Living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not just having a memory from time to time or something that people can just forget about. It is a haunting series of nightmares that impairs you and your everyday life. The official definition of PTSD is: “a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall of the experience, with dulled responses to others and to the outside world.”
Statistics show that:
- 70 percent of adults in the U.S. have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives. That’s 223.4 million people.
- An estimated 8 percent of Americans – that’s 24.4 million people – have PTSD at any given time
- An estimated 1 out of 10 women develop PTSD; women are about twice as likely as men.
- Among people who are victims of a severe traumatic experience 60 – 80 percent will develop PTSD.
- 3-15 percent girls and 1-6 percent of boys will develop PTSD
- Studies estimate that 1 in every 5 military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan has PTSD.
Statistics don’t lie, but I wish that they did. The number of people living with PTSD is alarming. Causes of PTSD are many, but the most common include sexual assault/harassment, war and combat, and childhood abuse. Those are just some of the causes, and the effects and symptoms are just as ugly. When someone struggles with PTSD, their whole life is changed. They experience agitation, irritability, and even harmful decisions. They might develop a loss of appetite, a fear of others, insomnia and nightmares, and especially an emotional detachment from the people around them. But these symptoms of this devilish mental illness are not a reflection on the people around the sufferers, but a reflection on what the sufferer has had to endure.
My personal story about living with PTSD is basically the poster child of what PTSD would look like. Dealing with being sexually harassed, the death of a dear friend, and experiencing a mall shooting has affected me in so many ways. PTSD attacks come out of nowhere and they last any amount of time – usually just a few seconds. But in those seconds, you are tossed back into the situation that you so desperately wish you could forget.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is more common than people realize and it is an illness that more people live with than we know. Although PTSD is not something that people can control, they can choose how it affects their future moving forward. There are so many places to get help, so many medications that work miracles, and so many people that know exactly what it’s like to live with PTSD.
If you are currently living with PTSD, know that you are strong and you are worth so much more than what you’ve been through. Know that there are ways to get help. And know that you’re not alone.
If you need immediate assistance when dealing with PTSD, there are hotline numbers, support groups, and inpatient hospitals in your area that will listen and help you to conquer these attacks. Search for PTSD help groups in whatever search engine you use and you will be surprised at how many support outlets there are. Remember that you are loved, you are not alone, and you are more than your PTSD.
PTSD Hotline: 1-888-480-5593
