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SHELL SHOCK: THE DEPICTION OF PTSD IN PEAKY BLINDERS

Aryaman Singh

Peaky Blinders is a British crime drama about the exploits of the Peaky Blinders, a criminal gang that operates in Birmingham in the years following the First World War. Thomas Shelby (portrayed by Cillian Murphy) is the cold and calculating leader of the Blinders and the patriarch of the Shelby family. Thomas served in the war along with his two brothers John and Arthur. During the war, he was a tunneller or sapper (a volunteer digging treacherous tunnels covertly, in order to place an enormous amount of explosives beneath enemy lines, a tactic used several times in the war to devastating effect) in France. His experiences in the war resulted in a dramatic personality change, and he is haunted by those experiences throughout the show.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be understood as a mental health condition that manifests as a result of experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. Symptoms include having bad dreams or distressing memories about the event, sleeping difficulties including falling or staying asleep, feeling as if the experience is occurring all over again (i.e. flashbacks), and feeling numb or detached from things. These symptoms could pave the way for other issues such as substance abuse, suicidal thoughts/actions, and depression.
Thomas displays the aforementioned symptoms over the course of the series. In the first episode, we see Thomas reliving a memory from the war whilst dreaming. He is shown in a tunnel along with two of his fellow soldiers, trying to listen to the other side of the tunnel wall. The trio is caught by surprise, and Thomas is nearly strangled to death. Later in the episode, Thomas talks about how he sees the wall in his room as the tunnel wall. He hears the noise of imaginary German soldiers digging on the other side of the wall every night without fail, and prays that the “sun beats the shovels”. In order to cope with the nightmares and hellish flashbacks, Thomas smokes brown opium from a clay pipe. In series 4, Thomas attempts to live a life of leisure, only to find that the experiences from the war continue to haunt him. He resorts to abusing alcohol and opium in an attempt to silence his thoughts. In addition, Thomas has also expressed his emotional numbness, going so far as to say that he believes he died in France.
The show does a fairly good job of depicting the symptoms of PTSD in individuals who have been exposed to acts of extreme violence. Besides Thomas, characters like Arthur Shelby Jr. and Danny “Whizz-Bang” are also shown to be suffering from PTSD. Danny “Whizz-Bang” relives his trauma and reacts violently, forgetting that the war is over and that he’s not in France anymore. Arthur lashes out when provoked, frequently losing himself to his rage.
            Since the show is set in a time when PTSD was not understood properly, adequate treatment options did not exist. Veterans were expected to find a way to live with the shell shock. However, the show managed to successfully portray PTSD as a debilitating mental condition, and one that should be taken seriously.

References
  1.       Parekh, R. (2017) What Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? Retrieved from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd
  2.       Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967

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