Your past may have forged you
According to the American Psychiatric Association:
“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event or series of traumatic events.”
While trauma can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, PTSD shares symptoms universally. If you or someone you care about sees themselves in these criteria below, please seek help for them. PTSD can be managed and achieve remission. We view it as a chronic condition because sometimes an unexpected trigger can cause a relapse in symptoms.
Intrusion: Intrusive (unwanted and involuntary) thoughts such as repeated memories, distressing dreams, or flashbacks of traumatic events. Flashbacks may be so vivid that people feel they are reliving the traumatic experience or seeing it before their eyes and may cause significant fear and panic. These memories and/or nightmares may be triggered by something that reminds the individual of the traumatic event or may be spontaneous.
Avoidance: Avoiding reminders of the traumatic event(s) may include avoiding people, places, activities, objects, and situations that may trigger distressing memories. People may try to avoid remembering or thinking about the traumatic event. Additionally, they may resist talking about what happened or how they feel about it. Oftentimes, these behaviors lead to dysfunction in everyday life.
Changes in cognition and mood: Individuals with PTSD may initially present with depressive symptoms. These include low mood (feeling sad), inability to feel happiness, and a lack of interest in activity and/or people that they used to enjoy. Additionally, individuals with PTSD may have trouble with memory; maybe be unable to remember important aspects of the traumatic event have negative thoughts and feelings leading to ongoing and distorted beliefs about themself or others (e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can be trusted”); have distorted thoughts about the cause or consequences of the event leading to wrongly blaming self or other; have ongoing fear, horror, anger, guilt or shame; have much less interest in activities previously enjoyed; feel detached or estranged from others; or be unable to experience positive emotions (a void of happiness or satisfaction).
Changes in arousal and reactivity: People with PTSD may describe being irritable and having angry outbursts, behaving recklessly or in a self-destructive way, being overly watchful of their surroundings in a suspecting way, being easily startled, or having problems concentrating or sleeping.