Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop after experiencing or witnessing something extremely frightening, distressing or threatening. Although it is associated with events such as war and serious accidents, PTSD can follow many different experiences, including assault, abuse, medical emergencies, traumatic childbirth or the sudden loss of someone in traumatic circumstances.
Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. It is common to experience distress, disrupted sleep, intrusive memories or feeling unusually alert following a traumatic event. For many people, these reactions gradually reduce. PTSD is different because symptoms persist and can begin to interfere significantly with everyday life.
What Is PTSD?
PTSD is a recognised mental health condition associated with exposure to trauma. Symptoms may begin soon after an event, but this is not always the case. For some people, difficulties become apparent months or even years later.
PTSD is not simply remembering something upsetting. A person may intellectually know that an event is over while still experiencing powerful emotional and physical reactions to reminders of what happened.
This can make ordinary situations feel unexpectedly difficult. A sound, smell, location, conversation or physical sensation may trigger a response before the person has consciously recognised the connection with their past experience.
Common Symptoms of PTSD
PTSD can affect people differently, but symptoms commonly involve several areas.
Re-experiencing the trauma can include unwanted memories, nightmares, intrusive images or flashbacks. During a flashback, aspects of the traumatic experience can feel extremely immediate rather than like something safely located in the past.
Avoidance may develop as someone tries to stay away from thoughts, conversations, people, places or situations associated with what happened. Avoidance can bring short-term relief but may gradually make a person’s life increasingly restricted.
Changes in mood and thinking can include guilt, shame, anger, emotional numbness, negative beliefs about yourself or other people, and difficulty feeling connected to things that previously mattered.
Feeling constantly on guard is another common feature. Someone may feel jumpy, irritable or unusually aware of possible danger. Concentration and sleep can become difficult, and relaxing may feel surprisingly hard.
Some people also experience dissociation, including feeling disconnected from themselves, their surroundings or what is happening around them.
What Can Cause PTSD?
PTSD can follow a single traumatic incident or exposure to several traumatic experiences. Examples include serious accidents, physical or sexual assault, childhood abuse, domestic abuse, serious illness, medical procedures, traumatic childbirth, witnessing violence and experiences connected with war or conflict.
What matters is not simply the type of event. People can experience apparently similar situations and respond very differently afterwards.
Trauma can affect our sense of safety, trust and control. For some people, the effects are mainly connected with memories of a particular event. For others, especially where trauma has been repeated or occurred within important relationships, the effects can become more widespread.
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Explore the Best Trauma BooksPTSD and Complex PTSD
PTSD and complex PTSD (CPTSD) share a number of symptoms, but they are not identical.
Complex PTSD is particularly associated with prolonged or repeated traumatic experiences. Alongside PTSD symptoms, people may experience persistent difficulties managing emotions, maintaining relationships and how they see themselves.
Understanding this distinction can be useful because trauma does not affect everyone in exactly the same way. The circumstances surrounding what happened, how long it continued, and the person’s experiences before and after can all matter.
How PTSD Can Affect Everyday Life
PTSD can extend well beyond memories of the original event.
Someone might avoid travelling, struggle in relationships, find certain environments difficult or become exhausted from constantly monitoring what is happening around them. Sleep difficulties can affect energy and concentration, while irritability or emotional withdrawal may affect relationships.
Triggers are not always obvious either. Sometimes a person notices the reaction before understanding what has caused it.
This is one reason PTSD can feel confusing. A reaction that seems excessive in the present may make more sense once you understand its connection to a traumatic experience.
Can PTSD Be Treated?
Yes. PTSD can be treated, including when the traumatic experience happened many years ago.
Treatment should be appropriate to the individual and their circumstances. NICE recommends trauma-focused psychological therapies for PTSD, including trauma-focused CBT and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).
EMDR is a structured psychological therapy designed to help people process distressing memories and reduce the intensity of the reactions associated with them. Treatment is not about erasing the past or pretending an event did not matter. The aim is for traumatic memories to become less disturbing and less able to dominate the present.
The appropriate approach will depend on the person’s symptoms, history, current circumstances and therapeutic needs.
Moving Forward After PTSD
Recovery from PTSD does not mean forgetting what happened. For many people, it means reaching a point where the past feels more firmly located in the past.
Memories may remain, but they do not necessarily have to carry the same emotional intensity or control everyday decisions.
Understanding PTSD can itself be an important starting point. Reactions that once seemed confusing can begin to make more sense when viewed in the context of trauma, and effective psychological treatments are available for people who want support processing what they have experienced.
