What is PTSD and how to deal with it

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that can develop after a traumatic event. It can change the way a person thinks, feels and behaves, can cause significant distress and affect the ability to function normally.

PTSD manifests itself as a long-term reaction to stress. You can't get PTSD because you were fired from your job, for example, because the psychological trauma that causes PTSD is always related with an extremely threatening or catastrophic situation.

The diagnosis of PTSD can only be made by a psychiatrist. PTSD develops only in 20 - 30 % people who have experienced traumatic events, including about 8 % men and 20 % women.

According to doctors, after a traumatic event, symptoms of the disorder can occur in a short period (within the first few weeks) or a longer period (usually within the first three months). If the symptoms appear earlier, it is called an acute stress reaction. At the same time, PTSD cannot occur suddenly after a few years if everything was fine before.

PTSD develops in people who have experienced a life-threatening or dignity-threatening situation, primarily:

• war veterans
• Civilians who have been or are still in the combat zone
• Victims of sexual and/or physical violence
• prisoners and victims of torture
• witnesses of terrorist attacks
• people who were in the disaster area
• other people who are in crisis situations that can traumatise the psyche

Manifestations of PTSD.

• Symptoms of re-living the traumatic event, which occur involuntarily, dreaming or returning as repeated memories with a feeling of being inside the event and nightmares, living in full combat readiness, when a person instantly flashes, becomes irritated, anxious and preoccupied with thoughts of their own safety.
• Avoidance of recalling the trauma, unwillingness to talk about the event or be around people who remind them of it, emotional emptiness, withdrawal from loved ones and loss of interest in once-loved things, problems with memory and emotional sphere.
• Panic attacks: a feeling of intense fear, headaches, shallow breathing, dizziness, heart palpitations, a feeling of tightness and burning behind the sternum, nausea, diarrhoea, cramps.
• Problems in everyday life: problems with work or finding a job, school or relationships, distancing from a partner, loss of trust in people and a belief that the world is dangerous, alcohol and drug abuse.
• Suicidal thoughts. If you have such thoughts, tell your loved ones and seek psychological support.

Treatment.

It is very easy to harm a person who has experienced traumatic events, so if you have symptoms of PTSD, you should seek help from your family doctor, psychiatrist and mental health professional whenever possible. Work with such people should be carried out only by a specialist after appropriate training in evidence-based methods that have been scientifically tested and recognised by international associations. PTSD is not treated exclusively with medication, as this tactic has no proven effect.

The first line of help is psychotherapy.

https://moz.gov.ua/article/health/scho-take-ptsr-ta-jak-iz-nim-borotisja

https://moz.gov.ua/article/health/chi-vsi-mi-matimemo-ptsr

https://moz.gov.ua/article/health/mifi-i-fakti-pro-ptsr