PTSD is an emotion that a person undergoes after facing a life-changing or terrifying situation in one’s life. The abbreviation of this disorder itself is self explainatory that a person with PTSD needs help to deal with his Post Traumatic Stress. In this situation, people undergo a huge mental breakdown because of their suffering. It is not necessary that PTSD can happen only to adults but also to children who have experienced brutal child abuse and never shared it with anyone.
PTSD can happen due to various traumatic situations like the bereavement of your loved one, an accident, the loss of a pet, going away from dear ones, Losing your job, etc.
These mentioned things can make you restless and stressed for the rest of your life.PTSD basically deals with people who are not able to overcome these life-changing terrific events and if fallen into the right hands they heal your mind to face the reality of life.
People suffering from PTSD are living in denial of losing an important part of life. And if not treated with care can further lead to depression forever. So it’s very important to audit yourself at right time.
‘Attachments make you weaker and vulnerable to sadness’
Trauma cannot be just the death of your loved one, but also his journey when he was ill.
It can be:
- Child abuse
- Terrifying rape of someone who has undergone a lot of torture
- Loss of important assets like property or house
- Any natural disaster like a tsunami or earthquake
- Seeing the accident of your loved one who died on the spot
- Domestic Violence
- Terrorist attack resulting in Blood Massacre
- People who survived after Crash Landing
Dealing with mental stress after such experiences is not that simple. It is an urgent call for therapy sessions after these events as people undergo silent treatment without addressing about it with anyone.
As a means of protecting themselves, they create a fictional world where those past experiences are not remembered. But that’s pure escapism from painful events you try to avoid in your life.
‘Heal your mind, to Heal your heart’.
Symptoms experienced during PTSD can be either emotional, negative thoughts, or re-experiencing.
Symptoms of Emotional PTSD
This person tries to outcast his emotions through thoughts, actions or expressing themself in front of a comfortable crowd.
- Not getting involved with anyone for the fear of hurt or losing them
- It can be stressing over the nightmares that recreate things related to that traumatic situation
- Crying over pity things like an emotional scene in the movie
- Losing mind if they see the same situation happening to someone else
- Overthinking even when it is a normal situation
- Hyper reacting upon things that you do not disagree with someone
- Extreme showcase of emotions(Anger, crying ,or extremely Quiet)
- Carrying a lot of emotional baggage
- Lack of Sleep due to nightmares
Symptoms during Negative Thoughts
- You cannot deal with any stress or sad news around
- Your mind constantly sees negativity in Positive things
- Losing interest in your hobby like dancing, painting, or playing a particular sports
- Feeling Guilty and blaming oneself
- Potential to Self Harm
- Feeling Worse about self
Symptoms during Re-experience
- Feeling irritated if someone reminds you or asks you about that traumatic event
- Avoiding situations that give you flashbacks
- Avoid talking to or seeing any pictures of that person
- Avoiding all things that your loved one used to like(like favorite food, wearing a particular colored dress, hearing a particular song, etc)
Treatment
Treatment for a Patient suffering from PTSD can either be through medicines or through some therapy. It is scientifically proven that medications related to PTSD will only cure some symptoms but will not remove the root cause of it. So here medical practitioners will help you to neutralize the symptoms up to some extent by giving Anti -Depressants and Tranquilizers.
These medicines will just give you nice sleep and avoid your brain from overthinking about it. But again after resting you will suffer from the same problem. IF PTSD is not consulted properly then a person can start seeing illusions and hallucinations about what doesn’t exist.
For example, Shayam had lost his very dear friend in a car accident and that grief never was vented by Shyam with anyone. This emotion had shaken him to lead a normal life after the situation.
As he had not shared his pain with his other acquaintances he started hallucinating that his dead friend existed. He started sharing his life problems with his dead friend for too many hours.
After coming home he would have dinner early and go to bed. But rather than sleeping, he used to lock his bedroom and start talking to his imaginary friend about how his entire day went.
So it’s very necessary for one to deal with Post stress in a delicate way so that he or she doesn’t fall prey to depression. Another method of curing oneself is through Talk therapy known as CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy) through Counseling sessions. This is a long process and it will take at least 3 months or more to heal your pain.
CPT helps you to heal negative thoughts like
- Mood Disorders
- Family Disorders
- Nightmares/Intrusive thoughts
- Flashbacks of unwanted things.
PTSD can be cured by facing the pain you experienced in the past and recreating the situations that took you on the journey to healing.
Mood Disorders
People feeling disinterest in something suddenly that they used to like previously shows that they are undergoing PTSD. Like some of them love to dance but because of the loss of someone they have avoided dancing for a very long time.
CPT helps you to overcome these mood swings through some daily writing policies just like a small homework.
‘When you blame the world the three fingers are already pointing towards you‘.
Family Disorder
During PTSD patients feel their family is the biggest enemy in the world. They feel their family fails to understand what they are going through. They create a false image of their family in their own head.
They feel irritated every time they talk to them as they always give their experienced vision. They feel the family should stand beside them at such hard times.
This therapy also involves family members and makes them a part of this council. The Counselor tries to understand both the family’s and the patient’s point of view and comes to a common platform where both their opinions are not compromised.
Nightmares/Intrusive thoughts
It’s been said whatever you think before going to sleep is what you see in your dreams. Basically, nightmares are something no one wants to see as they always portray some pain and darkness.
If you worry and cry to bed thinking about all the traumatic situations that you have faced, it will definitely turn into nightmares which will further scare you deeper.
CPT helps you come out of it through some writing exercises on a paper, (like 5 reasons that define thanking God for creating me, 7 things you did to make your day better, your journey experience, etc.)
Flashbacks
People with PTSD face the fear of re-seeing the painful situation or what they have experienced. Under medical supervision, this therapy helps you re-face the same painful situation in a therapeutic way.
‘A pain only can beat another Pain’
PTSD can be cured by facing the pain you experienced in the past and recreating the situations that took you on the journey to healing.
