As a matter of curiosity, does Frodo in fact meet DSM-IV criteria for PTSD?


A) The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present: (a) the person witnessed, experienced, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others; (b) the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

check.

B) The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of the following ways: (a) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections, (b) recurrent distressing dreams of the event, (c) acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring, (d) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event, (e) physiologic reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

Check on (d) & (e) (severe psychological & physiologic reactions on various anniversaries).


C) Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following: (a) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma, (b) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma, (c) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma, (d) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities, (e) feelings of detachment or estrangement from others, (f) restricted range of affect, (g) sense of foreshortened future.

Check on (b) (avoidance of Weathertop), (d) (withdrawal from social life in the shire), (e) (estrangement from his fellow hobbits; sense that he is too wounded to continue living in the shire), and (g) (no hope for his own survival and well-being in middle earth).
One might also argue that his newfound pacifism is a form of avoidance as well (the (a) criterion).

D) Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least two of the following: (a) difficulty falling or staying asleep, (b) irritability or outbursts of anger, (c) difficulty concentrating, (d) hypervigilance, (e) exaggerated startle response.

I don’t see any evidence for any of these in the text.

E) Duration of symptoms more than one month.

Check.

F) Disturbance causes significant distress or impairs social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Check on significant distress.
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So although Frodo DOES have a lot of the symptoms of PTSD, he lacks the evidence of autonomic arousal, and so doesn’t meet full criteria.

But what Frodo himself felt about the events is quite another matter.

He appears at first to have had no sense of guilt (III 224-5); he was restored to sanity and peace. But then he thought that he had given his life in sacrifice: he expected to die very soon. But he did not, and one can observe the disquiet growing in him. Arwen was the first to observe the signs, and gave him her jewel for comfort, and thought of a way of healing him.* Slowly he fades 'out of the picture', saying and doing less and less. I think it is clear on reflection to an attentive reader that when his dark times came upon him and he was conscious of being 'wounded by knife sting and tooth and a long burden' (III 268) it was not only nightmare memories of past horrors that afflicted him, but also unreasoning self-reproach: he saw himself and all that he done as a broken failure. 'Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same, for I shall not be the same.' That was actually a temptation out of the Dark, a last flicker of pride: desire to have returned as a 'hero', not content with being a mere instrument of good. And it was mixed with another temptation, blacker and yet (in a sense) more merited, for however that may be explained, he had not in fact cast away the Ring by a voluntary act: he was tempted to regret its destruction, and still to desire it. 'It is gone for ever, and now all is dark and empty', he said as he wakened from his sickness in 1420.

'Alas! there are some wound that cannot be wholly cured', said Gandlaf (III 268) - not in Middle-earth. Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over the Sea to heal him - if that could be done, before he died. He would have eventually to 'pass away': no mortal could, or can, abide for ever on earth, or within Time. So he went both to a purgatory and to a reward, for a while: a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and greatness; spent still in Time amid the natural beauty of "Arda Unmarred', the Earth unspoiled by evil.

...It is clear, of course, that the plan [for Frodo to sail West] had actually been made and concerted (by Arwen, Gandalf and others) before Arwen spoke. But Frodo did not immediately take it in; the implications would slowly be understood on reflection. Such a journey would at first seem something not necessarily to be feared, even as something to look forward to – so long as undated and postponable. His real desire was hobbitlike (and humanlike) just 'to be himself again and get back to the old familiar life that had been interrupted. Already on the journey back from Rivendell he suddenly saw that was not for him possible. Hence his cry 'Where shall I find rest?' He knew the answer, and Gandalf did not reply. .... But at Rivendell he came to understand things more clearly. The conversations he had there are not reported, but enough is revealed in Elrond's farewell III 267. From the onset of the first sickness (Oct. 5, 3019) Frodo must have been thinking about 'sailing', though still resisting a final decision — to go with Bilbo, or to go at all. It was no doubt after his grievous illness in March 3020 that his mind was made up.