Howdy

You feel on edge. Nightmares keep coming back. Sudden noises make you jump. You’re staying at home more and more. Could you have PTSD?

If you have experienced severe trauma or a life-threatening event, you may develop symptoms of posttraumatic stress, commonly known as posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD, shell shock, or combat stress. Maybe you felt like your life or the lives of others were in danger, or that you had no control over what was happening. You may have witnessed people being injured or dying, or you may have been physically harmed yourself.

Some of the most common symptoms of PTSD include recurring memories or nightmares of the event(s), sleeplessness, loss of interest, or feeling numb, anger, and irritability, but there are many ways PTSD can impact your everyday life.

Sometimes these symptoms don’t surface for months or years after the event or returning from deployment. They may also come and go. If these problems won’t go away or are getting worse—or you feel like they are disrupting your daily life—you may have PTSD.

Some factors can increase the likelihood of a traumatic event leading to PTSD, such as:

* The intensity of the trauma

* Being hurt or losing a loved one

* Being physically close to the traumatic event

* Feeling you were not in control

* Having a lack of support after the event

What are the signs of PTSD?Back to Top

“Driving down the roads in my home town, I found myself noticing every piece of debris, avoiding every pothole.”

A wide variety of symptoms may be signs you are experiencing PTSD:

* Feeling upset by things that remind you of what happened

* Having nightmares, vivid memories, or flashbacks of the event that make you feel like it’s happening all over again

* Feeling emotionally cut off from others

* Feeling numb or losing interest in things you used to care about

* Becoming depressed

* Thinking that you are always in danger

* Feeling anxious, jittery, or irritated

*...