by Tonya Kirkpatrick

Created on: May 26, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs after a traumatic event. This situation will cause you to experience anxiety attacks even. Symptoms that occur with post traumatic stress disorder are you may feel like the event has rendered you helpless and makes you feel as if you will never be normal again. There are 3 types of symptoms you may experience,
1) Re-Experiencing the traumatic event. You may experience nightmares, or flashbacks. You may even have recollections of this event.

2) Avoiding The Traumatic Event. In this case you will try to avoid anything that might make you recall the event. You will try to push all ideas of the event out of your mind by focusing on another aspect of your life.
3)Increased Arousal. This is where you constantly feel like you are in danger of this event of reoccurring again. You live in fear of what will happen to you if you step outside of your comfort zone. You may not be able to relax until you get in control of the situation and your fears.

When you are deciding whether or not you will need help with your situation there are a few things you may want to take into consideration. Some people feel that their situation is not bad enough to seek help. Other reasons some people do not get help dealing with their traumatic event is that they do not trust a therapist or they may not have enough money to cover the expense of seeking a therapist and can not pay for it. Or you may just feel funny or weird thinking that you need to go to a complete stranger to talk about what is bothering you.

There are numerous types of treatments. There are types of counseling you might want to try. You could look into types of therapies. Cognitive Therapy is where you are taught to modify the way you think and look at the traumatic event. You will be taught to separate the fact from the fiction.

Another type of therapy is Exposure therapy. In this type of therapy you will be placed into a place that you feel safe and will be asked to speak about this particular traumatic event and be asked to talk about it over and over again until you are not fearful over the event.

Another is Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing where you concentrate and focus in on distractions like hand movements and sounds until you feel safe about what you are talking about.

Another approach you might be asked to try is to get on a anti-depressant to help with what you are dealing with. There are numerous types of anti-depressants that you may have to take until you find

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