PTSD
A New Beginning
Your mind may be flooded with intrusive thoughts or paralyzed by numbness. It is your brain’s survival wiring asking for a reset. Being here means you have taken the first steps toward your reboot.
Our method guides you to become aware of the trauma, helping you renegotiate the lessons of the past. This is your moment to choose safe commitment over avoidance.
You deserve to restore balance to your nervous system, where hyper-vigilance transforms into discernment and emotional waves become manageable swells. Your resilience will be the compass that guides you from trigger to tranquility.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that can develop after a person experiences, witnesses, or confronts one or more traumatic events.
These events often involve a real or perceived threat of death, serious injury, or violence, such as assaults, abuse, war, severe accidents, natural disasters, or situations of interpersonal violence.
It is not just “normal stress”: the brain continues to react to the trauma as if it were still occurring, affecting emotions, memory, and daily life.
Brief History of PTSD
- Previously referred to as “shell shock” (World War I soldiers).
- Today, we know it affects not only military personnel; anyone exposed to trauma (accidents, abuse, natural disasters) can develop it.
Main Symptoms
PTSD is characterized by four main groups of symptoms:
- Re-experiencing: Nightmares, intrusive memories, flashbacks, or intense emotional reactions to trauma reminders.
- Avoidance: Deliberate efforts to avoid thoughts, places, people, or situations associated with the traumatic event.
- Negative alterations in cognition and mood: Excessive guilt, shame, hopelessness, poor memory about the event, emotional detachment, difficulty experiencing positive emotions, or loss of interest in significant activities.
- Hyperarousal or hypervigilance: Problems sleeping, irritability, exaggerated startle response, difficulty concentrating, and self-destructive behavior.
- Chronic pain, fatigue.
- Social isolation.
- Self-destructive behaviors (e.g., substance abuse).
Symptoms by Age
- Children: Repetitive play about the trauma, regressions (bedwetting).
- Adolescents: Irritability, risk-taking behaviors.
- Adults/Elderly: Worsening physical health, suicidal ideation.
Diagnostic Criteria
- Symptoms must last more than one month.
- The impact must be significant on the person’s social, occupational, or familial functioning.
- Symptoms cannot be better explained by other medical conditions or substance use.
Risk Factors
- Experiencing multiple traumas or prolonged trauma.
- Personal or family history of mental health disorders.
- Lack of social support after the trauma.
- Presence of other life difficulties concurrent with the traumatic event.
Neurobiological Bases of PTSD
Trauma alters brain structure:
- Amygdala (fear): Hyperactive, reacts excessively.
- Hippocampus (memory): Confuses safe situations with dangerous ones.
- Prefrontal cortex (logic): Weakens, making it hard to control emotions.
PTSD Statistics in the U.S.
- 6% of adults in the U.S. (approximately 15 million people) will experience it in their lifetime.
- 10% of women develop PTSD (due to gender-based violence, abuse), compared to 4% of men.
- Veterans, victims of violence, and first responders are vulnerable groups; 8 million adults experience PTSD in a given year (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs).
- Higher prevalence in young adults (ages 18-29).
- Ages 13-18: 5% of adolescents meet PTSD criteria (National Comorbidity Survey).
Concerning Trends
- Post-pandemic increase: 25-30% more cases linked to stress from COVID-19, grief, and isolation (JAMA Network, 2023).
- Only 50% of affected individuals receive treatment (NIMH).
Treatment
- Psychological therapy: Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, prolonged exposure therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) are options with high efficacy.
- Pharmacological treatment: Antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), can be helpful for some patients.
- Social and family support: Plays a crucial role in recovery.
- EMDR therapies: Reprocessing trauma through eye movements.
- Prolonged Exposure Therapy: Safely confronting traumatic memories.
- Medication: Antidepressants (SSRIs) to regulate brain chemicals.
- Self-care:
- Exercise, regular sleep, balanced diet.
- Grounding techniques (e.g., deep breathing, naming 5 objects around you).
Unmasking PTSD: Let's Face it
Firstly, no one is exempt from experiencing a traumatic episode, but we all have the opportunity to live a new day, where we are the result of all our experiences, and the future is determined by our experiences only if we do not analyze or draw any benefit from our lived experiences. This life is about learning through everything we encounter.
It’s likely you’ve already analyzed much about the traumatic episodes you experienced, and assuming you extracted the best lesson from the episode you lived, that should be enough to see a change for a better life. But if you are here, it’s because it’s not enough yet, and we need to move to the second part of the solution:
This part is about time and applying what we know about life to live well, but the entire world has undergone a reset due to social engineering for several centuries. In this part of the solution, you only need to relearn about life to rediscover everything that history could not erase from your DNA. At the same time, this part is very complex, but you can have the basic information to learn through our publications.
Life is about much more than what social engineering is forcing us to live (even if we seemingly accept our reality), and that is why your brain doesn’t want to leave those traumatic thoughts, because it feels dissatisfied with the life we have accepted. Dare to be part of the solution with therapeutic tourism.
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