Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequent topic in the news and on social media. From articles about the importance of mental health to war reporting, PTSD crops up often enough that most people have an idea what it is. But PTSD goes beyond “something bad happened, person is messed up about it” and has become one of the most important disorders in the modern world.
1. PTSD is More Common than you Think.
More than 8 million American adults (ages 18+) have PTSD.
In the last year, about 3.6% of adults in the United States experienced PTSD.
With the prevalence of mass shootings in the U.S., it’s important to know that 67% of people exposed to mass violence will develop PTSD. This is higher than all other traumatic events.
2. PTSD is an Old Illness with a New Name that can Affect Anyone.
Up until recent decades, the majority of patients with acknowledged PTSD symptoms were soldiers, leading the disorder to be known as shell shock, war neurosis, or battle fatigue before the official name was created. It might seem simple, but it limited how clinicians thought about PTSD symptoms to only those who fought in wars.
We now know that other traumatic situations can cause PTSD including war, natural disasters, injury/illness trauma, abuse, or neglect. Patients receiving Intensive Care after injury or illness can develop PTSD from the combination of trauma from the emergency itself and from the experience of being sedated, which can cause delusion/hallucination.
PTSD was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1980. The World Health Organization (WHO) added it to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) in 1992.
3. Caregivers can Develop Vicarious PTSD.
Providing daily care for someone, whether professionally or personally, is a chronic stressor for the caregiver. Being in such a constant state of critical responsibility can cause PTSD symptoms to develop over time. The exact nature of the development isn’t yet well-understood, but research shows that caregivers with prior experiences of anxiety, depression, or trauma are more likely to get vicarious PTSD from caring for others.
About 70% of family and friends of people with critical illnesses experience greater levels of depression than those who are not involved with a critical care patient (New England Journal of Medicine, 2016). Another study in the same journal noted higher rates of PTSD symptoms in parents of critically ill children.
4. Not Everyone who Experiences Trauma, Even the Same One, Develops PTSD.
About 20% of trauma survivors develop PTSD related to the trauma at some point, though it can take years for symptoms to manifest. But what about those who don’t?
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports there are protective factors that help someone avoid PTSD. These include seeking support (friends, family, support groups), learning to feel okay with how they responded to the event, having a coping strategy for dealing with the trauma, and being proactive in responding to triggers.
There are some things that increase the risk of PTSD beyond the trauma itself. PTSD is more likely if the event:
- Is more severe (e.g. large loss of life, major injury)
- Is violent (e.g. mass shooting)
- Lasts a long time (e.g. repeated abuse)
- Results in personal physical harm (e.g. car accident)
- Results in the death of a loved one
Lastly, there is a gender difference in who develops PTSD. About 4% of men and 10% of women develop PTSD at some point in their lives. While fewer women overall are exposed to traumatic events, experts believe the nature of these events, which typically include sexual trauma, is to blame for the higher PTSD rates.
5. PTSD Symptoms can be Mental, Emotional, and Physical.
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that depression and anxiety are common experiences for those suffering from PTSD. They have a variety of mental and emotional symptoms including irritability, sadness, sleep disruptions, eating disruptions, and dysregulated mood. This is far from an exhaustive list, but it gives a solid overview.
What you might not know is how physically painful PTSD can be. Some of the more common physical symptoms are:
- Back and joint pain
- Nausea
- Headaches
- Chronic muscle tension
- Fatigue
- Elevated heart rate and blood pressure
6. Post-Traumatic Symptoms aren’t Always Immediate and they Might Not be PTSD at All.
To be diagnosed with PTSD, you have to experience symptoms for over one month that interfere with your life in a meaningful way. It can take months or even years after trauma for things to develop to that extent, which is one aspect that sometimes makes PTSD difficult to catch and treat.
Even right after the trauma, symptoms like anxiety, depression, and insomnia could be signs of Acute Stress Disorder rather than PTSD. This is a less chronic and long-lasting response to trauma that responds very well to treatment. Not everyone who experiences Acute Stress Disorder will develop PTSD, especially if they seek prompt treatment.
Speaking of treatment…
7. PTSD Responds Very Well to Various Types of Treatment.
The good news is that PTSD is very treatable! Often, seeking out treatment is one of the hardest parts of dealing with things, but once you do, the options and effectiveness are excellent. Two of the more common options to treat PTSD are exposure therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Exposure therapy involves pseudo-reliving the trauma in a safe space with a supportive therapist who can help guide your experience. It helps the client learn to manage their symptoms and react to triggering events more constructively. Changing the way you think about the trauma helps reduce fear and avoidance behaviors.
EMDR is a type of psychotherapy that helps you process the experience of the trauma in a safe space, much like exposure therapy. There is some disagreement about exactly how the treatment works, but evidence shows it does work. There is some prep work before starting the full treatment: learning about trauma & coping skills with your therapist and, picking a specific memory to target. During treatment, you recall the target memory while also paying attention to a repetitive visual or auditory cue, like a metronome, for a short time, then reflect on the experience with your therapist afterward. Eventually, you start to focus on positive beliefs related to the memory to shift your emotional, mental, and physical responses to a healthy place.
8. You can get PTSD From Smaller Traumas that Add up Over Time.
While major, distinct events are one of the primary causes of PTSD, they’re not the only ones. Being exposed to repeated, small traumas over a long period of time, what we call “chronic trauma”, can have the same overall effect. In these cases, the damage builds up and compounds over time until PTSD symptoms develop. Here’s a bit of a grisly metaphor for the difference:
PTSD from a major trauma is like being half-crushed by a block of stone. The damage is obvious and the block is clearly the cause.
PTSD from chronic trauma is like being cut or struck somewhere on your body every day for months or years until you’re covered in wounds that haven’t healed properly. The damage is relatively easy to ignore until it’s not and the cause might be from different sources.
If these sound all-too-familiar, it’s time to reach out for an assist. Make an appointment today with one of our licensed, skilled, and professional therapists at Village Counseling. Don’t wait until it gets too bad to handle; we can help!