PTSD: Disorder of the Unknown
Mental health and the variety of disorders associated with the same has been lacking attention in many countries for centuries now. Ignorance of such morbid conditions such as PTSD, among others that threatens almost 15–18 % of the world population. Many will be surprised to know that in some countries until the 1960s. Mentally disturbed people depressed, schizophrenic, or otherwise were thrown into Asylums or worse, were treated by drowning and incoherent exorcisms. As we know, people fear something that they don’t understand.
PTSD stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, A severe mental health condition triggered when an individual experiences a traumatic incident or has been a part of exceptionally life-threatening events or in high-stress situations. These are the instances that leave a mental mark on the concerned individual and have the chance to suffer from long-term symptoms and effects such as panic attacks, hyperventilation, extreme sweating, shivering, shaking, flashbacks and nightmares.
There are millions of reasons as an answer to why and how, including military confrontation (A significant population of soldiers suffers from the same and, the numbers have shot up due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), Personal Assaults, Terrorist attacks, Sexual Abuse, Natural Disasters, loss of a loved one and more. There are plenty of stages people suffer from, but what’s important is to not be in denial and in some cases, the inability to recognize the disorder. The 21st century is learning to normalize all types of mental issues and spreading awareness to the primordial fact that it is indeed not shameful to seek help.
Biologically speaking, some details regarding PTSD remains in the fog as to why certain people get affected and why certain people don’t, even if both had gone through the same traumatic event and, we know about the hormone responses that differ from one person to another and hence is known as one of the biological reasons of the disorder.
Early recognition and consulting a psychologist to decide the course of treatment that involves psychotherapy is one of the best-proven ways to avoid complicating the symptoms and treatment of the same. Specially tailored therapy sessions are being assigned to a suffering individual like Cognitive processing therapy- creates a new perspective to look at things, exposure therapy — mental confrontations of the same traumatic event by talking about it and in some cases medications are used which is strictly prescribed by the doctor like some of the anti-depressants among others.
We need a society with a sound mind which is achievable by spreading awareness about such unevolved topics which need addressing. It took more than a millennium for countries with such large populations and economic advancement to identify, plan, normalize, and begin the fight.
Countries like India have recently been taking mental health as seriously as they should due to the sudden up count of suicides in the Global Covid Lockdown. Our responsibility we as a voice need to do is to make sure that mental health disorders like PTSD, schizophrenia, and more cases don’t go undetected, educate people and children around you who lacks the sense to understand the importance of the same before we lose any more people, include certain topics which are nevertheless considered sensitive such as these to be part of the curriculum of the education so that to let the future leaders the truth before corrupting their minds with myths and before it comes too late to do anything.
