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Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress

Most of us will have something scary or distressing happen to us at some point in our lives.

 

If you know someone who has been through something distressing, it’s helpful to try and understand where they are coming from and how you can support them.

 

You could let them know that it’s normal to feel a bit more on edge for a while after something frightening happens. For example, if they were in a car accident, they might find that they don’t want to get in a car again for the first few days after the accident. Then, when they do get back in a car, they might find that their heart is beating more quickly and ask other people to reassure them that it’s safe. Pretty soon, they’ll find that they are singing along to the radio in the car again and not even thinking about the accident. This is a normal, healthy reaction to a distressing event.

 

What is post-traumatic stress?

Sometimes the thing that happens to someone is so frightening and upsetting that, even after a month, they find they can’t bounce back to feeling how they did before it happened. This is what we call post-traumatic stress.

 

Not everyone who goes through a distressing experience will go on to have post-traumatic stress, it depends on a lot of things. For example, it’s more likely that someone will have post-traumatic stress if the trauma was caused by another person. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress don’t always start straight away.

 

If someone you care about has post-traumatic stress, they might find that distressing memories of what happened to them pop into their mind when they don’t want them to. These memories can be images like a short video clip, smells, sounds, body sensations, or bad dreams. Other common symptoms of post-traumatic stress are:

  • being tense and ‘on edge’
  • staying away from things and places that remind them of the trauma
  • trying not to think about the trauma, or to let themselves have feelings about it
  • difficulty sleeping
  • being irritable
  • feeling like they aren’t safe or can’t trust other people.

 

If the trauma was something that happened to them a number of times, or over a long period of time, it can lead to complex post-traumatic stress disorder, sometimes called c-PTSD.

 

If your friend or family member is struggling to feel okay again after something distressing that happened to them, or you think that they might have post-traumatic stress, encourage them to talk to you about how they’re feeling. If they are ready, support them to talk to their doctor, or take a look at our Get Help section below.

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