Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Nice one, your first steps in understanding PTSD has brought you to this page. You have obviously recognised the importance of researching PTSD. Recovery from PTSD is not easy but very achievable. Read on and discover more about PTSD.
When a person is given specific information that is traumatic and overwhelming, witnesses, or has an experience of a traumatic event, the person may experience anxiety, fear, distress, or relive the traumatic event for months and sometimes years after. Often the experience may have been life-threatening or physically harming.
Following a traumatic experience, a person may develop acute stress, which if treated may prevent the onset of the more enduring post-traumatic stress disorder. Some individuals do not have an apparent severe stress reaction, but at a later date the trauma is triggered by some event or significant level of emotional distress and the person then experiences a delayed onset of post-traumatic stress.
Post-traumatic stress can bring about intrusive memories, bad dreams, sudden thoughts, images and flashbacks of the event. These symptoms can result in physical reactions such as feelings of panic, shortness of breath, sweating, tightness in the chest or palpitations.
After a traumatic experience the person may avoid anything that could trigger thoughts of the trauma. As a result of this some individuals quit participating as they normally would and no longer find joy in previously enjoyed activities.
Trauma brings about a feeling of being on the edge. Victims are easily startled and are on constant high alert. These symptoms can result in difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, irritability, emotional reactivity, or anger.