Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious and intractable mental illness. It occurs as a result of experiencing catastrophic events that caused severe damage to life and the fate of patients.
It is unlikely that you can find a person who in his life would not have received a single physical or mental injury. Quite often, the destructive power of such injuries is unbearable.
For example, this happens if a person was involved in hostilities, someone close to him died, he was abused, went broke or suffered another life fiasco, etc. Not only direct participants, but also witnesses of destructive events are exposed to dangerous effects.
In such cases, a protective mechanism known as shock takes effect. It can be of physical or mental origin. Shock is a healthy reaction of the body to experiencing stress, which protects the human body and personality from physical and mental damage. With physical shock, the threshold of pain sensitivity becomes lower. Severe pains are easier to carry. With the mental - emotions become dull, which makes it possible to maintain purposeful behavior in a disaster.
At the end of the shock, after a while, a positive attitude towards life and normal functioning of the body are restored. Mental and physical injuries coagulate, wear out and no longer interfere with a person's life.
But there are catastrophic incidents of special power that do not pass unnoticed. Usually these are situations in which life and health have been put at risk. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a reaction to such situations.
Participants and witnesses to the catastrophe who suffered a psychological shock cannot return to a normal existence. They are dominated by traumatic memories. They are not left feeling helpless in a threatening world.
Among the traumatic events that cause post-traumatic stress disorder, the following are distinguished:
- military actions;
- terrorism (hostage taking, explosions, etc.);
- catastrophic events in nature;
- transport accidents;
- all physical forms of violence;
- all cases of rape;
- surgical and other types of traumatic treatment (children often suffer).
This listing is not exhaustive. Post-traumatic stress disorder can be triggered by any event that poses a health hazard or destroys a normal life. It is important that such an event even before the disease causes a strong sensory shock and physical shock.
Symptoms of PTSD are important not only for doctors, but also for the patients themselves. They must understand that they need treatment and in time to guess what exactly they are ill with.
There are four symptoms of PTSD.
- Flashback episodes (repeated repeated and intrusive experience of sensations and perceptions of trauma); nightmares with and without unbearable experiences; at the slightest reminder of the injury - psychological distress (symptoms of fear, depression) and physical discomfort (rapid heartbeats, shortness of breath, nausea, sweating, etc.).
- Avoidance (the patient does not participate in events and does not communicate with people reminding him of the injury).
- The impoverishment of feelings and isolation from society (everyday events are uninteresting; in feelings - emptiness and self-experience of a stranger; life position of a loser - work will always be bad, the family will never be happy, there is little life left).
- The nervous system has increased excitability (it is difficult to fall asleep, the dream is weak or it doesn’t exist for a long time; the patient is irritable and prone to anger; it is difficult to draw attention; constant alertness; fright for a trifling reason - the door slammed, the phone rang, etc.).
There is a secondary symptom of PTSD, which makes it look like a depressive anxiety disorder. This is a sudden onset of headaches that are difficult to get rid of, obsessive loneliness, unmotivated shame, suicidal thoughts. If these symptoms persist, the doctor should check whether the patient, along with PTSD, has anxiety-depressive disorder as an additional disease.
An effective psychotherapy has been developed, with the help of which this disorder, in fact, can be cured. Its goal is to translate destructive feelings, thoughts and behavior of the patient into a constructive channel. It is called cognitive-behavioral (cognitive-behavioral) therapy. Along with it, the experience of family and supportive psychotherapy is used.
Combinations of anti-anxiety drugs (anxiolytics) and antidepressants are used. But this treatment is mainly aimed at combating diseases associated with PTR - in particular, with depressive anxiety disorder.
Despite the prevailing opinion about the curability of PTSD, there is a problem of its repeated episodes. Relapses (returns) of the disease can occur years after the cure of its symptoms.
It takes a lot of patience and joint efforts of doctors, social workers, family members of the patient and, of course, himself, so that each time in the event of a relapse, he carefully develop the necessary aspects of treatment. Only in this case, the opinion of PTSD as a treatable disease will be justified.