Physical abuse, sexual abuse, the death of a family member, even a car crash are all traumatic experiences that can lead to various, adverse effects and mental illness.
Research has shown that traumatic experiences causes emotional and physical reactions and makes you more prone to numerous different health conditions including heart attack, stroke, obesity, and more
One of the most common issues that people who experience stressful and traumatic situations encounter is post-traumatic stress disorder.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event. These events can occur at any time, but when they occur early in life it can sometimes lead to lifelong problems.
Some of the common symptoms associated with PTSD include:
- Flashbacks of the events
- Negative thought patterns
- Feeling numb emotionally
- Angriness
- Feeling guilty or shameful
A lot of times, these issues can cause more issues to sprout up. For example, one of the common issues that people who deal with PTSD or trauma are affected by is substance abuse.
Substance Abuse
PTSD and substance abuse are two problems that co-occur together often. In fact, 38% of people who abuse alcohol also meet the criteria for a mental health diagnoses. While PTSD can be one of the effects of alcohol use, a lot of times, people with PTSD will turn to using substances in order to cope with the problems that they are dealing with.
There are alcohol treatment options and detox centers available to help patients with substance abuse issues, however, instilling healthy coping mechanisms is an easy way to avoid the issue entirely.
Whether the issue is specifically PTSD, or just a traumatic event in general, there are treatment options available to help people overcome the symptoms and issues that they are dealing with.
What to Do About Trauma
There are many therapy options in place to help people overcome post-traumatic stress disorder.
Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is one of the most popular and effective treatment methods created to help people who have experienced trauma overcome PTSD and the stress symptoms that they are exhibiting.
Studies have shown that up to 90% of single-trauma victims no longer show PTSD symptoms after just three 90-minute EMDR sessions.
Along with EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most common forms of therapy and it has been shown to help with PTSD symptoms. In a review of CBT’s effects on PTSD, it was shown to be one of the more effective forms of therapy for PTSD.
In fact, only 10% of patients still exhibited PTSD after two years.