Kazimiera
05-10-2012, 10:17 PM
Living with post traumatic stress disorder
http://www.everybody.co.nz/page-f90a9b2f-0e5d-425b-bae6-02cdf32ee826.aspx
It is perfectly natural to be distressed after a major trauma and you need not feel guilty about this, even if others seem to be coping better. It is common for the mind to protect itself by cutting off from emotions, leaving you feeling numb or empty. But it is also natural for the mind and heart to heal. Everyone who experiences a trauma will respond in a different way and recover at their own pace.
Some traumas cause your life to change in unavoidable ways. For example, if you are in a car crash that kills family members, clearly life is not going to return to what was normal before the crash. But even with this tragedy, your pain and distress should lessen with time – it may take months or years – for you to be able to sleep at night and concentrate on what you are doing in the daytime but you should eventually be able to see a future.
If you have already had PTSD for years, you might have come to believe that it will never end. It is important to seek help before accepting that you will never have a good life again. Treatment can speed recovery by assisting you to clarify your thoughts and actions and encouraging you to move forward with your life, leaving behind you some of the destructive strategies you may have used to support yourself.
Approximately half of those with PTSD recover within three months. Many others have persisting symptoms that come and go, sometimes reactivated by reminders or anniversaries of the traumatic event.
Living through PTSD can be an overwhelming, frightening, isolating and debilitating experience. People with PTSD may feel intense fear. They may feel their world has fallen apart, that everything is black and nothing makes sense. Worse still, they can often lose hope or the belief that they can recover and lead a worthwhile life. There is often confusion and shame around the period of time it appears to take to get over a traumatic episode that has left others seemingly unscathed.
But those people who have come through episodes of mental illness are able to look back and see how temporary their loss of hope was. Everyone with a mental illness can lead a worthwhile life, even if it is not quite the life they had planned.
Discrimination and stigma
Many people feel ashamed of having PTSD and often try to hide it, as they can sense other people’s fear and prejudice. Media coverage can give the wrong impression that people with mental illness are likely to be violent.
Workmates and friends may turn their backs on a person they know who has mental illness. Even families and whanau and mental health workers can be over-anxious or controlling about the lives of people with PTSD. None of this helps. Sometimes the discrimination feels worse than the illness itself.
Support and information
People with PTSD often do better if they seek support people who are caring, non-judgmental and see their potential. Some get their best support from others who have been through the same kind of experience. Other people find a counsellor or another type of mental health worker who is supportive. Or their friends and family or whanau may offer good support.
People with PTSD can make more informed choices if they educate themselves about their condition and the types of treatment and support that are available. It’s also useful to know about your rights.
Using services
Many people with PTSD go to see their GP or counsellor or are referred to mental health services.
If you fear you might harm or kill yourself it is vital that you seek help immediately.
Sometimes it is hard for people with PTSD to seek help because they feel ashamed and want to hide their distress. People with PTSD may not be aware that what they have is a mental illness that is treatable and from which they can recover. They can find asking for help scary and they may not even know what they are asking for help with.
People with mental illness often say the best services are ones where they are listened to, treated as equals and are given support or treatment that works for them. Otherwise, the service is unlikely to meet their needs.
Recovery
Many of those with PTSD will make a complete recovery. But, even if you continue to experience PTSD symptoms, you can still live a happy and worthwhile life.
Important strategies for recovery
Be with other people immediately after the traumatic event if you can and talk about it if you feel able to.
If appropriate, do something positive to help other people caught up in the traumatic event. Simple practical help can stop you feeling helpless.
Take care when driving or operating machinery as your concentration may be poor if you are feeling ‘shaken up’.
Take exercise to help ‘burn up’ tension.
Avoid caffeine and other stimulants as they may make sleep difficult.
Seek help if your symptoms endure for weeks or if you have not been able to return to a reasonably normal life within six months. ACC funds individual counselling for people with PTSD. Your general practitioner can advise as to whether you might need medication or referral to counselling.
Have access to information to help you make sense of what has happened and know what to expect. Being involved in decisions is the best way to ensure you can make informed choices about what is best for you.
Receive treatment and support from people you trust, who expect the best for you and are able to accept how you are at any time.
Find ways of coping that work best for you. These are different for each person, but are a critical step towards helping overcome PTSD. Honour those ways of coping and don’t give yourself a hard time.
Have the continuing support of family or whanau and friends who know about the condition and what they can do to support you.
Take the opportunity to recuperate – take time out to relax, but also feel encouraged to become more active as you are able.
Do something enjoyable each day and try to focus on positive thoughts and memories. Try to make sure your physical and spiritual needs are met.
Take the opportunity to get help from a culturally appropriate self-help group or therapy programme. Sharing with others who experience PTSD can be a great relief, especially if you have been keeping your problems to yourself. People who have had similar experiences can often understand you in a way that family and whanau can’t.
