What is PTSD?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental condition in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. This condition can last months to years depending on the severity. The person diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can relive the experience/experiences through flashback or nightmares. An intense emotional and/or physicals response can occur. Outside influences can bring memories of the trauma. They can can feel sadness, fear, and anger. They may become isolated, detached, and estranged from people, places, and things. Without proper diagnosis and treatment, these things can be unbearable, frightening, uncontrollable and misunderstood. I'd like to start with some definitions and then some facts.
Definitions
- Triggers - cause (an event or situation) to happen or exist.
- Trauma - a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.
- Distress - a state of severe anxiety or strain
- Flashbacks - involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience
- Stressor - something that causes a state of strain or tension
- Impairment - disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning
Facts
- 70% of all Adults experience some sort of trauma in their lifetime
- 20% of these adults will develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Average of 8,000,000,000 people actively have PTSD in any given year
- 1 in 13 adults will develop PTSD at some point in their lifetime
- 3.5% of the United States will develop PTSD
- 36.6% will expierence serious impairment
- 33.1% will experience moderate impairment
- 30.2% will experience mild impairment
- Although rare, children will develop PTSD
- 5% of children will develop PTSD in their childhood
- 1.5% will experience serious impairment
- 3.7% of teens ages 13-14 will develop PTSD
- This number increases by 7% for though ages 17-18
- 1.8% of the Male Population will develop PTSD
- 5.2% of the female population will develop PTSD
