PTSD is an anxiety disorder that occurs to someone who has been through or exposed to a traumatic event or events. During the exposure, the individual feels their life or the lives of others are in danger and that they have no control over what is happening. It can happen to ANYONE at any time in life. There is absolutely no shame in it.Here we focus on the American Hero that has gone off to war to protect the American way of life. While in war, there are many times when the service member is exposed to horrific events over and over again, often not only feeling that they don’t have control, but knowing they don’t have control. The sheer terror of war is enough to give anyone PTSD, regardless of their training or mental strength.
To be exposed to such horrors, one is almost expected to be affected one way or another. It is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign that you are human!
A person may start to experience symptoms of PTSD either right away, or any length of time after the exposure to such events. Just because someone experiences a traumatic event and seems to be fine immediately following it doesn't mean they are out of danger since they can still fall prey to PTSD at anytime in the future.
The symptoms (may) manifest themselves in many ways. One may experience feelings of being scared, confused or angry, and these feelings may make it hard to go about your daily activities. Symptoms that have been identified include:
1) Reliving the event, also called re-experiencing symptoms where bad memories of the event come back and you experience the same fear and horror as you did at the time of the experience. This can happen when you are sleeping and have nightmares, or you can be wide awake and there is a triggering event such as a sound, smell, or sight that takes you right back to the moment of terror.
2) Avoiding situations that remind you of the event, not wanting to see pictures surrounding that period of your life, not watching movies you used to enjoy, not wanting to communicate with others that were there with you, and even pretending that nothing ever happened. You may refuse to talk about that time in your life.
3) Feeling numb. What comes along with this symptom is that you may find it hard to express your feelings and can’t feel the love toward others like you used to so you avoid them. You may not be interested in activities you used to enjoy and even forget or block out parts of the traumatic event.
4) Hyper-arousal, which is the feeling of being jittery, always alert and looking out for danger where there is none, being angry or irritable, having a hard time sleeping or concentrating, being easily startled and always being on guard.
Often there are employment issues, relationship problems, including divorce and violence, and other physical symptoms. These feelings of hopelessness, shame and despair may lead one to try to self medicate using drugs and/or alcohol. But there are many treatments available including counseling and perhaps in more severe cases, medications.
