Have you experienced a traumatic event? Are you suffering from lingering fear and anxiety? Do you feel like you no longer have any control over how you think, feel, and behave?
Posttraumatic stress disorder - also known as PTSD - is a mental health challenge that may occur in individuals who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a terrorist act, an act of war, a serious accident, rape, or any other violent personal assault.
It is believed that PTSD affects nearly four percent of the U.S. adult population (Olff, 2017). While it is usually linked with veterans who’ve experienced combat, PTSD occurs in all people regardless of age, race, nationality, or culture. In fact, women are twice as likely to experience PTSD than men (Olff, 2017).
If you've been through a traumatic experience, you might find yourself:
- dealing with intense thoughts and emotions that linger long after the event;
- often reliving these experiences through flashbacks and nightmares;
- having overwhelming emotions like fear, anger, and sadness;
- sense a detachment from friends, family, and even yourself;
- avoiding situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event;
- experiencing strong and uncontrollable reactions, provoked by everyday sounds or incidents, like a door banging or an accidental touch in a crowd