PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that may occur after you experience or witness a traumatic event such as a car accident, natural disaster, a terrorist act, war/combat, or other violent action. In the United States, PTSD affects approximately 3.5 percent of adults and about 1 in every 11 Americans will be diagnosed PTSD in their lifetime. Women are two times more likely to have PTSD than men.
PTSD is characterized by intense and disturbing thoughts and feelings that are tied to the traumatic experience that last long after experience is over. When you suffer from PTSD you may “relive” the event through flashbacks, dreams, or nightmares. You may also feel extreme sadness, fear, or anger and feel detached from the people around you. It is also common to avoid situations or people that remind you of the traumatic event.
In order to have PTSD, you must have an actual exposure to a traumatic event. However, you do not have to experience it first-hand. For example, PTSD could occur in a parent learning of a traumatic death of a child, or through lengthy and ongoing vicarious trauma (vicarious trauma is trauma you absorb from other people through long term exposure – like a social worker who works with victims of sexual assault).
Symptoms of PTSD generally fall into four general categories. Specific symptoms can vary from person to person and it is possible to experience one or more of them simultaneously. The four general categories of symptoms are:
- Intrusive thoughts
- Negative thoughts
- Heightened Arousal