Understanding PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, can occur in anyone who experiences or witnesses a life-threatening or violent event. These events include but are not limited to military combat, acts of terrorism, natural disasters, automobile accidents, and personal attacks such as rape or other physical assault. Because personal attacks, such as rape and sexual abuse, happen to females more often, women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD in their lifetime.

Traumatic experiences have an effect on people. It makes it hard to sleep. You may feel detached from everyday life. You may suffer nightmares or flashbacks -- the sudden re-experiencing of traumatic memories and emotions. Over the course of a few weeks, these symptoms usually go away. When they don't -- or when they later re-emerge -- a person is said to have PTSD. About one in three people with PTSD develop a long-lasting form of the disorder.

PTSD disrupts daily life. It makes it hard to do your job and complicates relationships with family and friends. It can impact our ability to function at work, school or under stress. Trauma survivors may also find they are unable to stop thinking about what happened, and feel a constant sense of hypervigilence and high arousal, which causes them to react strongly to sounds and sights around them, and can increase feelings of panic and anxiety.