Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Have you ever

• experienced/witnessed an event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury
• responded in intensive fear, helplessness or horror
• had a subjective sense of numbing, detachment or absence of emotional response
• had a reduction in awareness of your surrounding
• had a sense of derealization (feeling or unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself)
• unable to recall an important aspect of the trauma
• had repeated images, thoughts, dreams, illusions, flashback episodes or feeling distressed on exposure to reminders of the traumatic event
• tried to avoid stimuli that arouse recollections of the trauma
• had difficulty sleeping, irritability, poor concentration, hypervigiliance, exaggerated startle response
• had a family member, friend or colleague who seemed to be troubled in these ways?

If your answer is yes, the following article is for you!!!

Stress is a normal response of mankind. Everyone feels stressful when facing major life events such as marriage, divorce, births, deaths, starting or ending a job and dealing with financial hassles. However, stress can be unmanageable when trauma occurs even the best efforts of good stress management.

Traumatic events such as unexpected death, severe physical injury, sexual violence or disaster leave a long lasting imprint of terror on our body and mind. The world seems no longer safe and manageable. People are no longer trustworthy and dependable. It also leads to self-doubt and guilt. Self-esteem and faith in spirituality are shaken.

Traumatic stress reactions are normal responses to abnormal events. Most people experience posttraumatic stress reactions for days or even weeks after a trauma. Usually these reactions become less severe over time, but they may persist and become a problem. If the above disturbances lasted for more than one month, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) would be diagnosed. Research data from U.S. suggests that about 8% of men and 20% of women go on to develop PTSD after a trauma, and roughly 30% of these individuals develop a chronic form that persists throughout their lifetimes. The course of chronic PTSD usually involves periods of symptom increase followed by remission or decrease, although some individuals may experience symptoms that are unremitting and severe.

Steps in Managing Traumatic Stress

Step One is learning the signs and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Shocking as trauma is, it causes memories that are impossible to forget or sometimes impossible to remember. Trauma memories often come back time after time when you are not trying to think about them in the forms of unpleasant thoughts or nightmares. The shock of trauma also may create blank spaces in your memory because it is too much for the mind to handle, and so the mind takes a time out.

Step Two is reckoned the ways of coping with traumatic stress that are natural but don't work, because they actually prolong and worsen the normal posttraumatic stress reactions. Moreover, the further you run away from the trauma, the more it controls your life. The ways of coping that do not work include:

• Trying to avoid people, places, conversations, activities or thoughts that arouse recollections of the trauma
• Shutting off feelings or connections to other people that are associated with the trauma
• Being hypervigilant or on guard

Step Three is getting help from EAP professionals. Trauma memories cannot be erased, but the stress they cause can become very manageable as long as you seek help as soon as possible.