Family and whanau views WHANAU: Maori word for "extended family"
Families and whanau often experience real grief, isolation, powerlessness and fear as they witness their loved one struggling with PTSD. During a crisis they may find that they can’t understand the person’s feelings or behaviour.
Even after a crisis they may find their relative withdrawn or hard to be around. Their feeling for their relative can swing from compassion for their pain, to grief at the loss of the person they once knew, to hostility towards their relative for disrupting their lives. Families and whanau often live through all this without support from their community or from mental health services.
Discrimination and stigma
Families and whanau may feel shame or embarrassment about their relative. They may shut themselves off from their friends and neighbours or feel that these people are avoiding them.
Support and information - family and whanau
Families and whanau often feel drained and stressed and need support to look after themselves as well as their relative with PTSD. Their other family or whanau relationships can get neglected when the needs of the person with PTSD have to take priority.
There are several ways family and whanau can get support. They can get in touch with other families and whanau who have had similar experiences. Some mental health services provide good support options for families and whanau.
Experiences with services
Families and whanau frequently find that services do not listen to their views about their relative. Professionals may not always give families and whanau any information about their relative, particularly if they are an adult and don’t want their family or whanau to know the information. Ideally families and whanau who are involved in caring for someone with PTSD need to be able to communicate freely with professionals about their relative.
Recovery
Most families and whanau want to help their relative recover. Unfortunately, sometimes the person with mental illness blames their family or whanau and does not want them to be involved in their care.
Important strategies to support recovery
Family, whanau and close friends of someone with PTSD have found the following strategies important and useful.
In the early days after the trauma give the person time and space to be alone if needed. As time goes by, encourage them to get back into life again, but never force them. Try to make sure they get the help they need.
Learn what you can about PTSD, its treatment and what you can do to assist recovery. Sometimes the person with PTSD finds it difficult to explain to others how hard it is for them, or they may have trouble understanding what is happening to them and their behaviour.
Do not blame the person for having PTSD. Understand the symptoms for what they are, rather than taking them personally or seeing the person as being difficult.
Help the person to recognise stress and find ways of coping with it. This may include helping to solve problems that are worrying them.
Find ways of getting time out for yourself and feeling okay about this. It is critical to do what is needed to maintain your own wellbeing.
Don’t overlook any situation or suggestion from the person experiencing PTSD that they are suicidal and wanting to end their life. Get support for this immediately.
http://www.everybody.co.nz/page-f90a9b2f-0e5d-425b-bae6-02cdf32ee826.aspx
It is perfectly natural to be distressed after a major trauma and you need not feel guilty about this, even if others seem to be coping better. It is common for the mind to protect itself by cutting off from emotions, leaving you feeling numb or empty. But it is also natural for the mind and heart to heal. Everyone who experiences a trauma will respond in a different way and recover at their own pace.
Some traumas cause your life to change in unavoidable ways. For example, if you are in a car crash that kills family members, clearly life is not going to return to what was normal before the crash. But even with this tragedy, your pain and distress should lessen with time – it may take months or years – for you to be able to sleep at night and concentrate on what you are doing in the daytime but you should eventually be able to see a future.
If you have already had PTSD for years, you might have come to believe that it will never end. It is important to seek help before accepting that you will never have a good life again. Treatment can speed recovery by assisting you to clarify your thoughts and actions and encouraging you to move forward with your life, leaving behind you some of the destructive strategies you may have used to support yourself.
Approximately half of those with PTSD recover within three months. Many others have persisting symptoms that come and go, sometimes reactivated by reminders or anniversaries of the traumatic event.
Living through PTSD can be an overwhelming, frightening, isolating and debilitating experience. People with PTSD may feel intense fear. They may feel their world has fallen apart, that everything is black and nothing makes sense. Worse still, they can often lose hope or the belief that they can recover and lead a worthwhile life. There is often confusion and shame around the period of time it appears to take to get over a traumatic episode that has left others seemingly unscathed.
But those people who have come through episodes of mental illness are able to look back and see how temporary their loss of hope was. Everyone with a mental illness can lead a worthwhile life, even if it is not quite the life they had planned.
Discrimination and stigma
Many people feel ashamed of having PTSD and often try to hide it, as they can sense other people’s fear and prejudice. Media coverage can give the wrong impression that people with mental illness are likely to be violent.
Workmates and friends may turn their backs on a person they know who has mental illness. Even families and whanau and mental health workers can be over-anxious or controlling about the lives of people with PTSD. None of this helps. Sometimes the discrimination feels worse than the illness itself.
Support and information
People with PTSD often do better if they seek support people who are caring, non-judgmental and see their potential. Some get their best support from others who have been through the same kind of experience. Other people find a counsellor or another type of mental health worker who is supportive. Or their friends and family or whanau may offer good support.
