PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
A person with PTSD will have experienced a trauma. A trauma can mean many things to different people. Essentially, a person will have experienced, witnessed or been threatened with, real or perceived physical or emotional harm. It may be experienced as a sense of helplessness. From sexual assault, to living in a warzone, having an accident, a health scare, a negative childbirth experience, a terrifying trip to the dentist, or even hearing a descriptive account of someone else’s distressing experience can cause it - depending on the vivid imagination of the listener. All these types of traumas can lead to developing PTSD.
How does PTSD occur?
On experiencing a distressing event, the natural fear response attempts to keep us from danger by eliciting the ‘flight’, ‘fight’, and the lesser known ‘freeze’ responses. The memory of trauma is encoded and locked in recent memory stores, and can be unconsciously triggered, resulting in recurring intrusive thoughts, feelings or nightmares.
How does PTSD manifest itself?
A person with PTSD may actively avoid any places, people or activities which remind them of the trauma, and may feel detached from others. Further symptoms may include sleeping problems, irritability, anger, lack of concentration, or hypervigilance. All of the above can cause significant distress and may even impair a person’s ability to function and participate in day-to-day activities.
In order to stay safe a person will unconsciously be hyper-alert to any situation even remotely similar to the original trauma. When such scenarios are identified, the individual relives the original emotional distress.
A person with PTSD will have experienced a trauma. A trauma can mean many things to different people. Essentially, a person will have experienced, witnessed or been threatened with, real or perceived physical or emotional harm. It may be experienced as a sense of helplessness. From sexual assault, to living in a warzone, having an accident, a health scare, a negative childbirth experience, a terrifying trip to the dentist, or even hearing a descriptive account of someone else’s distressing experience can cause it - depending on the vivid imagination of the listener. All these types of traumas can lead to developing PTSD.
How does PTSD occur?
On experiencing a distressing event, the natural fear response attempts to keep us from danger by eliciting the ‘flight’, ‘fight’, and the lesser known ‘freeze’ responses. The memory of trauma is encoded and locked in recent memory stores, and can be unconsciously triggered, resulting in recurring intrusive thoughts, feelings or nightmares.
How does PTSD manifest itself?
A person with PTSD may actively avoid any places, people or activities which remind them of the trauma, and may feel detached from others. Further symptoms may include sleeping problems, irritability, anger, lack of concentration, or hypervigilance. All of the above can cause significant distress and may even impair a person’s ability to function and participate in day-to-day activities.
In order to stay safe a person will unconsciously be hyper-alert to any situation even remotely similar to the original trauma. When such scenarios are identified, the individual relives the original emotional distress.