So, what is PTSD - in relation to a Car Accident?
PTSD is an abbreviation for the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As the name suggests - it is a disorder, which is based on the experiencing of traumatic event(s). PTSD is basically, a collection of specific symptomes, which may appear in people that have experienced something extremely traumatic. This disease, was introduced into the DSM 4 classification of psychic diseases in the year 1980. It is also ranked in the ICD 10 classification, by the marking: F43.
People with PTSD, have lived through a traumatic event, eg. Car crash - thus causing them to fear for their lives, experiencing horrifying things and creating the sense of helplessness. The strong emotional experiences can cause changes in the brain, thus resulting in PTSD.
The majority of individuals which go through a traumatic event, have some kind of symptoms at the beginning. However, not all of them will develop PTSD. Why exactly, only a percentage develop PTSD is still quite unknown. But there are patterns which comply to the possibility of acquiring PTSD, these are:
a) The intensinty of the trauma
b) The length in time, of how long it lasted
c) The proximity of the individual - to the event itself
d) The intensity of the individuals reaction - to the event
e) The sense of “control” (of the individual, and of the situation) that the individual had during the event
f) The amount of aid/support that the individual got after the event.
The majority of people who develop PTSD, do get better with time. However approximately 33% - that is 1 out of 3 people – with PTSD will continue to have some symptoms. Treatment, can help you relieve the symptoms, no matter how long it has been since the event. This is important, because PTSD can strongly interfere with your everyday life, activities, work, social life and even relationships.
Generally speaking, all people with PTSD, have experienced a traumatic happening, which has caused them to fear for their health or life, visualize horrific things, and creating the feeling of helplessness. All these things, can cause changes in the human, thus resulting in the PTSD.
What are the symptoms of PTSD?
The symptoms if PTSD, can be disturbing. As mentioned earlier, they may have an negative effect on the individuals life. Thus making it hard to cope with the typical daily activities. Sometimes, individuals may find it hard - just to make it through the day. Generally, the symptoms of PTSD usually start subsequently after the traumatic incident. However, they may not occur until a couple of months/years later on. Furthermore, they sometimes may appear and disappear out of nowhere over many years. Generally speaking, if the symptoms do last longer than 28 days (4 weeks) – they cause you a major discomfort – or if they just interfere with your social life and work – then you most probably have PTSD.
In PTSD, we differ 4 types of symptoms, namely:
a) Re-Living / Re-Experiencing the event
b) General Avoidance
c) Insensitivity
d) Hyper-Arousal symptom
Re-Living / Re-Experiencing symptom:
Generally speaking, bad memories of the tragic/traumatic event, return to the individual at any possible time. It is said, that the individual feels and precepts the same fear or horror (or both) as when the traumatic event took place. Furthermore, the individual may have nightmares and problems in sleeping. This of course, is caused by the fact that the individual is “re-experiencing” the event. This symptom, generally is called a Flashback. Sometimes, this happens spontaneously, but other times, there are numerous triggers which trigger the flashback symptom. These triggers may include; A phonetic stimulus (sound, song), a Visual stimulus (a sight/image).
Here are a couple of examples:
- If a person hears a car backfiring, this phonetic trigger can cause a flashback of some kind of gunfire or war for a military combat veteran or a person who was in such an traumatic event.
- Being a car crash witness, thus reliving the experience of the individuals own car crash scene.
- Looking at the news, and seeing some kind of sexual assault (rape) news report, which may bring back the memories of the individuals own experience as a victim.
General Avoidance symptom - Avoiding the type of situations that remind you of the traumatic event:
The individual will try to avoid the type of situations or the people which can remind him/her of the event. Basically, staying away from the trigger points. Also, the individuals with PTSD will try to avoid talking about the event.
Examples of these things may include:
- An individual which was a survivor of an earthquake. This type of individual may want to avoid watching movies or TV-shows which have some kind of earthquake scenes in them – or anything which can remind them of earthquakes for that regards.
- An individual who was once robbed, with a gun targeted at her/him, that was at a bank, coffee shop, fast-food restaurant or any other places for that regard, may avoid these places subsequently to the event.
- Also, people will try to keep themselves occupied with other tasks, in order to have an excuse for seeking help. Thus, this type of symptom keeps them from re-living / re-thinking about the traumatic event.
Feeling insensitive:
An individual will have problems in finding ways to start expressing his/her feelings. This, is one of the defence mechanisms of the human brain – in order to avoid thinking about memories. Examples of this type of symptom can be:
- Generally, the individuals may stop having some kind of positive or even emotional based feelings about other individuals, and may try to stay away from relationships.
- The individual, can stop being interested in the activities that he/she used to enjoy prior to the traumatic event.
- The individual may forget about certain parts of the event, or will generally not be able to fully talk about them.
Hyper-arousal symptom:
The individual may be nervy, or generally always in alert and in the lookout for danger, as he would be anticipating it. The consequences of this symptom may be:
- Becoming easily angry
- Becoming easily irritable
- Having difficulties in sleeping (Insomnia)
- Having difficulties in concentrating
- Being paranoid about safety, thus always feeling “on guard”
- Becoming anxious when meeting someone new
The other consequences of PTSD.
Because everyone in his/her own way, is very individual, there are numerous other symptoms that might occur. These include:
- Drug addiction
- Alcohol addiction
- Feelings of hopelessness
- Feelings of shame
- Feelings of despair
- Social problems
- Employment effort
- Relationships problems (violence)
- Psychosomatic symptoms (“body and mind” symptoms)
The treatment for PTSD
As mentioned earlier, if you have PTSD, you have difficulties in dealing with the traumatic event and things which are connected to it. Thus, this means that instead of talking to others and relieving the emotional pressure that the individual has built up, he/she instead, keeps it bottled inside.
There is a treatment for PTSD, and it includes psychological assistance and therapy. There are numerous types of approaches to this dilemma, Psychoanalytic or Cognitive-behavioral approach. The latter, appears to be the most effective type of therapy for people with PTSD.
Furthermore, there are medications which are used to help in the treatment of PTSD. One of the types of drugs is the Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drug. This type of drug is also used for curing/handling depression.