People with PTSD can make more informed choices if they educate themselves about their condition and the types of treatment and support that are available. It’s also useful to know about your rights.
Using services
Many people with PTSD go to see their GP or counsellor or are referred to mental health services.
If you fear you might harm or kill yourself it is vital that you seek help immediately.
Sometimes it is hard for people with PTSD to seek help because they feel ashamed and want to hide their distress. People with PTSD may not be aware that what they have is a mental illness that is treatable and from which they can recover. They can find asking for help scary and they may not even know what they are asking for help with.
People with mental illness often say the best services are ones where they are listened to, treated as equals and are given support or treatment that works for them. Otherwise, the service is unlikely to meet their needs.
Recovery
Many of those with PTSD will make a complete recovery. But, even if you continue to experience PTSD symptoms, you can still live a happy and worthwhile life.
Important strategies for recovery
Be with other people immediately after the traumatic event if you can and talk about it if you feel able to.
If appropriate, do something positive to help other people caught up in the traumatic event. Simple practical help can stop you feeling helpless.
Take care when driving or operating machinery as your concentration may be poor if you are feeling ‘shaken up’.
Take exercise to help ‘burn up’ tension.
Avoid caffeine and other stimulants as they may make sleep difficult.
Seek help if your symptoms endure for weeks or if you have not been able to return to a reasonably normal life within six months. ACC funds individual counselling for people with PTSD. Your general practitioner can advise as to whether you might need medication or referral to counselling.
Have access to information to help you make sense of what has happened and know what to expect. Being involved in decisions is the best way to ensure you can make informed choices about what is best for you.
Receive treatment and support from people you trust, who expect the best for you and are able to accept how you are at any time.
Find ways of coping that work best for you. These are different for each person, but are a critical step towards helping overcome PTSD. Honour those ways of coping and don’t give yourself a hard time.
Have the continuing support of family or whanau and friends who know about the condition and what they can do to support you.
Take the opportunity to recuperate – take time out to relax, but also feel encouraged to become more active as you are able.
Do something enjoyable each day and try to focus on positive thoughts and memories. Try to make sure your physical and spiritual needs are met.
Take the opportunity to get help from a culturally appropriate self-help group or therapy programme. Sharing with others who experience PTSD can be a great relief, especially if you have been keeping your problems to yourself. People who have had similar experiences can often understand you in a way that family and whanau can’t.
Family and whanau views WHANAU: Maori word for "extended family"
Families and whanau often experience real grief, isolation, powerlessness and fear as they witness their loved one struggling with PTSD. During a crisis they may find that they can’t understand the person’s feelings or behaviour.
Even after a crisis they may find their relative withdrawn or hard to be around. Their feeling for their relative can swing from compassion for their pain, to grief at the loss of the person they once knew, to hostility towards their relative for disrupting their lives. Families and whanau often live through all this without support from their community or from mental health services.
Discrimination and stigma
Families and whanau may feel shame or embarrassment about their relative. They may shut themselves off from their friends and neighbours or feel that these people are avoiding them.
Support and information - family and whanau
Families and whanau often feel drained and stressed and need support to look after themselves as well as their relative with PTSD. Their other family or whanau relationships can get neglected when the needs of the person with PTSD have to take priority.
There are several ways family and whanau can get support. They can get in touch with other families and whanau who have had similar experiences. Some mental health services provide good support options for families and whanau.
Experiences with services
Families and whanau frequently find that services do not listen to their views about their relative. Professionals may not always give families and whanau any information about their relative, particularly if they are an adult and don’t want their family or whanau to know the information. Ideally families and whanau who are involved in caring for someone with PTSD need to be able to communicate freely with professionals about their relative.
Recovery
Most families and whanau want to help their relative recover. Unfortunately, sometimes the person with mental illness blames their family or whanau and does not want them to be involved in their care.
Important strategies to support recovery
Family, whanau and close friends of someone with PTSD have found the following strategies important and useful.
In the early days after the trauma give the person time and space to be alone if needed. As time goes by, encourage them to get back into life again, but never force them. Try to make sure they get the help they need.
Learn what you can about PTSD, its treatment and what you can do to assist recovery. Sometimes the person with PTSD finds it difficult to explain to others how hard it is for them, or they may have trouble understanding what is happening to them and their behaviour.
Do not blame the person for having PTSD. Understand the symptoms for what they are, rather than taking them personally or seeing the person as being difficult.
Help the person to recognise stress and find ways of coping with it. This may include helping to solve problems that are worrying them.
Find ways of getting time out for yourself and feeling okay about this. It is critical to do what is needed to maintain your own wellbeing.
Don’t overlook any situation or suggestion from the person experiencing PTSD that they are suicidal and wanting to end their life. Get support for this immediately.