“It’s not happening, and if it were to be happening it would be alright...” Sara Goldfarb in the opening scene of Requiem For a Dream (Aronofsky). “Sara Goldfarb is a lonely widow who is revitalized by the prospect of appearing on television as a game show contestant, while her son Harry, his girlfriend Marion, and his friend Tyrone have devised an illicit shortcut to wealth and ease. Lulled by early successes, Sara, Harry, Marion and Tyrone convince themselves that unforeseen setbacks are only temporary. They ignore their deteriorating circumstances and focus all their energies on realizing their beautiful visions of the future. Even as the promise of fulfillment disappears to nothingness, they cling to the delusions that are slowly destroying their lives, denying reality until at last they are eye to eye with their worst nightmares("Requiem For A Dream (2000)").”
This was an excerpt from IMDB.com’s description of Darren Aronofsky’s film Requiem For A Dream. There were four people in the story that had serious emotional issues from earlier years in their life and serious illegal and prescription drug abuse, but I found the mother’s story, Sara, to be exceptionally interesting. She is a middle-aged mother who has been seriously affected by the passing of her late husband. Sara frequently spoke to him as if he was in the same room. I had “diagnosed” Sara with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the passing of her husband Seymore, and from having to raise a delinquent son. In our book, the authors classify Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as an anxiety disorder in the DSM-IV. It is an anxiety disorder because it has elements including generalized feelings of fear, and apprehension (Butcher, Mineka, and Hooley ). It also states that one of the major criteria for being diagnosed with PTSD is that the person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which: 1.) the person experienced, witnessed or was confronted with an event or events