What is PTSD?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that develops in people who have experienced or witnessed a shocking or dangerous event.  It can be completely debilitating and, in some cases, can prompt sufferers to take their own lives.
As a very generic overview, the four main types of PTSD symptoms include:

• PTSD causes intrusive symptoms such as re-experiencing the traumatic event.  Many people have vivid nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts of the event that seem to come from nowhere, emotional or physical body reactions to a reminder of the traumatic event.
• Trying not to think or talk about the trauma, or not to have feelings about is referred to as avoidance.  This may also include staying away from activities, people, places, and situations that bring up trauma memories.  Such symptoms can leave you feeling dissociated from the people and surrounding in your life.
• PTSD can make people feel very nervous or 'on edge' all the time.  Many feel startled very easily, have a hard time concentrating, feel angry/irritable, or have concentration problems and are not sleeping well.  They may often feel like something terrible is about to happen, even when they are safe.  These are all feelings of hyper-arousal and can also include sweating, dizziness, rapid breathing and heart pounding.  These symptoms may cause added stress and exhaustion.
• When you feel like things around you aren't real or you feel disconnected from your body or thoughts, or have a hard time feeling emotions, this is referred to as emotional numbing.  The result of these symptoms may put a strain on or destroy your relationships with those close to you.

A diagnosis of PTSD is rendered when these symptoms last longer than a month and cause significant distress or impairment in activities of daily living.