Witnessing both good and bad events is an inevitable aspect of life. However, some terrible instances can severely affect you mentally. Certain incidents have an impact on the mind and if it is badly affecting your mental health, this situation could be post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS).
To know more about the disorder, we talked to Dr. Narendra Shetty, Chief Wellness Consultant at KshemaVana, a naturopathy wellness centre based out of Bangalore. Read on to know everything you need to know about it.
What Is PTSD?
Post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS) which is also referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is a mental illness triggered by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event such as childhood abuse, domestic violence, rape, accident, death of a dear one, war, natural disasters, etc. The series of events that follow a traumatic experience may start within a month or may be triggered by similar situations after several years.
Effect Of PTSD
Some flashbacks of events or situations from the past can make you numb and paralyze you mentally and physically. These events take you back into the memory lane of suffering.
All those days of past struggles pull you down, years after the actual event. If you are facing a similar scenario, then do not neglect these symptoms as may be undergoing a condition called PTSD or PTSS.
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Causes Of PTSD?
In general, it affects people in four different ways. People are affected by intrusive thoughts such as involuntary memories that occur repeatedly, disturbing dreams or flashbacks of the traumatic event, which are so realistic that people feel they are re-living the traumatic experience.
For some people the intensity of the trauma would have been unbearable for them to accept. So, they altogether avoid anything related to the same. They may resist talking about what happened or how they feel about it, also avoid people, places, activities, objects and situations that may trigger those painful memories.
For certain people it affects their cognition and mood. They forget important aspects of the traumatic event, negative thoughts and feelings leading to contorted beliefs about oneself or others, distorted thoughts about the cause or consequences of the event.
This leads to fear, horror, anger, guilt or shame upon self and others around. They would be pessimistic most of the time and reluctant to form good relationships with people. The things that they enjoyed the most would seem least interesting and enjoyable.
In certain cases, there would be people who end up being self-destructive and reckless with their lives. They would worry all the time and always seem doubtful of situations. This is associated with disturbed sleep.
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Is PTSD Curable?
All of these symptoms may occur either together or separately according to the individual and their mental state. But since these problems don't have an external physical manifestation, PTSS is also referred to as a hidden wound. Nonetheless, PTSS is curable with proper guidance and therapy.
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