Have you heard of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? You might wonder what kind of trauma could cause this disease. What symptoms do people with this disease have? Can the disease be cured? So let's take a closer look at the disease.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder mainly caused by intense mental stress such as sudden catastrophic events or natural disasters. It can cause patients to re-experience trauma, increase alertness, and often appear avoidance and numbness and other states. The disease is common among veterans, concentration camp survivors, victims of natural disasters and more. Depending on the severity of the condition, it can be classified as acute (less than three months after the event), chronic (more than three months after the event), and delayed (more than six months after the event).
Specific causes:
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a kind of mental disorder caused by sudden disaster events or natural disasters. Normal people who experience a traumatic event will slowly return to normal life over time, but people with PTSD often do not recover. Traumatic events are the direct cause of post-traumatic stress disorder. For example, natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, car accidents, the death of loved ones, and discrimination are all causes of PTSD.
Typical symptoms:
1. Traumatic re-experience: Traumatic re-experience is the most common and characteristic symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Recurrent flashbacks or mental reenactment of traumatic events when conscious; Recurrent nightmares related to the traumatic event; Facing the time, place, and people related to the traumatic event leads to emotion, resulting in severe mental pain or physiological stress response. Compared to adults, children are more likely to have temporary recurrent episodes, also known as flashbacks, which are scenes of traumatic events that occur again and may be accompanied by delusions, hallucinations, and dissociative disorders of consciousness.
2. Increased alertness: Basically every patient has this symptom, which is a spontaneous state. It is often characterized by hyperalertness, susceptibility to shock, inattention, irritability, and anxiety. The physical state can be manifested as palpitations, hyperhidrosis, headache, general discomfort, etc., which generally lasts a long time and is difficult to treat.
3. Avoidance or numbness: Avoidance can be divided into conscious and unconscious avoidance. This is characterized by prolonged or persistent avoidance of scenes or events associated with the traumatic event. Conscious avoidance involves not thinking about the person or thing concerned as much as possible, and avoiding activities or places that evoke memories. Unconscious avoidance can be manifested as selectively forgetting everything related to the traumatic event, or it can be manifested as keeping oneself in a busy state, such as non-stop work, study, etc. Numbness refers to emotional numbness and a slow response to ambient stimuli. Losing interest in previous hobbies, gradually alienating those around you, and having no vision for the future. On the surface gives a person a calm, wooden appearance, in fact, he has been alert.
4. Accompanying symptoms: Sleep disorders usually have difficulty falling asleep, are easy to wake up, and have more nightmares. Treatment is difficult, even if other symptoms are relieved after treatment, sleep difficulties are difficult to improve, and become residual symptoms, so that patients can not be completely cured.
5. Depression Depressive symptoms: This is a common symptom of many patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, patients have difficulty in becoming interested in things, alienation, isolation from the outside world, no thinking and vision for the future, memory decline, thinking difficulties and difficulty concentrating.
Treatment:
Of course, if you suffer from this disease, there are many ways to reduce or even alleviate this disease.
1. Medication: Usually includes antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, or other medications to reduce symptoms such as sleep disturbances and panic attacks.
2. Psychotherapy: including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and emotional liberalization techniques. These methods can help patients process memories and emotions associated with traumatic events.
3. Supportive therapy: Build a support system through conversations with family, friends, or professional therapists, and provide emotional support and psychological care.
4. Body therapy: including yoga, meditation, massage and acupuncture and other methods, can help patients relieve physical and mental stress, reduce anxiety and stress.
5. Group therapy: Attending group therapy allows patients to communicate with others who are going through similar events, share experiences and support, and learn effective coping skills.
Regardless of which treatment option you choose, you should follow the advice of a professional doctor and develop an individualized treatment plan. The treatment process may take some time, but over time, patients can improve significantly and return to a normal life.
In short, the fundamental method is to prevent this disease. If we feel a lot of stress or depression in life, we should face up to this emotion, face it positively, and actively seek professional help, treatment, or channel negative emotions. This reduces the likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress disorder after a traumatic event.
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