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People can have many different experiences post-trauma including: fear, dread of people, places and situations, recall of traumatic events, flashbacks, dreams or nightmares, intrusive visions or thoughts during the day, can lead to phobias, panic and anxiety attacks, impending danger, held back from doing normal everyday activities.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, is among only a few mental disorders that are triggered by a disturbing outside event, quite unlike other psychiatric disorders such as depression. Many people experience individual traumatic events ranging from car and airplane accidents to sexual assault and domestic violence. Other experiences, including those associated with natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes, affect multiple people simultaneously. PTSD is a state in which you "can't stop remembering."

Children are exposed to various forms of traumatic events and violence and question whether someone is trying to hurt them. They want to know what's wrong with them. Someone their trust may betray that trust, for example, if a child is sexually abused by a parent or trusted caregiver or authority figure.

Children know what's going on in their environments, even if parents don't think they do. Children can pick up on our feelings, whether it’s stress over a traumatic event or worries about a parent losing a job. Children notice the subtle, outward signs, both happy and sad. How parents react to a trauma often affects how the children are going to react.

Treatment of children should include the involvement of parents and other important people such as teachers, school counselors, and mentors in the child’s life. Treatment of traumatic stress in adults is generally focused on individual treatment or group therapy with other individual adults who have experienced a similar type of trauma.

 

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Programs are currently being developed and will soon be available

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