Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that can develop in response to exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, war, road accidents or other threats to a person’s life.
The most common symptoms are thoughts, feelings or dreams of traumatic events related to the physical or psychological exposure to memories of trauma. PTSD sufferers frequently avoid situations that remind them of the trauma, changes in thinking and feeling, and increased their natural fight or flight response triggers. These symptoms would be present for more than one month after the traumatic event has occurred.
Most people who are exposed to traumatic events do not develop PSPT. The likelihood of the condition developing is far greater in people that have experienced other interpersonal traumas, such as rape or child abuse, than when compared to people experiencing non-aggressive traumas such as road crashes and natural disasters.
Preventing the onset of the condition through behaviour therapy in people who exhibit early symptoms, although it is not effective when performed on all persons exposed to the trauma. Treatment of people with PSPT is frequently addressed with psychiatric counselling and medication.
There are several types of therapy with positive effects these therapies are recommended according to what the patient needs and can be either individual or group therapy exercises.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
is a psychological disorder that occurs as a result of having one or more trauma for a long time, especially during the infancy period, although it can occur in adulthood. The C-PTSD is related to sexual, emotional and/or physical abuse or neglect during childhood, violence in the home, victims of kidnapping and situations of harassment, slavery, labour exploitation, prisoners of war, bullying, field survivors of concentration camps, deserters of cults or organizations in the form of cults. Situations that involve captivity (a situation that lacks a viable exit route or that the victim perceives as such) can generate symptoms of C-PTSD, which include feelings of terror, uselessness, impotence and deformation in one’s identity and the sense of not being oneself.
Many researchers claim that CPTSD has a separate distinction but yet is similar to PTSD, the somatization disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and borderline personality disorder, with the biggest difference being that distorts the core of the identity of the person on all when the trauma occurs during childhood and adolescence.
Learn about emotional trauma, including the symptoms and what you can to do heal and move on. People can experience a range of physical, mental, emotional and behavioural reactions to trauma. There are many things you can do to cope with and recover from trauma. Seek professional help if you don’t begin to return to normal after three or four weeks.
What should I do?
- Give yourself time. It takes time – weeks or months – to accept what has happened and to learn to live with it.
- Find out what happened.
- Be involved with other trauma survivors.
- Ask for support.
- Take some time for yourself and self-care.
- Talk it over with other people.
- Get into new routines that are progressive to your wellbeing.
- Do some ‘normal’ things with other people.