PTSD is caused by exposure to traumatic events, resulting in extreme fear, helplessness, or horror. It involves re-experiencing the events through intrusive images, memories, nightmares, or flashbacks. It leads to avoidance behavior for event reminders (i.e., people, places, things, etc.) and heightened arousal (tension, irritability/anger, sleep problems, lack of concentration, and abnormal startle response). PTSD leads to impairment in functioning. People with post-traumatic stress disorder may also feel detached from others and have fewer positive emotional responses than before the event. A person may believe others will not want to socialize with them because of the trauma. About 7.8% of people have PTSD.
Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder must last at least 1 month for a diagnosis to be made. Most symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, however, develop within 3 to 6 months of the trauma. Some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are delayed more than 6 months from the time of trauma, and this refers to delayed expression. If the stress symptoms display between 3 days to 1 month after the trauma, the person has acute stress disorder.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder could be caused by trauma like assault, terrorist attack, rape, war, severe physical or sexual maltreatment, natural disasters such as tornados or floods, robbery, home invasion, car accidents, etc. Combat and sexual assault are the most common causes of PTSD. Not everyone who experiences a traumatic event necessarily develops acute stress disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder.
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