June 27 is National PTSD Awareness Day – Do Your Part and Become Informed
When a person experiences a traumatic event, the human body becomes stressed. Stress reactions could be disturbing memories, difficulty
with sleeping or feeling jittery. For some people, these symptoms will begin to dissipate within a few weeks or months, depending upon the intensity and duration of the trauma. For other people, however, the negative reactions don’t resolve – instead they deepen. In the first instance the person is experiencing a normal response to a traumatizing event. In the second instance, the person could be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The perception that your life was in danger and you had no control over the situation if difficult for most people. However, at some point, the reactions to stress can themselves become a disruption to everyday living. If you find yourself frequently reliving the trauma (while awake or asleep) and intentionally avoid people or environments which remind you of the event, PTSD could be the cause. If you also find that your emotions are regularly tense or on edge, it’s time to talk to someone about PTSD treatment.
Many people with PTSD don’t want to relive the memories and feelings and certainly don’t want to talk about them. However, talking with a trained mental health professional is often the very thing that can help to lessen the intensity of what you have been carrying around inside of you. Living through a dire situation can actually change the way you think and process information. But a mental health professional can help you to find where those changes have occurred and you can retake control of thoughts – which tends to produce a cascade effect in your behavior and emotions.
At Family Guidance Center we will be giving special attention to PTSD during the month of June and particularly on June 27 – the National PTSD Awareness Day. This month would be an ideal time to take control of your emotional health. Make an appointment today. If you don’t have signs of PTSD yourself, we encourage you to learn what you can about the condition and help correct persistent beliefs about what it looks like and how it can be treated.
