The Naturalization of Fear after a Trauma

A depressed mood, physical symptoms like pain, sweating, nausea, or trembling, feeling jumpy or startled, acting, having intrusive thoughts or images, nightmares, feeling intense distress at actual or symbolic reminders of the trauma, etc.

These are typical signs of a failure to recuperate after going through or seeing a traumatic experience. The majority of people get over their first symptoms; but, if they continue to have problems, they may be labeled with PTSD.

A single or recurring occurrence that has a damaging effect on a person's mental health might result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a serious mental illness. The event's traumatic aspect is tied to the sensation of one's powerlessness brought on by an inability to react enough in a risky circumstance.

A specific type of PTSD called "Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" (C-PTSD or CPTSD), also known as Complex Traumatic Disorder or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, can arise from symptoms of repeated trauma in a situation where the victim had little to no chance to stop being a victim.

Several defining symptoms of PTSD continue for more than a month after the psychological trauma, including psychopathological re-experiencing (flashbacks), avoiding situations that can trigger memories of the trauma, nightmares, and elevated levels of anxiety. Amnesia, or the inability to recall the traumatic incident, can occur along with dissociative symptoms. PTSD symptoms may emerge right after following the trauma or long after the horrific incident. Depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, addictions, suicidal ideation, and hostility are a few of the issues that PTSD can cause. The clinical manifestation of PTSD in kids and teenagers varies on their age.

There is a wide range in PTSD severity. The capacity to perform in the workplace and the area of interpersonal interactions endures in cases of moderate PTSD. In the worst situations, the patient is unable to carry out routine functions; his state resembles a long-term mental disease. Such patients may be given a schizophrenia diagnosis.

Although anyone can get PTSD at any age, the majority of people do not experience PTSD following severe occurrences. The likelihood of developing PTSD depends on the seriousness of the injury, the person's circumstances, psychological, and biological (including genetic makeup). PTSD causes the brain, neurological, and endocrine systems to work and can have a detrimental effect on a person's physical health.

The method through which traumatic information is stored in memory is very different from that of routine events. Significant deviations from the brain's typical pattern of information processing exist in this situation. Because of this, in the future, anything that even resembles a traumatic event “trigger” will cause an immediate defensive reaction in the entire organism, sometimes without one's reaction to it being understood.

Additionally, the repetition of traumatic memories will be interpreted as an actual threat that exists "now" and not in the past. Traumatic memories (unlike ordinary memories) manifest regardless of the person's wishes because of the way that information about trauma is stored in brain structures, in the form of flashbacks or nightmares. While trying to stop thinking about the incident, it is nonetheless impossible. New information does not alter traumatic recollections. For instance, a person might have believed that he would die at the moment of the incident. In the future, he understands that he is safe and living, but when the traumatic memory is triggered, he experiences extreme fear once more, as if his life were in danger.

Even though the current circumstance does not resemble a trauma, the body is nonetheless under chronic stress. The person associates every new circumstance with the original experience. He can mimic the defensive responses that occurred when the first injury occurred. His protective responses as a result become rigid and ineffective under the new circumstances. It is difficult to control emotions and impossible to use logic to examine the issue when the conscious part of the brain is inhibited by the brain’s heightened emotional activity.