Over twenty veterans commit suicide every single day in the United States (Freking). Twenty lives taken off the face of this earth due to mental or physical hardships these veterans face each and every day. One of the largest contributors to this huge amount of unnecessary deaths is the silent killer that is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a mental disorder that develops when someone experiences traumatic events or other moments in which their life is in jeopardy. The effects of PTSD can leave one feeling alone, anxious, hopeless, and turn them into a lesser version of themselves. Roughly fifteen percent of veterans return from deployments in which they experienced combat with PTSD, thus amassing to over 400,000 soldiers from the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq alone (How Common Is PTSD?). Even though PTSD effects so many veterans there is not a lot of public knowledge or support for the fight to combat it. Due to the devastating effects that post-traumatic stress disorder has on our veteran population both the government and the public should provide the funding, support, and recognition that is needed to combat the disease.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an illness that is extremely hard to treat. With a multitude of symptoms such as agitation, severe anxiety, guilt, and self-destructive behavior, each diagnosis is unique therefore treatment must be specialized. The most common way to diagnose someone with PTSD is through an in depth screening process
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a common anxiety disorder characterized by chronic physical arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts and images of the traumatic event, and avoidance of things that can call the traumatic event into mind (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, & Nock, 2014). About 7 percent of Americans suffer from PTSD. Family members of victims can also develop PTSD and it can occur in people of any age. The diagnosis for PTSD requires one or more symptoms to be present and crucially interfere with living a normal life ("Post-traumatic Stress," 2014). Women usually experience PTSD more commonly than men after being exposed to trauma. Examples of PTSD could be veterans from war experiencing traumatic
This paper explores post-traumatic stress and how it is seen as a disorder. Post-traumatic stress can manifest into post-traumatic stress disorder. The evaluation and review books and articles seem to reveal a relation to these symptoms and military member, either active or non-active veterans. These symptoms do not manifest strictly into the full-extent of the disorder in all cases of military, however, things such as depression and other physical symptoms are discussed through the readings. The end result is that we discovered that through the readings PTSD will in fact lead to suicide if left untreated.
PTSD, or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, is a psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of a life-threatening events such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents, or physical or sexual assault in adult or childhood. Most survivors of trauma return to normal given a little time. However, some people will have stress reactions that do not go away on their own, or may even get worse over time. These individuals may develop PTSD. People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person’s daily life.
What is post-traumatic stress disorder? When most people think of the term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) they think of war and returning soldiers. Even though this is true, post-traumatic stress disorder does not only develop in soldier’s returning from war. When you look at the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you will see that it is a mental health condition that is triggered by either experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. This means that post-traumatic stress disorder can be developed after any traumatic event or experience that one has gone through.
Post-Traumatic stress disorder, commonly known as PTSD, is on a rise in our country and expected to rise more in the coming years (Iribarren, Prolo, Neagos, & Chiappelli, 2005). PTSD is a psychiatric disorder than can result from the experience or witnessing of traumatic or life-threatening events (Iribarren, Prolo, Neagos, & Chiappelli, 2005). According to the Evidence based article examples of PTSD are terrorist attack, violent crime and abuse, military combat, natural disasters, serious accidents or violent personal assaults (Iribarren, Prolo, Neagos, & Chiappelli, 2005). PTSD has also been liked to possible exposure to environmental toxins such as Agent Orange or electromagnetic radiation (Iribarren, Prolo, Neagos, & Chiappelli, 2005).
People wonder what can cause PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). There are multiple things such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, and military combat. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder victims deal with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts on a regular basis if they are not getting treatment which can be as simple as therapy once a month or as complex as taking medications daily and going to therapy on a regular basis even then victims can still experience anxiety and depression.
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; One of the Leading Causes of High Unemployment Rates among U.S. Veterans”
There are multiple mental illnesses and diseases that everyone has the chance of catching. One in particular is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a condition that someone experiences when trauma related symptoms or impairment in everyday functioning last for a month to a lifetime (1). It occurs when someone can not bounce back from a traumatic event or experience. Even though some people can be in the exact situation and be the same age and gender there is a chance that only one will develop PTSD. Why is that? There are many possible reasons why some people develop PTSD and others do not, the main reasons are thought to be a person 's background, genetics and environment.
