Feelings of stress are unpleasant and not harmless. Although stress can be a normal response to dangerous environmental factors, it can become chronic or develop into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Your body reacts in a certain way to stressful events, both physically and mentally.
What is stress?
Stress is a negative response to environmental factors . Environmental factors can be positive and negative. The stress response is a combination of physical reactions, thoughts, emotions and behavior. Stress experiences depend on how a person experiences a situation and on his or her emotional reactions.
Traumatic experiences are accompanied by intense fear or helplessness. Traumatic experiences often lead to psychological complaints.
Response to stressful events
People can react differently to stressful events. These reactions often depend on the severity of the stressful event and its duration. Some people, especially those who experience chronically stressful events , may develop generalized thoughts and cognitions about the environment and themselves. For example, they no longer have confidence in the future and in their own capabilities. Some people turn to drugs to cope with stressful events.
Physical response to stressful events
When you come into contact with a stressful event, your body automatically switches to a kind of ,survival mode, through the autonomic nervous system . Your body prepares for a ,fight or flight, response . This consists of various physical reactions:
- Increased heart rate
- Increased perspiration
- Raised blood pressure
- Release of stored sugars
- Increased alertness
- Focus on relevant aspects of the environment
Alternatives to flights
It is not always possible to flee. Your body then has two defense mechanisms : freezing and dissociation.
To freeze
Your body literally and figuratively freezes, making you less noticeable to threats in the environment.
Dissociation
Dissociation is a physical state in which you feel alienated from your own body and environment. You experience a kind of unreality and detachment from yourself or the event . Dissociation is the final stage of possibility and is common in rape victims .
Recovery
When the danger has passed, your body can return to its original state. However, this can happen faster or slower. This depends, among other things, on the severity of the stressful event and its duration. People who experience a lot of pain afterward or have dissociated during the event have an increased chance of being emotionally disconnected from their environment for a longer period of time . This is a way of dealing with a stressful event. By closing off all emotions, the negative emotions linked to the event are also pushed away. However, too much avoidance or suppression can lead to various psychological disorders, of which Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the best known and most common.
Posttraumatic stress disorder
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a disorder that was discovered as a result of the complaints of veterans after the Vietnam War . The veterans often had complaints such as recurring thoughts and dreams of war horror images, avoidance of factors that remind them of the war, inability to remember certain aspects of the war and extreme irritability without an identifiable cause.
After much research, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was named to explain these complaints . In addition to the above, characteristics of this disorder include:
- Sleep problems
- Feelings of alienation from others
- Depression feelings
- Extreme reactions to memories of the traumatic event
- Disturbed, negative view of the future
- Concentration problems
- Hypersensitivity
- Sudden inexplicable outbursts of anger
The complaints must follow an event that was experienced as very traumatic, uncontrollable or frightening.