Not all people respond to traumatic events in the same way. Physical wounds may have healed, yet unseen scars left on the heart and mind are often painful and difficult to recover from, especially when they’ve developed into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But, with the right PTSD treatment, even the most severe psychological damage from traumatic events is treatable.
Natural disasters, transportation accidents, or brushes with death are unexpected, sudden, and can be emotionally overwhelming. Traumas that come in the form of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse may outwardly leave no visible signs of injury but can deal devastating blows to your inner self.
What Do Trauma Symptoms Look Like?
Traumatic events often leave people feeling stunned, helpless, suffering from a sense of disorientation, or burdened by an inability to assimilate the stressors and regain an emotional balance.
It is not unusual for trauma victims of trauma to experience any of the following symptoms at some point after going through a traumatic event:
- Intense or unpredictable feelings
- Feeling anxious, nervous, overwhelmed, or grief-stricken
- Uncontrollable irritability or moodiness
- Negative changes in thought and behavior patterns
- Repeated and vivid memories or nightmares of the traumatic events
- Rapid heartbeat or sweating
- Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
- Disrupted sleep and eating patterns
- Heightened anxiety or fears the traumatic event will be repeated
- Withdrawing, isolating, or disengaged from your usual social activities
- Experiencing stress-related physical symptoms, such as headaches, nausea, and chest pain
What Does PTSD Look Like?
When trauma symptoms intensify and persist, they can lead to a diagnosis of PTSD.
PTSD symptoms call into three categories:
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1. Hyper-arousal
Hyper-arousal occurs from an inability to reset after a traumatizing experience, leaving your bodily processes and mental state set in overdrive. If you are suffering from hyper-arousal, you may experience difficulty sleeping and concentrating, being easily startled, and enduring increased irritability. You may also express heightened levels of anger, agitation, panic, and hypervigilance, or be hyper-alert to supposed dangers, real or imagined. -
2. Re-experiencing
Invasive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, and exaggerated reactions to reminders of the traumatic event are symptoms of re-experiencing, which may cause you to endure the manifestation of original physical or bodily harm during focused remembering of those traumas. -
3. Avoidance
Traumatic experiences may leave some victims feeling robotic, or as if they are on automatic pilot. This numbing, or sense of severe disconnectedness from their mental state and from life, can extend to the perception of living in a so called deadness. Symptoms of numbing include a lack or total loss of interest in life and people, hopelessness, loneliness, direct aversion of thoughts and feelings related to the traumatic events, accompanied by feelings of detachment or estrangement from others, depression, and emotional suppression. Avoiding discussing the trauma or denying the expressing of feelings and thoughts connected to the trauma may also become a central focus of the survivor’s life.
Treating PTSD and Trauma
Many people suffering from PTSD fail to seek treatment because of misidentifying or failing to recognize their symptoms as trauma-related. They may also not realize that their PTSD is treatable.
It can be challenging for victims of trauma to come forward and seek help. In addition, those who have gone through a traumatic event may feel shame, guilt, fear, or mistrust. They may also want to avoid thinking about the experience, which can sometimes lead to co-occurring substance abuse or addiction.
Our specialized trauma services help clients recognize and recover from PTSD through comprehensive care, an active patient-clinician connection, and encouraging support. We address each client’s individualized needs in a nurturing environment at our residential treatment and outpatient treatment programs. With Clearview’s guidance, there’s a way through the hurt, fear, and burden of traumatic life events.
PTSD and Trauma FAQs
The American Psychological Association (APA) estimates approximately six out of 10 men and five out of 10 women will experience at least one trauma event in their lifetime. Women are more likely to experience sexual assault or child sexual abuse. Men are more likely to experience accidents, physical assault, combat, disaster, or witness death or serious injury. Although the majority of individuals will be able to absorb the trauma over time, nearly 8 percent of traumatic event survivors will experience long-lasting mental health problems, with women being twice as likely as men to develop PTSD symptoms.
There is no set time at which Post Traumatic Stress Disorder develops. Symptoms of PTSD can develop relatively soon after a traumatic event or can take years to develop. Delayed PTSD often occurs in people who have experienced childhood sexual or physical abuse. Hidden by emotional constraint or complete emotional severance for years, it is common for symptoms of PTSD to manifest suddenly following a major traumatic life event, heightened stress, or an accumulation of stressors over a short period of time that challenge the victim’s emotional defenses.