4 Common PTSD symptoms
Are you experiencing PTSD?
PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) is a mental health condition that is related to exposure to a trauma. Traumas can involve threats of death, serious injury or sexual violence. PTSD was originally seen in veterans of combat, but over the years we have come to understand that a wide range of experiences including natural disasters, crimes and childhood abuse to name just a few can lead to PTSD.
If you have experienced a trauma, you may develop PTSD symptoms, and knowing the most common symptoms of this disorder can help you understand your experience and get the treatment you may need.
PTSD symptoms (as defined by mental health professionals) generally fall into 4 categories which I will discuss below:
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Intrusive symptoms
These symptoms are the ones most commonly thought of when a non-professional thinks of PTSD. When you see PTSD portrayed in the media you might see a person experiencing flashbacks. Flashbacks are moments in which an individual loses touch with the current moment and feels as if the trauma is recurring. More generally, intrusive symptoms are not always as intense as flashbacks. Often a patient experiences repeated and intrusive memories of the trauma. You may also have dreams about your experience, or you may feel very distressed when thinking about it or when confronted with reminders of it.
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Avoidance symptoms
After a traumatic experience, an individual may see the avoidance symptoms of PTSD in themselves. Patients may work to avoid all reminders of the experience, both internal and external. Internal reminders include memories, thoughts and feelings about the event. External reminders of the event can include people, places, situations, activities and objects that are distressing. When these internal or external triggers are suppressed, this impairs the mind’s normal process of coming to terms with painful experience. The suppression lets you avoid emotional pain in the moment, but unfortunately it maintains the cycle of PTSD because suppression eventually breaks down and intrusive symptoms break through and feel overwhelming. Avoidance can also severely diminish your quality of life, because you can feel trapped by your emotional reactions.
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Negative changes in thinking and mood
After experiencing a trauma, you may experience changes in your mental functioning such as having gaps in your memory about the event or feeling detached from other people. Mood may be affected such as not being able to experience positive emotions the way you could before, feeling less interested in participating in activities that used to be important to you, or feeling persistent negative emotions such as fear, horror, anger, guilt or shame. Trauma survivors can sometimes blame themselves for their experiences, and can have negative beliefs about themselves “I don’t deserve happiness”, others “No one can be trusted”, and the world “Everything is dangerous and unpredictable.”
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Changes in arousal or reactivity
If you find that you are more irritable or jumpy since experiencing the traumatic event, you are experiencing this PTSD symptom. People can find that the stress of untreated PTSD leads to angry outbursts, and sometimes reckless and self-destructive behavior. People can also feel constantly on edge, looking around all the time for possible danger – we call this hypervigilance. If can be hard to regulate your emotional arousal in the moment. You may find that you startle easily and jump when it feels that someone “sneaks up on you.” It can be difficult to concentrate, and sleep can be disturbed in several ways (such as difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep or restless and fitful sleep that leaves you not feeling rested in the morning).
Not everyone who experiences a traumatic event develops PTSD. However, if you are bothered by any of the PTSD symptoms discussed above, please know that your reaction to the trauma makes sense and can be addressed. You don’t have to remain stuck in these symptom patterns. There are effective treatments to resolve PTSD and to help you come to terms with your experience and move forward. If you would like to discuss your situation with me and to learn more about my practice, feel free to call me at 404-668-9893
