Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is a condition in which disabling psychological symptoms develop after a traumatic event.

This illness was first identified in World War I troops who suffered from persistent anxiety, nightmares, and flashbacks for weeks, months, or even years after a battle. This condition was later called shell shock.

Anyone can develop post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing severe trauma that is beyond the normal human experience. Anybody may experience anxiety, terror, and a sense of helplessness due to these traumas.

They consist of rape, assault, and other violent crimes committed against you and your close family members, as well as natural calamities like earthquakes and tornadoes, vehicle or plane crashes, and so on.

When the trauma is personal, as in rape or other violent crimes, the symptoms seem to be more prolonged. Post-traumatic stress disorder may develop simply by witnessing another person experience a serious trauma.

Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

These symptoms are among the many that can be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

• Recurrent, troubling thoughts about the event
• Nightmares associated with the event
• Flashbacks that are so intense, that you feel and act like the trauma is happening again
• A strategy to try to avoid any thoughts or feelings that are associated with trauma
• A determination to avoid external situations or activities that are related to the trauma, such as developing a fear about driving after a car accident.
• Emotional numbness – being out of touch with your emotions
• Feelings of isolation or feeling disconnected
• You lose interest in the activities that once brought you joy
• Persistent signs of anxiety include difficulty falling asleep, trouble concentrating, difficulty starting to speak easily, irritability, and outbursts.

Your symptoms must have continued for at least a month in order to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, you must be enduring severe distress that interferes with your social, professional, and other major parts of your life.

If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, you might experience anxiety or depression. Sometimes you could make rash decisions, like moving out of your house right away or leaving on an unplanned trip.

Around 8% of people are affected, and it can occur at any age. Children between the ages of 8 and 18 are affected by the disease. They are less likely to consciously recreate the trauma than they are to do so in dreams or games.

Causes of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD can happen at any age and is strongly linked to trauma. Children and adults with PTSD make up a relatively tiny percentage of people who have experienced trauma. However, we do know that there are risk factors that can raise a person’s likelihood of developing PTSD.

This difference is still poorly understood. Prior traumatic experiences that can foster resilience, including social support, might also be risk factors. Additionally, research in this area is underway.

People who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic incident, such as a natural disaster, combat, or assault, are at risk for developing PTSD. The majority of persons who encounter one of these incidents recover normally, while a tiny number experience PTSD.

• Personal assault
• Militant confrontation
• terrorist attacks
• Living in a war zone as a soldier or victim of war
• Natural disasters
• Receiving a life-threatening diagnosis
• Serious accidents
• Loss of a loved one, regardless of whether it involved violence
• Sexual assault or threatened sexual assault
• Being a victim of crime
• Seeing people being hurt or killed

Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder is complex and diverse. There may be additional techniques that can be used, even if many available procedures are efficient for treating other anxiety disorders.

Relaxation Training

To help control anxiety symptoms, you can use progressive muscle relaxation and abdominal breathing techniques.

Cognitive Therapy

At first, stressful thinking is identified, challenged, and replaced with more productive thinking. For instance, if you feel responsible for the death of your loved one would be challenged.

You would tell yourself things like, “What happened was terrible, and I realize that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. You would reinforce yourself with positive, encouraging thoughts like that. Now, I know I can move on.

Exposure Therapy

You can overcome scary circumstances with the aid of a therapist. You would be able to continually recall the terrible memories, things, and people associated with your trauma in imagery form.

You would go back to the exact spot where the trauma occurred. For instance, if you were attacked in an elevator, you might go back to the elevator several times. If you are exposed to the circumstance more often, you will come to accept it as safe.

Medication

SSRI drugs like Prozac and Luvox are frequently effective in reducing the symptoms of PTSD. It can be essential to take a course of medicine for one to two years, particularly if the symptoms are severe or persistent. You may think about temporarily using tranquilizers like Klonopin or Xanax.

Support Groups

PTSD sufferers can find some comfort in support groups by realizing they are not alone in their struggles. Support groups for rape or crime victims are frequently found in larger urban areas. According to research, social support can aid in the prevention or recovery of the condition for both victims and offenders.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy or the eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) technique are frequently effective in assisting PTSD patients in accessing and processing their memories of the initial traumatic experience.

These methods can be applied to reduce the therapeutic process and/or overcome exposure resistance. These methods are just as successful as cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure, according to studies.