{"id":1887,"date":"2020-04-20T17:56:50","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T17:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedavisgroup.org\/?p=1887"},"modified":"2021-10-19T21:22:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T21:22:37","slug":"the-restlessness-youre-feeling-might-be-ptsd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedavisgroup.org\/the-restlessness-youre-feeling-might-be-ptsd\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Restlessness Could Turn Into PTSD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you noticed yourself feeling on edge lately? Easily startled? Having a hard time sleeping? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you oscillate between anger and tears at the drop of a hat? Maybe you feel overwhelmed and indecisive. Or preoccupied with trying to figure out what to do next but the more you try the more helpless you feel? Like nothing is in your control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If so, you\u2019re not alone. The current shelter in place restrictions brought about by COVID-19 have created a perfect storm for long-term, societal-wide mental health problems, chief among them being post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is usually talked about in terms of people that have survived a clearly identifiable trauma such as war, rape, or abuse, but it can also afflict someone who experiences chronic disorientation and helplessness such as is occuring for many with the current pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes an experience traumatic? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re wired to want a sense of control over our surroundings. We take actions on the assumption that we can predict the reaction. We go to work assuming we\u2019ll get paid. We drive places because we assume doing so is safe. We go shopping to get food to eat. We love so we can feel connected to something bigger. All our little daily rituals give us a sense of order, security and stability, and leave us with a sense that we\u2019re in control of our lives. And for most of us, 99% of the time that assumption goes unchallenged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until a trauma comes along.  An experience is traumatic to the extent that it highlights our inability to protect ourselves from harm. A traumatic experience challenges our foundational assumption that we\u2019re in control of the things that matter most to us – family, love, personal integrity, survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes combat traumatic? You realize that you have limited control over whether you live or die that day, but you have to go forward anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a car accident traumatic? You realize that all those years of driving along unconsciously you were actually in grave danger every second, and now you\u2019ll never be able to not know that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a rape traumatic? You realize you ultimately don\u2019t have say over whether someone violates you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes your partner\u2019s affair traumatic? You realize the love and security you thought you had all along wasn\u2019t as real as you thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a pandemic traumatic? You\u2019re told that any contact with any person could kill you, yet you still have to go out and you don\u2019t have the tools to decide who is safe and who isn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a shelter-in-place order during a pandemic traumatic? The daily rituals you depend on for survival – your job, health routines, etc. – are taken away from you and you\u2019re not allowed to take them back even though you\u2019re physically able to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A traumatic experience exposes our inherent vulnerability. Our unavoidable dependency on each other\u2019s goodwill. None of us are as invincible as we may think we are, and trauma exposes that. And thus we\u2019re left hypervigilantly scanning our environment for threats, only falling half asleep, replaying a traumatic scenario over and over in our mind, all in an attempt to try to bring a sense of order and control to a life we now are  painfully aware is – and always has been – out of our control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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