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What Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?

Posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, can occur in anyone who experiences or witnesses a life-threatening event that causes feelings of intense fear and/or helplessness. These events include but are not limited to military combat, acts of terrorism, natural disasters, automobile accidents, and personal attacks such as rape. Because personal attacks, such as rape, happen to females more often, women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD in their lifetime.

Traumatic experiences have an effect on people. It makes it hard to sleep. You may feel detached from everyday life. You may suffer nightmares or flashbacks — the sudden re-experiencing of traumatic memories and emotions. Over the course of a few weeks, these symptoms usually go away. When they don't — or when they later re-emerge — a person is said to have PTSD. About one in three people with PTSD develop a long-lasting form.

PTSD disrupts daily life. It makes it hard to do your job and complicates relationships with family and friends. It often leads to divorce and parenting problems.

PTSD usually isn't a person's only problem. People with PTSD often have trouble with depression, substance abuse and other physical and mental ailments. They are also 6 times more likely to attempt suicide than those persons without PTSD.

What Causes It?

When its life is threatened, every creature on earth does one of two things: fight or run away. Humans are no different. Life threatening experiences flood the brain with potent chemical messengers that warn it of danger and help it act quickly to defend itself. If there's too much of this stimulation, or if it goes on for too long, the brain may suffer side effects. Some of these side effects appear to contribute to PTSD.

People with PTSD have changes in the ways their brains and nervous systems work. There's also a tendency for key stress hormones to get out of whack.

Risk factors that may contribute to PTSD include a family history of anxiety, early separation from parents, earlier childhood abuse or prior trauma.