BY SANDRA GUY
As people start to tiptoe outside wearing masks and gloves, fearful that anyone nearby could be an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier, and, in the past several days, feel helpless amid news reports of infuriated protestors demanding racial justice in policing, it’s especially appropriate that June marks PTSD Awareness Month.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is real.
Symptoms vary, but the Fourth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists 17 major signs. These include panic attacks, eating disorders, feeling irritable or easily angered, having nightmares, flashbacks, trouble sleeping, emotional numbness, an exaggerated startled response, persistent self-blame and continuous fear, anger, guilt, horror or shame.
PTSD sufferers may also have difficulty trusting others and, at the same time, view themselves and the world in a negative light. In many cases, they’ve endured traumatic events such as violence, sexual assault, domestic violence or natural disasters.
Trauma from persistent racial bias and racist invective is similar to PTSD, in that it can make the victim feel either his or her life is endangered, or the lives of his or her loved ones, experts say.
That can include racial trauma such as the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. He died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, ignoring Floyd’s desperate pleas that he couldn’t breathe.
It’s normal to feel anxious, exhausted and irritable in such historically devastating crises, but you should be concerned if you experience intrusive thoughts that prevent you from getting your work done or that interfere with your partnership or relationships.
“PTSD can be debilitating,” says Alyssa Rheingold, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C.
To heal from trauma, you need to feel safe — and that requires getting professional counseling.
One method is to directly talk about the things that cause anxiety, Rheingold said.
“We get used to [expressing] those feared memories and thoughts, and the anxieties tend to go down,” she said.
Another therapy — cognitive processing — involves the therapist challenging the PTSD sufferer’s beliefs, especially if they involve exaggerating outcomes and labeling every situation as black or white, rather than in shades of gray.