Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that occurs in some people after experiencing a traumatic event. While many people have believed that it is only diagnosed in combat veterans, there are multiple traumatic experiences that can cause PTSD. PTSD is a common diagnosis: about 10% of women and 4% of men in the United States will have PTSD at some point in their lives.

In order to have PTSD, a person must have experienced certain traumatic events. These include actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. This can occur by directly experiencing the event, witnessing it happen to other people, or learning about the event happening to a close loved one. Another situation PTSD can develop is in being exposed multiple times to traumatic details or events, such as 911 operators hearing traumatic stories.

Traumatic symptoms are normal within the first couple of months after experiencing a trauma. If these symptoms persist after 1 month of experiencing the trauma, a person may have PTSD. While this is a list of some potential PTSD symptoms, it is not a way to diagnose a person; an assessment must be made by a mental health professional. Some of these symptoms include:

Intrusive symptoms. These include experiences such as nightmares, flashbacks, or unwanted thoughts of the event. These may be in response to things that remind a person of the event, or they can come on randomly.
Avoidance symptoms. This includes avoiding things that remind the person of thoughts, feelings, and memories of the traumatic event. A person may start to withdraw from other people and be less interested in activities that they used to enjoy.
Negative mood. A person might feel detached from others and struggle to experience positive emotions. It is common to experience feelings of sadness, guilt, anger, rage, and shame. It is very common for people to begin to believe that the world and other people are dangerous and cannot be trusted. Many people with PTSD also blame themselves for the event.
Hyperarousal symptoms. A person may begin to feel more on guard, aware of their surroundings, become easily startled, struggle to concentrate, have sleep issues, and anger outbursts.

It is normal to struggle with some of these symptoms after a traumatic event. As time progresses, many people will recover from these symptoms as the brain naturally heals itself. If you are still experiencing PTSD symptoms several months after the traumatic event, it is helpful to get treatment for it. If the traumatic event happened more than a year ago, it is very unlikely that your symptoms will go away on their own. The good news is that there are several treatments that are very effective for PTSD, even multiple years after the event. The most evidenced based treatments for PTSD include Prolonged Exposure, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Cognitive Processing Therapy.

Taylor Hocking, LMFTA, SUDP is trained in Prolonged Exposure and EMDR. If you are interested in learning more, contact 509-768-6852 for a free consultation.