September is PTSD awareness month.. so we thought we’d include some helpful information, hints and tips all about PTSD to our blog.

What is PTSD?

PTSD is known as Post-traumatic stress disorder and can develop following a frightening or traumatic experience. We can develop PTSD if we have been involved in a traumatic experience, heard of one or witnessed one even those who work within the emergency services who might often hear and see traumatic experiences repeatedly can develop PTSD.

What do you think of when someone mentions PTSD?
What images or thoughts come into your mind?

You might have thought about those who work or have worked in the military and their experiences of war and this is true, many service men and women experience PTSD. The below situations could also relate to PTSD:

• An NHS member of staff who has worked through the COVID-19 pandemic experiencing a racing heat every time they put on their scrubs or PPE.
• Someone who has experienced a life-threatening illness and experiencing nightmares after having been in the intensive care unit
• Someone having had an operation in hospital
• Parents who have experienced a traumatic birth
• Someone who was a witness to a car accident
• Someone experiencing flashbacks (a sudden image) to a sexual assault when they are hugged by their supportive partner

All of these situations (and many more) can be examples of PTSD, and everyone can experience the symptoms differently.

Why have I developed PTSD?

Often PTSD develops after witnessing, hearing or being involved in a traumatic experience and we might not know we have PTSD until a few weeks, months or even years after the event (we’re going to talk about the symptoms of PTSD shortly!).

We can all experience frightening events throughout our life, but it’s how we process them. We all have two little pea sized parts of our brain either side of our head called the Amygdala (this is the part of our brain that scans our environment for danger and keeps us safe and we all have this!). We also have the memory part of our brain called the Hippocampus (because it looks like a little seahorse) and this is our filing cabinet full of all our memories, sorted and organised by date, time, year, situation etc.

When we experience something very frightening and traumatic our Amygdala responds rapidly, pushing adrenaline through our body to get us to do something and often it becomes very overwhelmed and stops communicating to your file cabinet. When this happens, the two stop listening to each other and the traumatic experience cannot be filed away neatly into your file cabinet (memory)…. Instead it floats around your mind, out of control and makes you think about what has happened in situations you don’t want to. This is when we experience flashbacks, sudden vivid images and nightmares as if the traumatic experience is happening again, like a movie that you just can’t stop.

PTSD can be extremely frustrating, upsetting and frightening… because we feel out of control, and we don’t want to keep reliving the experience.

Symptoms of PTSD

• Intrusive memories about what has happened to you
• Experiencing nightmares about the experience
• Sudden, strong images or flashbacks that make you feel like you’re back in the moment and it’s happening all over again
• Feeling distressed when something reminds you of this (e.g. certain noises, smells, touch)
• Feeling on edge and looking for any threats
• Finding it difficult to concentrate
• You might notice that you are avoiding certain things and trying to keep yourself as safe as possible or you might be taking more risks.

PTSD is a common mental health condition that can be treated.

How can therapy help me?

The main treatment for PTSD is therapy (usually Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). It is possible to have help and support many years after the event first happened, so it’s never too late to have help and support.

We will take time to get to know you and what has happened, taking this at your pace. We know that it can be difficult to reach out for support and sometimes we might feel ashamed, embarrassed or worried that we might upset our therapist (please don’t worry about this and we can talk this through together!). Our therapists are specifically trained to support those experiencing PTSD using a slightly different form of CBT called Trauma-Focused CBT which has techniques designed to help you come to terms with what has happened and help you move forwards in your life.

We will go through a process together, helping you to cope with any distress you may be feeling and help you gain control of your fear.

Trauma-focused CBT sessions often last 60 to 90 minutes.

Trauma-focused CBT can also be helpful for Complex PTSD and you can find out more about Complex PTSD by visiting our blog post.