Hello, it's Dr Beth Colby, psychiatrist from Talk Mental Health YouTube channel.
Following my mental health news round talk last week on the alarm over surge in
suicides by veterans of the Afghanistan conflict, and also my video on anxiety,
I'd like to talk to you today about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is an
anxiety disorder. All of us suffer from traumatic events from time to time,
whether it being in a car crash or seeing a car crash, seeing people unwell
and going into an ambulance, having news of a relative or a friend
who's got a sudden illness or suddenly died, or being given bad news ourselves
about our own health. People generally will have processed these things, maybe
not come to terms with them, but processed the actual event of being told
or seen the traumatic occurrence, within a month or six weeks. We may feel a sense
of grief, of anger, of guilt. We may live through the events in our minds, not be
able to sleep, have nightmares, and this is the way of the brain processing the
information and the emotions. The way I think of it is the brain all these times
it's going through our heads, the brain's deciding where to log in our minds the
various different events to make sense of it all. However, one in three people
who suffer from a traumatic event will go on to to get Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder with the symptoms continuing on. People from certain groups may be more
at risk of getting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, like soldiers,
firefighters, ambulance personnel, because of the horrific things that they
have witnessed, and also people who have suffered from torture. The first main symptom
of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is flashbacks, with nightmares and intrusive
images. A flashback is where somebody relives the situation as it was when it
happened; so people can see, smell, hear, taste and feel the emotions of the event.
It's not necessarily having a video of the whole event going through people's
minds, although it could be, but they may see parts of what they saw then, or
have the odd image come into their head. This is obviously very distressing, and
very difficult to live with. People can experience nightmares as well, their
sleep is affected and they're being more tired in the morning, and therefore more
likely to be irritable and grumpy. People try to cope with these horrific images
in their mind or nightmares at night by avoiding certain situations that may
trigger the flashbacks. So it could be some place that reminds them of what
happened, or a smell or a sound of something. They may also try to numb
themselves emotionally from what's going on around them, and this will lead to
relationship difficulties in their social group and in their family. And
people also try and keep very, very busy, just to stop their mind from thinking
about the traumatic thing that happened. Of course, avoidance doesn't
sort everything out - it leads to its own problems, but flashbacks can occur at
any time of day or night, if people are awake, and anywhere as well. This may
lead to what we call hyper-vigilance, where people are always on alert,
and may be jumpy if there's a loud noise or something that may remind
them of the event. They become irritable, have symptoms, physical and emotional
symptoms, of anxiety, panic and fear. And all that adrenaline and cortisol going
around in their body, makes them constantly ready for the
'fight-or-flight' response. Before I go on to give a case history of somebody who
had, unfortunately had a fatal end to his post-traumatic stress disorder, I'd
like to introduce two other terms. One is delayed onset Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder, and that is where the symptoms start over six months after the original
incident, and as I said in the mental health news round, sometimes in
veterans of the Afghan war, it has been over ten years after the incident in lots of
them, so the Minister Johnny Mercer is looking worldwide really, to try and see
if there's something that actually triggers off PTSD at the 10-year point.
but so far nothing's been found yet. So that's delayed onset PTSD. Another term
is complex PTSD, which occurs in people who have had an upbringing, or as an
adult, suffered from repeated physical, emotional, sexual abuse or neglect. In the
article last week, the surge in suicides of veterans of the Afghan wars, there was
a case study of a gentleman called Dave Jukes. He lived in Birmingham, and had
completed tours of Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Jukes'
widow, Jo Dukes, said that it was his service that killed
him in the end. He got flashbacks and night terrors, and these intensified and
worsened, and finally he became depressed. Eventually this led up
to the break-down of his relationship, and he had to leave the family home, and his
wife had to get court injunctions against him, from coming into his house,
because his behaviour had become too volatile. He ended up sleeping rough
prior to, unfortunately, taking his own life.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has been known for many, many years.
Initially it was known as shell-shock or battle fatigue in soldiers. Thankfully,
now there are treatment, thankfully now there's more awareness of the condition,
and there are psychological and medication treatments for Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder. Johnny Mercer, the Minister for veterans, is expediting
government plans for a new mental health service for veterans, so hopefully our
soldiers and retired soldiers will be given the help that they need. Thank you
for listening. Hope this has been useful and informative. If you or a family
member or friend have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder please, in
the first instance, go and see your General Practitioner. There's also lots
of information on the internet from Mind, Rethink, the National Health Service and
the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Thank you.