SYMPTOMS

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What is Post Traumatic Stress ?

Post Traumatic Stress is all about....... experiencing a traumatic event that can be mild to most debilitating and lead to devastating psychological problems.
  These types of traumatic events can be ones that  have threatened one's life or involved physical abuse, violence, injury, a dog or animal attack etc..    Various symptoms can become long-term and become disruptive to one's daily activities such as:

What are the key symptoms?

• flashbacks
• hallucinations
• nightmares
• sleep problems
• difficulty concentrating
• depression
• emotional numbing
• withdrawal
• pervasive anxiety
• panic attacks

Traumatic Events

A traumatic event can range in intensity from war experiences to significant losses in life. Everyday traumas could include the loss of one's spouse, marriage, freedom, health, financial security, bankruptcy,  occupation, and identity.

It can be a child attacked by a dog threatening his or her life. It can be domestic violence, or rape.
 Holmes' Significant Life Events Scale assigns mean values to some 43 life events, with scores ranging from 100 (Death of spouse) to 11 (minor violations of the law.) 

 Accumulating a high total score from a series of stressful events within a short time, can feel as traumatic as experiencing one major stressed occurence over a longer period. Traumas can often be totally missed in assessing one's symptoms correctly.

Other negative effects of trauma may include:

• the avoidance of memory triggers,
• amnesia,
• intrusive thoughts,
• distressing dreams,
• flashbacks,
• dissociation  
• irritability,
• a reduced ability to concentrate,
• inability to experience pleasure,
• or to feel tender emotions,
• difficulty to imagine a positive future 

These symptoms can become chronic after exposure to frequent, intense traumatic events, resulting in emotional trauma that often leads to a more severe condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).