{"id":664,"date":"2021-05-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anyonecanscience.com\/?p=664"},"modified":"2021-05-28T12:04:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T16:04:09","slug":"mental-health-awareness-month-part-3-trauma-and-ptsd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anyonecanscience.com\/index.php\/2021\/05\/28\/mental-health-awareness-month-part-3-trauma-and-ptsd\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Health Awareness Month: Part 3\u2014Trauma and PTSD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week,<\/a> we saw how our ingrained fear response can occasionally lead us to feel threatened and anxious even when we are objectively safe. But these fear responses are also incredibly important survival mechanisms that can keep us alive and kicking in terrifying and dangerous circumstances. Many people who go through extreme traumas retain only fragmented and distorted memories<\/a> of the actual traumatic event. This memory loss occurs because the brain shuts down the areas responsible for careful thought and processing, which can distract us from reacting to the threat efficiently. Meanwhile, our bodies gear up to fight, run, or protect ourselves<\/a> from harm. This body-centered, reactive fear state can be hard to immediately shake off, keeping us poised and ready for another threat even a couple days later. But usually, the fear does wear off, allowing us to return to normalcy. For a subset of people though, this fear response can continue to dog them for years, long after the threat has been eliminated. This condition, known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), can affect a person\u2019s mental and physical wellbeing and cause major disruptions in their day-to-day life. To understand why some people develop PTSD, we need to take a closer look at the biological, psychological, and social mechanisms by which we react to and process trauma. <\/p>\n\n\n