Essay about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Ptsd Patients

Submitted By Toya-Jacobs
Words: 1140
Pages: 5
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Assignment: Mental Illness Paper
Toya Jacobs
March 20, 2014
HCA/240
Joanne Puia

Working on a military installation I encounter soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. We hear stories of what PTSD is and how it affect people and we see it reenacted time after time on television programs like Lifetime's Army Wives. it was not until my boyfriend returned from deployment to Afghanistan. When he came home he spoke of how he saw things that he would never want his kids to experience. He also stated that no one goes into a war zone and comes back the same person they were before they left. His first few months back very difficult the thing he say during his stint in Afghan haunted him in his sleep and made him very jumpy when we went into public around large crowd of people. Dealing with PTSD was difficult for him to digest at first because he stated that its hard to admit that he did not return home as the same person who left. Many people assume that post-traumatic stress disorder only affects soldiers but it is not limited to soldiers it affects many people for many different reasons. Post traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs after a terrifying event which usually involves physical harm or a threat of some sort. The event that occurs does not have to affect the person directly it could be that the event happened to someone close to them. Events that could potentially cause a person to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder are rape, robbery, torture, being held captive, car accidents, plane crash, bombings, or a natural disaster. Although there is not an exact timeline on when the disorder came about but post-traumatic stress disorder first gain recognition from war veterans. With almost 800,000 American troops who participated in combat during World War II , 37.5 percent displayed severe psychological symptoms that they were permanently discharged. Those numbers are almost the same with the current troops that are being deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, thirty percent of the 2.5 million troops suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many times the disorder goes undetected which has contributed to the amount of suicides suffered from troops who suffer from the disease. A common myth is that all people who experience a traumatic event suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,this is not true not all people who had a traumatic experience will be effected. Statistics show that women are more likely to suffer from than men and adults more than children. Another misconception is that the only weak people suffer from PTSD. The disorder is more common in women because women are more likely to seek help before men. Signs of a person suffering from PTSD include nightmares or recurrent memories, inability to sleep, lost of interest in things that once interest an individual, anger and irritability. Each case of the disorder is different a person can isolate themselves from everyone around them or they can begin lashing out at those close to them. Certain things around an individual can become “triggers” and cause them to remember the traumatic event. One the major signs is the difficulty to get along with family member and friend, they begin to “shut down” in a sense. A person may turn to alternative methods in order to cope with their memories like alcohol, drugs or self violence. The neurotransmitters that are associated with PTSD are the lower levels of the brain that control panic and stress. Those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder have low levels of norepinephrine. Norepinephrine has many role but the one directly linked to PTSD is the “flight or fight” response. The fight or flight response is an individual reaction to a terrifying situation either physically or mentally. With the breakdown of that defense mechanism it may cause a person that suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder to shutdown or potentially avoid situations that would cause
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