PTSD

Post traumatic stress disorder is more common than we used to think.

When someone hears the term PTSD often they attribute this condition with soldiers who have returned from the battlefield. Though, those assumptions are beginning to change. While it is true that people who have experienced extreme experiences, like war, are at a greater risk of PTSD there are other traumatic events in life that can cause PTSD.

To understand PTSD and its impact on the brain and the body, it is helpful to understand the nervous system, trauma, and how the nervous systems response to trauma it impacts people.

Every healthy nervous system has the ability to respond to stress in an effort to keep us safe. Typically the response is to fight back, or run away. But sometimes the response is to freeze, especially when the perceived threat is so great that nothing can be done to stop it. When a singular event, or a repeated series of events, causes you to feel or actually become unsafe the nervous system responds to the experience, and body and brain create a memory to code the event and use that information for quick recall in effort to avoid future harm. Circumstances may be due to violence, abuse, neglect, harm, natural disaster, accidents, financial hardship and poverty, grief and unexpected loss, repeated small traumas that have accumulated over time, or even witnessing vicarious trauma.

For those experiencing PTSD the brain and body's memory of an experience causes reactions in everyday life as if they were still under threat, repeating a pattern of response even with no imminent danger. This can create extreme discomfort, confusion, and fear in daily living.

Those living with PTSD may go years without a diagnosis and simply feel as though they are living 'on edge'. At Therapath we want to squash myths about trauma and help people step out from the shadows, and shed stigma. There is nothing to be ashamed of, and post-traumatic wisdom, resilience, and healing are possible.