Post Traumatic Depression

Post traumatic depression, also known as post traumatic stress disorder, often manifests after a situation where people are often left feeling unable to cope with the happenings of a traumatic incident.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an extremely serious, potentially life-altering stress disorder that can take effect after a given person is exposed to any event that results in psychological trauma. The PTSD-inducing incident can either happen to the original suffer or, to someone they see or know.

PTSD symptoms

Generally, PTSD symptoms include chronic flashbacks or nightmares involving the original incident. This in turn often causes sufferers post traumatic depression and to avoid everything that is related to the original trauma and increased bouts of sleep problems, anger and hyper vigilance.

Numerous studies have indicated that PTSD is far more likely to occur as a result of a physical or psychological trauma than by natural disasters. These physical or psychological traumas can be anything from witnessed physical, emotional and sexual abuse, to experiencing any life-threatening events.

Common symptoms of PTSD include:

• Post traumatic depression and hopelessness
• Suicidal thoughts and feelings
• Feeling alienated and alone
• Physical aches and pains
• Anger and irritability
• Guilt, shame, or self-blame
• Substance abuse
• Feelings of mistrust and betrayal

Treatment for PTSD

Via HelpGuide.org, here are the available treatment options for anyone suffering from PTSD and post traumatic depression:

• Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy for PTSD and trauma involves carefully and gradually “exposing” yourself to thoughts, feelings, and situations that remind you of the trauma. Therapy also involves identifying upsetting thoughts about the traumatic event–particularly thoughts that are distorted and irrational—and replacing them with more balanced picture.
• Family therapy. Since PTSD affects both you and those close to you, family therapy can be especially productive. Family therapy can help your loved ones understand what you’re going through. It can also help everyone in the family communicate better and work through relationship problems.
• Medication. Medication is sometimes prescribed to people with PTSD to relieve secondary symptoms of post traumatic depression or anxiety. Antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft are the medications most commonly used for PTSD. While antidepressants may help you feel less sad, worried, or on edge, they do not treat the causes of PTSD.
• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR incorporates elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy with eye movements or other forms of rhythmic, left-right stimulation, such as hand taps or sounds. Eye movements and other bilateral forms of stimulation are thought to work by “unfreezing” the brain’s information processing system, which is interrupted in times of extreme stress, leaving only frozen emotional fragments which retain their original intensity. Once EMDR frees these fragments of the trauma, they can be integrated into a cohesive memory and processed.