The second section of What Are Post-Traumatic Stress Reactions which apparently I forgot to put on Blogspot.

Here are a few more paragraphs of The Post-Traumatic Gazette #1, copyright Patience Mason 1995, 2005.

What are Post Traumatic Stress Reactions?

...Let me emphasize something: this ability to do whatever it takes to survive is God-given or evolution-given, depending on your point of view, but we all have it, and in traumatic enough situations, it will come out or we die. Extreme situations which trigger this reaction again and again may cause survivors to do things in order to survive which can be hard to look back on later.

This survivor part of us is not able to listen to reason either. It does not speak English, nor can it tell time. It is going to be looking for danger from now on whether or not others think it is reasonable.

Real physiological changes occur in the brains of survivors which make them quick to react. In order to live through the trauma, survivors may develop the capacity to go from fine into a killing rage in seconds. That helps them live. They may stop sleeping soundly. Sleep can get you killed. Survivors may be uncannily able to read the moods of those around them because the moods of their abusers defined their lives. They become hypervigilant, searching for physical danger all around and all the time. Due to hypervigilance and lack of sleep, it is hard for them to concentrate on everyday things, although they are concentrating on survival information. They may do poorly in school and believe they are stupid when what they have is a symptom of PTSD. Survivors react faster and more completely to sudden noises (startle response). These are lifesaving skills as long as the survivor is still at risk, still in combat, still living with the batterer or the molester, still living in the bad neighborhood, the bombed-out city. These are reality based, effective survival skills. They keep you alive.

They don’t go away by themselves.

Similarly, shutting down feelings in order to do whatever it takes to survive, or do your job and help others survive, is a reality based survival skill. If you sit down and cry in combat, you will get killed. If you keep screaming while Daddy hurts you, he may kill you. If you cry in the aid station or emergency room, you won’t be able to save as many lives. Numbness is the answer. It is effective. It will help you live. It will help you keep others alive. And your brain’s inborn capacity to rapidly adapt means that what horrifies you the first time becomes nothing much by the third time it happens. But, if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have to get numb. Being numb is evidence that you do care.

From The Post-Traumatic Gazette #1, copyright Patience Mason 1995, 2005, What are Post Truamatic Stress Reactions? You can see more of this issue on my author page or book page, Recovering from the War