By: Nitya Ramireddy
PTSD, short for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a mental health disorder in which a person, after witnessing or experiencing a terrifying, saddening, or dangerous event, feels stressed and finds it challenging to recover from. PTSD could last some months or even years after the event that triggered it, depending on the situation and the person.
PTSD varies in terms of how intense or severe a person feels the traumatic stress. One main symptom of PTSD could be intrusive and triggering flashbacks of the traumatic event, which often causes emotional instability or emotional fatigue. Other symptoms are nightmares (especially for children), severe anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, heightened reactions, constant fear, or being in a bad mood, and uncontrollable/negative thoughts about the event. The intensity of these symptoms could change over time. Avoiding talking about the incident or constantly thinking about it is very common behavior for people with this disorder. Symptoms often appear right after the triggering incident, but they could also start to appear within one month or even one year of the incident as well.
People who experience PTSD are most likely have a very difficult time adjusting in their day to day life. Seeing, hearing, or doing certain activities could trigger the painful memories from the event, which may make daily tasks challenging to cope with. It could also be very difficult to deal with social and work situations, as well as relationships with family, friends, and/or colleagues and peers.
Treatment for PTSD is often done in the form of good self care and different kinds of professional trauma-focused psychotherapy. People may also use medications to manage some of the more severe symptoms that come with the disorder. It is important to get in contact with a mental health professional when symptoms last longer than a month. The quicker someone gets therapy and treatment, the quicker the symptoms go away, and the better they feel and can go back to their normal lives.
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