.jpg)
"I suffered the violence the week before Christmas and I can't believe the anxiety and terror I feel every year around the anniversary date. It's like I see an angry wolf. I can't relax, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. I want to see no one. I wonder if I will ever be free from this terrible problem "
"On every social occasion, I felt fear. I was anxious before I even left the house, and this feeling intensified as I approached a lecture at the university, a party, or whatever. I was sick to my stomach as if I had the flu. My heart was pounding, my palms became sweaty and I had this feeling of detachment from myself and everyone else. "
"When I walked into a room full of people, I went red and felt like I had everyone's eyes on me. I felt embarrassed to stand in a corner alone but couldn't think of anything to say to someone . It was humiliating. I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't wait to leave. "
"I'm scared to death of even the idea of flying and I will never do it again. I begin to fear a plane trip a month before I have to leave. It's a terrible feeling when the airplane hatch closes and I feel trapped. My heart is beating fast and I sweat a lot. When the airplane starts to climb, the feeling of not being able to get out has strengthened. When I think about flying, I see myself losing control, going crazy and climbing walls, but of course I've never done such a thing. I'm not afraid to crash. or turbulence but that feeling of being stuck Every time I thought about changing jobs, I thought, "Will I be asked to fly?"
"Currently I only go to places where I can drive or catch a train. My friends always point out that I can't even get off a high-speed train, so why don't trains bother me? I just say it's not. of a rational fear. "
These three statements made by people who have experienced or it would be better to say suffered traumatic events suggest the extent of the stresses suffered and their consequences. Let's go into a little more detail:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is similar to "acute stress disorder" with the difference that in this case the symptoms last for more than a month and differ in some details.
I'm:- persistent memories of the traumatic event through nightmares, images, thoughts or perceptions;
- feeling of reliving the moment as if it were really coming back (there may also be flashbacks, hallucinations, illusions, episodes of dissociation);
- intense discomfort at the sight of something that can remember what happened, such as a place or a person;
- avoidance of thoughts, feelings, places and people that remember the trauma;
- avoiding conversations about trauma;
- inability to remember relevant aspects of the event;
- decreased interest in activities in general;
- feeling of detachment towards others (difficulty in feeling towards them);
- feeling of no longer having future prospects.
Other symptoms:
- Irritability, difficulty sleeping, poor concentration, alertness and restlessness.
The idea that catastrophes or experiences of considerable emotional impact can cause characteristic symptoms has been known for some time. The non-medical descriptions of these phenomena are certainly older than the various diagnostic categories. Only in 1980, with the drafting of the DSM-III, was it introduced a specific diagnostic category for these clinical pictures, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on the basis of a "hypothesis supported by various studies, in particular by those conducted on veterans of the Vietnam War. Psychic disorders resulting from the experience of an extreme event (aggressions, wars, natural and technological disasters, concentration and extermination camps) were quite characteristic, specific and constant, both on the etiological and phenomenological levels, to justify the construction of a rubric in the classification of mental disorders.
It is also known that post traumatic stress disorder can be particularly severe and prolonged when the stressful event is conceived by the man and in this case it can easily be induced that the symptoms will be very marked and lasting. This means that for a long time many people will be virtually disabled as the symptoms of PTSD can be very devastating.
The concept of PTSD has thus taken the place of the older one of traumatic neurosis or post-traumatic neurosis. Contrary to what was believed in the past, "exposure to extreme stressor is not the" conditio sine qua non "for the development of PTSD. In DSM-IV there is no longer the" catastrophic "quantitative threshold in criterion A that defines the event. traumatic. "Exposure to an event" outside the "usual human experience" is no longer necessary to diagnose PTSD. A growing body of data has in fact underlined the importance of risk factors such as genetic predisposition, psychiatric familiarity, age at the time of exposure to stressor, personality traits, past behavioral and psychological problems, exposure to previous stressful events. 19 percent of people with post-traumatic stress disorder who have never required treatment or who are not aware of the disease are at high risk of suicide. This disorder also occurs in association with some medical diseases, for example hypertension. bronchial asthma and peptic ulcer, or with other psychopathological disorders, for example depression, generalized anxiety disorder and substance abuse disorders.
Edited by Dr. Giovanni Chetta
