Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is not limited to combatants, victims of disasters or violence. PTSD can also appear in everyday life, for example, after a painful breakup or infidelity. Flashbacks and other unpleasant consequences of trauma can turn a person’s life into a nightmare.
Most of us are familiar with the term post-traumatic stress disorder. But not everyone understands that we get traumatic experiences in everyday life. Sometimes it happens completely unnoticed. Psychological trauma can cause anxiety and other problems that differ both in strength and in the way they are expressed.
The nature of PTSD is quite difficult to comprehend. At a fundamental level, trauma causes shock and fear. The reaction of our mind and body differs depending on the intensity and suddenness of the most traumatic event. When something discouraging or unnerving happens, it throws us off balance. It usually only takes time to recover, but sometimes the effects of trauma continue to affect us again and again.
Post-traumatic stress syndrome causes more than just reliving a traumatic event. Our emotions become out of balance, especially when the arousal and response systems are at work. Trauma also affects thinking and mood. We try to avoid uncomfortable situations, especially if they somehow resemble a traumatic event. When all these symptoms are exacerbated to such an extent that a person cannot cope with them independently and normally exist in society, the syndrome becomes a disorder.
“Classic” cases of PTSD occur in combat veterans who have seen death and destruction, survivors of natural disasters, and victims of physical and sexual abuse. But if the injury occurred in less extreme circumstances, it is more difficult to determine that the person is showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
In order for the treatment to be correct, both the patient himself and the one who wants to help him must realize and evaluate all the consequences of the injury.
Often you can get hurt in a relationship with someone. For example, if there was a betrayal, although the marriage seemed strong and happy. This causes shock, a person loses a sense of the reality of what is happening. At first, he may fall into a stupor. When the shock passes, a waterfall of emotions falls on him – horror, anger, bitterness, sadness and even despair. And, as is often the case with PTSD, the person may experience unpleasant “flashbacks” of the traumatic event and the circumstances surrounding it. They are exhausting in themselves, but the expectation of the next “trip” from the universe gives rise to constant anxiety.
One of my patients came to therapy after learning that her husband (with whom she had been living together for 30 years) was in a long-term long-distance relationship with another woman. They communicated through social networks and never met in person, but for the wife it was still a terrible betrayal and shock. Despite the emotional coldness that appeared in relations with her husband, it seemed to her that everything was fine. The discovery changed her life.
She had little idea of what was real and what was not. She could not eat and sleep, did not control her emotions – swings from anger to tears happened all the time. But the most unpleasant moment was the obsessive thoughts and scenes that stood before her eyes: their romantic communication, his face on the day she found out everything. It couldn’t be stopped.
Of course, the woman received professional help. But her story is one example of trauma that manifests itself in everyday life. For most of us, the likelihood of getting PTSD under dramatic circumstances, in war or in a disaster, is relatively small. But other types of traumatic events occur at every turn. That is why it is so important to recognize the first signs of post-traumatic stress. In order for the treatment to be correct, both the patient himself and the one who wants to help him must realize and evaluate all the consequences of the injury.
The author is George Simon, a clinical psychologist.