What is PTSD, what causes it, and what is the most promising cure?
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After a traumatic experience you can still get emotional stress and tension from that experience but applied to something less traumatic or stressful in the present. So for example if as a toddler they shocked you every time you touched a white bunny for 6 months. Maybe as an adult you would get uncomfortable looking at santa clause (cause of his beard) or panic attacks around cotton, or terror when looking at clouds. This really happened to some poor kid out there.
PTSD Is caused by traumatic experiences. An abusive parent, war, etc. It manifests in many ways, flashbacks are common, even to the extent of feeling you’re back in that place. (for example, extreme cases can have war veterans tackle individuals that they genuinely believe to be in danger in an effort to protect them). To my knowledge there is no “cure” to PTSD. It’s like any mental wound, it must be conquered by coping and understanding it. It’s just a very slow process due to the nature of the disorder.
Although, LSD is proving to be a very powerful agent at helping people come to terms with trauma, and some research has shown that as little as 1 to 2 doses of it is enough to help people seriously better their struggle with PTSD.
Content warning, obviously.
PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
It can be caused by a large variety of traumatically stressful events.
The most commonly referenced cause is combat time in the military but causes can range from childhood abuse to car accidents to rape.
The exact causes and symptoms vary on a case by case basis but the general gist is that something really awful happened to you(sometimes an event, like watching a friend bleed out on the battle field; other times a situation, every time your dad came home drunk he beat you with a belt for no reason) and things tangentially related to the trauma will trigger you to feel like you are back in the trauma.
Edit: there is no “cure” but there are medications and therapies that can help people to live “normal” lives and not get triggered by unrelated events as often.
It is a chronic life long infliction of the nervous psyche which can be somewhat arrested by effective medication.
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