Breaking the Stigma Around PTSD: It’s More Common Than You Think

Sep 6, 2024

4 min read

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that can develop after a person experiences or witnesses a traumatic event, such as war, accidents, natural disasters, or sexual violence. While most people feel fear and distress following such events, they typically recover over time. However, a small percentage of individuals continue to experience severe and persistent symptoms, leading to PTSD.

Symptoms of PTSD

PTSD symptoms are generally categorized into four main types:

Re-experiencing Symptoms
Avoidance Symptoms
Arousal and Response Symptoms
Cognitive and Mood problems

Symptoms of re-experiencing include:

Having flashbacks—reliving the stressful event and feeling physical effects like a racing heart or sweating.

Having thoughts or dreams about the event that keep coming back, sometimes also called nightmares.

Being troubled by your thoughts.

Having physical symptoms of stress.

These symptoms can be brought on by thoughts, feelings, words, items, or situations that remind you of the event.

Avoidance signs include

Staying away from things, places, or events that remind them of the traumatic event.
Staying away from thoughts or feelings that remind them of the painful event.

People with avoidance signs might have to change the way they do things. For instance, after a bad car crash, some people might not drive or ride in a car again.

Symptoms of arousal and response include:

Being quick to startle
Being nervous, alert, or on edge
Having trouble concentrating
Having trouble going to sleep or staying asleep
Being restless and having fits of anger or violence
Doing things that are dangerous, careless, or harmful

Symptoms of arousal often last for a long time. They can make you angry and stressed, and they might get in the way of things you need to do every day, like sleeping, eating, or focusing.

Some signs of cognitive and mood problems are:

Not being able to remember important details of the stressful event.
Having negative thoughts about oneself or the world.
Blaming oneself or others more than necessary.
Feeling bad emotions like fear, anger, guilt, or shame over and over again.
Losing interest in things that make you happy.
Having thoughts of being alone in society.
Having trouble feeling good emotions like happiness or satisfaction.

Mood and thought problems can start or get worse after the stressful event. They might make someone feel cut off from family and friends.

Who is at Risk?

Anyone can develop PTSD after a traumatic event, but certain factors increase the likelihood. These include having a history of previous trauma, being female, younger age, and having lower levels of education. The type of trauma also matters—experiencing violence, ongoing trauma, or severe injury increases the risk of developing PTSD. Social support after the event can help reduce this risk.

What is Complex Trauma ?

Complex trauma can happen in any situation where you feel endless fear, horror, helplessness, or powerlessness for a long time and can't get away, whether you think you can or not. It usually comes from a traumatic event in your childhood, but it can also happen after an event in adulthood.

These are some things that might lead to complex trauma:

Sexual assault or incest
Continued physical or emotional abuse
Long-term abuse or neglect
Abuse or stress in the hospital
Being tortured or held captive enmeshment or engulfment
Stress of becoming a parent (kids following adult rules)
Human trafficking
Living in a war zone or a place with a lot of civil unrest

Treatment and Self-Care

The most effective therapy for PTSD includes following approaches:

Prolonged Exposure Therapy helps people face and get control of their fear and distress and learn how to deal by exposing them to symptom "triggers" over and over again in a safe and controlled way. Some war veterans with PTSD have used virtual reality programs to help them relive the fight in a safe and helpful way.
Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is a treatment plan that is backed by research. It combines trauma-sensitive interventions with family on cognitive behavioral principles and techniques.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for PTSD is a trauma-focused therapy that is given over the course of three months. Through this treatment, the person is able to process the memory of the trauma again, which changes how they feel about it. The therapist asks the patient questions about the traumatic memory after getting a full background and making a treatment plan. During a session, the patient can watch the therapist's fingers move back and forth or a light bar to make their eyes move like they do during REM sleep. The eye twitches only last a short time before they stop. Things that might happen during a session are changes in feelings, thoughts, and pictures. The memory changes over time and is felt in a less negative way after multiple treatments.
Group therapy gives people who have been through similar stressful events a safe place to talk about their feelings and experiences without fear of being judged. People in the group help each other understand that a lot of other people would have felt and reacted the same way. It might also help for the person with PTSD to go to family therapy, since their behavior and worry can affect the whole family.

Self-care also plays a crucial role in managing PTSD. Maintaining daily routines, connecting with supportive people, avoiding alcohol and drugs, exercising, and practicing stress management techniques like deep breathing or muscle relaxation can all support recovery.

Despite the challenges of PTSD, many people recover with appropriate treatment and support, enabling them to lead fulfilling lives.

Books that can help :

Here are some books to add to your reading list: