PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) refers to a mental health condition caused by traumatic life incident and inability to come out of the trauma caused by that. For most people, terrifying events result in shock, worry, grief, anxiety, and sadness, but they overcome the situation with due course of time; however, some people may find it really hard to come out of the trauma and memories associated with that. They might have consistent flashbacks about what had happened in past and find it as terrifying as it happened for the very first time. The symptoms of PTSD may reflect as nightmares, flashbacks, severe anxiety, and intrusive/uncontrollable thoughts about the traumatic event. To be précised, PTSD is like failing to recover from the experienced/witnessed traumatic event happened in past such as:

• Death/loss of a loved one (with/without violence)
• Sexual abuse/molestation/rape
• Horrifying accident/incident
• Terrorist attacks and wars
• Being a victim of crime
• Natural disasters

 Possible Risk Factors of PTSD:

The most common cause of developing PTSD is personally experiencing a horrifying life event that can be a result of any of the above mentioned conditions; however, there are many other factors that can contribute to the development of PTSD. Any individual witnessing tragic life experiences would feel emotionally traumatized and will take time to come out of the emotional damage, but some of those may not come out of that even after a longer period of time and the contributing factors to prevent them from resuming a normal life could be:

• Family history of similar kind of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, phobias.
• History of childhood abuse (physical or sexual).
• Being at a workplace that increases the likelihood of exposure to traumatic events like military, or other related jobs where lives are at risk, and wars are common.
• Co-morbid conditions like depression, anxiety, and adjustment issues.
• Excessive use of alcohol or other drugs.
• Personal temperament with a tendency to become easily anxious and avoidant, and inability to cope with stressors of life resulting in maladjustment.
• Lacking social and family support or having no one to discuss the emotional pain in times of need.

Preventive Strategies:

It is normal to have an intense emotional feeling and give intense reaction after exposure to any kind of trauma, and most people recover from it without any external help and do not develop any major or long term symptoms post the traumatic event and stress caused by that. In order to prevent PTSD it is important to note the changes in behavior of the person and response to tragic event. If it appears that the individual is taking longer than normal to adjust or cope with the situation it is always desirable to seek professional help and spend some time in a brief course of therapeutic intervention. Psychological interventions have been found to be highly effective in dealing with the situations of crisis and grief, and there is nothing like talking to someone where there will be ample amount of support to ventilate emotional pain, go through the process of catharsis, letting out all the thoughts without being judged and of course with high level of confidentiality to be maintained.

Most people in our society do not approach treatment of such conditions because they are not aware. As a community, we can help each other to know and understand the importance of mental health issues. Read and share this article with others to spread awareness about PTSD. Your knowledge about mental health issues can help someone in need. To read more informative articles about mental health visit www.talktocure.com or write back at info@talktocure.com

Neelam Verma, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

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