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a mental disorder that can stem from a traumatic experience. “The risk of exposure to trauma has been a part of the human condition since we evolved as a species.” Traumatic experiences are part of being human and will always be a part of our existence. PTSD can stem from anything as small as a fender bender in a parking lot to being in a war zone and seeing your friend get shot. We can see many soldiers from World War II and Vietnam that have this disorder. Any experience a human finds traumatic could eventually cause PTSD.
Imagine yourself running out of gas in your vehicle, there is a gas station a few blocks away from where your car stopped. At the gas station, there is a Samaritan offering you a ride back to your car once you finished filling the gas container. Trusting this Samaritan, you accept the ride and you notice he has willfully passed your car. Panicking, the child lock is on and there is no way to escape. With all the thoughts rushing through your head, he has reached a destination where he drags you out the car and begins to wrestle you on to the floor to rape and possibly kill you. You are being beaten and forced to cooperate in sexual activity, but there is a sharp object on the floor that saves your life. With no hesitation you puncture the rapist and flee immediately as he sobs in pain. After this traumatic event, there is a great possibility of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can develop following a traumatic event that threatens your safety or makes you feel helpless (Smith, Lawrence, & Segal, 2015). According to Julian D Ford, PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that affects as many as one in 14 adults and adolescence at some time in their lives as many as 1 in 20 children before they begin kindergarten (Ford, Grasso, Elhai, & Courtois, 2015 ).It personally affects those who witness it as well as their family members. Those with occupations that require exposure to traumatic events such as military, emergency workers, and law enforcement officers can
As far back as time goes or at least written record men have gone to war. With a war comes physiological and psychological scars. Physical wounds may heal quickly and be forgotten, but psychological wounds may last a lifetime. In the past society did not understand the effects of war and mental illness nor how to treat it. In this paper, I will discuss the history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), explain the diagnostic description, and describe etiology and treatment for PTSD.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD has been one of the most critical issues for military veterans for decades. Most veterans who deployed have seen or experienced traumatic stressful events which can eventually develop to PTSD. They might not recognize the symptoms of the PTSD. They might not know how to react to the situation and how it can affect them in the long run. Since some of them may not know the symptoms of PTSD; therefore, they might not even know that they have PTSD. On the other hand, those who do know, might keep it to himself or herself secretly and never let anyone know about it. Later on, these symptoms start to get worse and worse and it, finally, is too late to treat these veterans. There are several treatments out there for PTSD. Therapists can use the cognitive psychology to help veterans with PTSD by using cognitive therapy. Cognitive Processing Therapy is one of many therapies that can be used to help veterans to overcome PTSD. Cognitive psychology is a new version of functionalism which was influenced by Gestalt psychology and structuralism and he main perspectives of cognitive psychology focus on the importance of cognitive process or intellectual process, for example, opinion, memory, thinking, and language (Lahey, 2012). Cognitive Therapy can treat PTSD by helping veterans to understand its symptoms, change the way of thinking, and better cope with PTSD.
There is often an expectation that someone who has survived a traumatic event would be happy for being alive. But there are those who have gone through a traumatic event and have developed a condition known as survivor’s guilt and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and are actually unhappy or depressed that they survived. This condition not only affects the survivors, but those around them as well.
Freedom bears a heavy price. Many soldiers pay with their lives, while others relive the sights, sounds, and terror of combat. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affects thousands of American veterans and their families each year. Is PTSD simply a weakness, or is it an epidemic? Though historically, the validity of PTSD was argued, the pain is real, and there is a diagnosis to prove it.
Each year, over three million children and adolescents experience some form of traumatic event in their life (Ray, 2014). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of a traumatic event (Hamblen, 2009). Some of the events that can cause children and adolescents to suffer from PTSD are natural and man-made disasters, violent crimes, rape, or murder of a parent, school shootings, motor vehicle accidents, severe burns, exposure to community violence, war, peer suicide, and sexual and physical abuse. A social worker must assess the biopsychosocial development and other theories to implement an effective plan to evaluate the needs of the individual.