I worked with a particular patient many years ago who'd had PTSD symptoms for over 20 years.
He'd been a soldier during the troubles in Northern Ireland and had been exposed to a
bomb explosion, where a number of his friends died and he was covered in their bits of body.
He had nightly nightmares for 20 years until he came to see me and we started some treatment
together. In a matter of weeks, all his symptoms had gone away. So, a man who'd been tormented
by his trauma for over two decades, I saw become thoroughly well and that's what impresses
me about the treatment and the hope that no matter how long you've had the symptoms for,
there are effective treatments available, but you need to come forward and ask for help.
Hi my name is Pete and today I want to talk to you about PTSD. Stereotypes that suggest that patients
with PTSD are violent, unpredictable, incompetent, or in some way to blame for their own trauma,
are all really unhelpful. Myths are dangerous because they get in the way of people coming
forward to get help. That's why we've got to challenge these things, that's why we've got
to talk about PTSD and other mental conditions. PTSD stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
It's a mental condition that can happen after significant scary events happen to an individual,
and maybe something like that's happened to you. All of us would be scared if you suddenly have
you're involved in a car crash or someone attacks you, and those responses you have initially are
normal, but if those difficulties last for more than four to six weeks then you may develop PTSD.
PTSD has got a number of symptoms that you may recognise. Your sleep may be disturbed,
you may be on edge, you may have difficulty relaxing, you may be thinking about what's
happened even if you don't want to, and you may be having bad dreams or nightmares about it,
flashbacks, re-experiencing phenomenon as if the trauma is happening again. All of those are
symptoms of PTSD as your brain tries to make sense of the horrible thing that you've been through.
One of the things that stops people coming forward for help is this thing called stigma,
as if you've got a label that makes you unwell or unworthy. That can really stop people coming
forward and getting effective health for mental health conditions. We counteract stigma by having
decent role models, correct stories in the media about what PTSD is, and the fact you
can get better, and be able to talk about it more openly through things like this. There's
very little evidence that anything can protect you from PTSD because the trauma itself is so
utterly overwhelming. It's getting that help early that reduces the long-term consequences of PTSD.
The initial sort of treatment we think about is a talking therapy and that could be
trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or it could be a treatment called EMDR which stands
for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, which is a real mouthful, but it's a psychological
approach to help you process the really difficult memories you've got from the traumatic event,
and it works really well. Most people get better in between eight and twelve sessions.
If you believe someone's got PTSD, saying any of the following is really unhelpful. Telling them
to man up, telling them that they're weak, telling them that they're not deserving of care, that they
brought it upon themselves, all of those things are incredibly unhelpful and you mustn't do.
People will tiptoe around them, they're not going to want to talk about what happened,
they're going to be worried about setting them off into a relapse. You just need to treat them
like a normal person, the husband, the brother, the wife that you already knew. The media has
lots of portrayals of people with PTSD, often soldiers, often police officers, but it can happen
to anybody. It's about being able to support them and invite them to come and get some help. So if
you think someone's struggling with PTSD, there's a number of things that you can do to help them.
The first thing is listen to them, give them some space, give them your attention, your time,
and your support. Then it's about encouraging them to get appropriate help. There's lots of
treatment available, but often people are worried about coming forward to talk about
their traumas and their difficulties, or they're really pessimistic that they won't get better,
and also recognise that because of that high levels of arousal, you need to support them to
find some time, some self-care time, just for them as well. Whether it's you that's
struggling with PTSD or someone that you love, hopefully what we've spoken about today and what
you've heard will put you in a position to come forward and ask for help if it's you,
or to be able to encourage your loved ones to come and get the help they need.