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It is important to understand where the signs and symptoms of PTSD come from. Symptoms typically appear within a few weeks of the trauma event, but on rare occasions, there may be a long gap between the trigger event and the onset of PTSD symptoms. Naturally, human beings possess a natural tendency to try and make sense of things that happen around them. When people experience a trauma, the event keeps coming back into their mind in an attempt to make sense of what happened. This is the body’s natural way of trying to deal with or come to terms with difficult experiences, and it seems to work well for many stressful life events.

However, due to the high level of distress associated with memories of more severe trauma, the thoughts and feelings tend to be pushed away to protect the person from this distress. The result is that whilst the memory may go away for a while, the need for it to be dealt with has not been addressed and it keeps coming back. The movement backward and forward from intrusive thoughts and feelings about the trauma to avoidance and numbing can then continue almost indefinitely, unless the cycle is addressed in some way.

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TRAUMATIC STRESS REACTIONS – HOW DO THEY DEVELOP?

Throughout the alternating process between short bursts of painful memories and periods of avoidance and numbing, the sense of feeling keyed‐up or locked down persists. The traumatised person has been through an event that threatened their life, or the life of someone else so the mind and body stay on alert to ensure that no future potential dangers will be missed. Although it is safer to get it wrong by overestimating potential threat than to risk the possibility of missing any future threat, the persistent activation of this threat detection system however leaves the traumatized person feeling keyed‐up or locked down much of the time.

In addition, the threat detection system is incredibly sensitive that it is constantly going off when there is no danger in such a way that interferes with the person’s capacity to live a normal and happy life. Traumatic stress reactions, hence, are sensible and adaptive both as part of survival during the trauma and in attempts to come to terms with the trauma afterwards. Once we recognize where these symptoms come from, it is easier to understand the typical traumatic stress reactions. However, the difficult part is letting go of these reactions now that they have ceased to provide benefit and are interfering with the traumatized person’s quality of life.