms of diagnosable PTSD are as follows: reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening, upsetting dreams about the event, physical and emotional reactions to things that remind you of the event, avoidance, memory problems, lack of interest in activities, self-destructive behavior, overwhelming guilt, and aggressive behavior (Mayo Clinic Staff). The symptoms just listed are only the ones that are clearly evident in the life of Routh in the article In the Crosshairs. If these are only the signs that were noticed while reading the article, it is very possible that those who knew Routh closely could identify even more commonalities between the list of symptoms and the list of signs that he showed. Throughout the article, two of the most evident symptoms that Routh displayed from the list were self-destructive behavior, in the form of alcoholism, and aggressive …show more content…
The most common of these is schizophrenia. That brings about the next question: Is it possible that Routh had underlying mental conditions? Of course there will be no way to be certain now, but the possibility is definitely present. By using conductive reasoning and placing together the symptoms discussed earlier, the repeated trips to the hospital for psychiatric and mental needs, and the fact that the medication they gave Routh did not work properly, one cannot disregard the chance that there was an underlying mental health condition. While medications are not going to work in every single case of PTSD, they nearly always have at least some positive effects on the patients. However, this case is quite abnormal; the medications seemed to have “made [him] worse,” in the words of his mother, Jodi. In addition, the morning that he murdered Littlefield and Kyle, he went through a break-up with his then-fiancée. Losing one of the few stable and consistent things in his life could have taken quite a toll on the already unstable Routh. In all, it can be said that there is certainly a chance that PTSD may not have been the sole cause of the murders. It is clear that there are other possibilities such as underlying mental conditions and the break-up he was going