Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Introduction

One of the most common co-disorders for those with Dissociative Identity Disorder is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have never met or heard of someone who has DID who does not also have PTSD. Yet PTSD is a totally accepted disorder which many believe only has to do with war veterans or crime victims. It is true war veterans and crime victims, as well as natural disaster victims, often have PTSD. Victims of abuse, whether verbal, emotional, physical or sexual or any combination thereof, will also most likely have PTSD. I hope you find the information I have included on this topic helpful.

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• Introduction

• Video representing PTSD

• Creative Expressions representing PTSD

• Description and Symptoms

• PTSD Article - by Melinda Smith, M.A., Robert Segal, Ph.D., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., contributed to this article. Last modified on: 11/11/2008; from Helpguide.org

PTSD Video

PTSD Creative Expressions

Don't Wait Until You Break!

Not all wounds are visible!
Get help with PTSD through professional counseling.
 

Description and Symptoms

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the most common diagnostic category used to describe symptoms arising from emotionally traumatic experience(s). This disorder presumes that the person experienced a traumatic event involving actual or threatened death or injury to themselves or others – and where they felt fear, helplessness or horror. Three additional symptom clusters, if they persist for more than a month after the traumatic event and cause clinically significant distress or impairment, make up the diagnostic criteria.

The three main symptom clusters in PTSD are:

1. Intrusions, such as flashbacks or nightmares, where the traumatic event is re-experienced.

2. Avoidance, when the person tries to reduce exposure to people or things that might bring on their intrusive symptoms.

3. Hyper arousal, meaning physiologic signs of increased arousal, such as hyper vigilance or increased startle response.

The actual symptoms used in the United States are described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. The most current version of the DSM is the Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), published in June 2000 by the American Psychiatric Association.

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Recommended Online Support Group
for those who have been diagnosed with DID
and are in treatment for healing with a professional,
and for those professionals who treat those with DID:

Multiple Paths To Healing - DID 

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