Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Pastor Barbara Meck Silumbu

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a disorder characterised by anxiety, dissociative, and other symptoms. It develops after exposure to a terrifying event, ordeal, near death experience in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. It is a mental illness triggered by a terrifying event that one experiences or witnesses.

For one to be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder they have to go through any one of the following  triggers  as exposure to actual or threatened death that is,  serious injury or sexual violation. The exposure must result from one or more of the following scenarios, in which the individual: directly experiences the traumatic event; witnesses the traumatic event in person; learns that the traumatic event occurred to a close family member or close friend (with the actual or threatened death being either violent or accidental); or experiences first-hand repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event (not through media, pictures, television or movies unless work-related).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can be described in for phases which are the impact, rescue, intermediate recovery and long term reconstruction phase.

The impact phase occurs immediately or witnessed the traumatic event. The experience is that of shock, intense fear, hypervigilance, guilt and helplessness.

The rescue phase is when the individual starts to come to terms with the ordeal, starting to acknowledge what has happened. At this stage they experience difficult emotions including mental and physical effects.

There is confusion, anger, denial, nightmares and flashbacks, sadness despair numbness, some can become mute or experience dissociation. Intermediate recovery is when one starts to get back to normal live. This can happen with or without intervention.

Long term reconstruction phase is trying to deal with personal post event problems. The person starts worrying about their future, there is fear, uncertainty, depression, resentment.

Common traumatic experiences include, physical attack, serious accident, sexual assault, a fire or natural disasters like tsunami, cyclone or hurricanes.

Most trauma survivors don’t know how trauma usually affects people, they often have trouble understanding what is happening to them.

They may think it is their fault that the trauma happened, that they are going crazy, or that there is something wrong with them because other people who were there don’t seem to have the same problems. They may turn negative coping skills like taking drugs or alcohol to make them feel better.

They may turn away from friends and family who don’t seem to understand what they are going through. They may not know what they can do to get better.

The signs and symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are, Re- experiencing the event characterized by nightmares, flashbacks or intrusive memories of the event. Avoidance/ Numbing, the victim might try to avoid memories of the event and at times might lose the ability to experience pleasure.

They can become emotionally flat and non-responsive to stimuli. Hypervigilant / Hyperarousal is when the victims might overreact to stimuli, they are in a state of heightened alertness usually with continued watchfulness for signs of danger.

Treatment can be psychotherapy and medications.  Psychotherapy can be either individual therapy or group psychotherapy, or a combination of the two).

The most common and effective types of psychotherapy used to treat PTSD include exposure therapies (such as trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive processing therapy) and reprocessing therapy (known as EMDR for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing).

Most psychotherapy approaches to help a person with this condition are time- limited and can be successfully completed by most people with mild to medium severity within a year.

Some people will take less time, and more severe forms of PTSD can often take longer to treat. Some treatment approaches recommend both once-weekly individual and group therapy, while other approaches focus on just individual therapy.

Medications are nearly always used in conjunction with psychotherapy for PTSD, because while medications may treat some of the symptoms commonly associated with the disorder, they will not relieve a person of the flashbacks or feelings associated with the original trauma.

If one is receiving a medication from a general practitioner or their doctor, they should nearly always seek a psychotherapy referral in addition to the prescription.

Indications that someone might need help/ support are changes in their personality e.g. mood swings that may include irritability and hostility, limited coping skills, low threshold for managing stress, outbursts, avoidant behavior, appears to be lacking adequate sleep disheveled appearance.

Performance at school, work or household chores characterized by tardiness absenteeism, mistakes in calculations or in written reports, memory deficiencies, difficulty with concentration, difficulty working with others, inability to maintain organisation.

The writer, Pastor Barbara Meck Silumbu is a Clinical Psychologist.