What You Need To Know About Depression, Anxiety, and PTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can ruin your quality of life if you let it. It is an emotional roller coaster that leaves you and those who are close to you mentally drained. This is partially because the symptoms of PTSD are severe, alarming, and can be at odds with one another at times.  To make matters worse, some of these symptoms make no logical sense to someone who does not have PTSD.

If you have PTSD, you know that depression and anxiety are a big part of this disorder. This means that you are up, and then you're down. You can't sit still, and then you can't seem to get out of bed.  Anxiety can include pacing, having racing thoughts, acting compulsively, having panic attacks, and the list goes on. Anxiety can creep up on you when you least expect it. You can be going on about your business and all of a sudden you start to hyperventilate for no particular reason and then it’s off to a full blown panic attack. Severe depression can bring you down so low that you may attempt whatever you believe is necessary to end the pain. Depression can bring you down to a state of hopelessness that's very difficult to overcome. Some people cut or otherwise mutilate themselves. Those who suffer from anxiety, chronic depression, and PTSD are at a very high risk for attempted suicide. It is very common for someone who is experiencing severe depression to cry for long periods of time, to stop eating, to stop communicating with others. At some point, they call this "failure to thrive", which can lead to death. So, the constant push and pull of anxiety and depression in someone who has this disorder alone is enough to seriously complicate relationships with others as well as just mentally torment and exhaust the person who has PTSD.

It's no wonder that many people receive a misdiagnosis of either chronic anxiety or depression. Posttraumatic stress encompasses both of these conditions. Since PTSD involves anxiety and depression in severe states, it is also not uncommon for those who have this disorder to receive a misdiagnosis of personality disorders. This is because of the constant oscillation between the two.

The catch .22 is that the drugs that are commonly prescribed for anxiety don't do much to alleviate depression and vice versa. Also, some of these pharmaceuticals produce depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts as side effects. Obviously this is counterproductive and it can be dangerous for the person who is already suffering.

If a clinician is treating someone exclusively for depression or for anxiety, and fails to make the connection to PTSD, he or she is only treating one component of the disorder. This is a potential nightmare for several reasons. The clinician may believe that the dosage needs to be adjusted if it is not immediately effective and some of these drugs take months to become fully effective. He or she may prescribe one or more medications. It takes time to evaluate whether these drugs are working correctly. Also, it's a process of adjustment. So while the meds are being "adjusted", you're emotionally all over the place. Mentally, you're up for a little while and down for a while. Can you see how this process can be especially dangerous for someone who has PTSD?

Depression and anxiety are two symptoms of PTSD, so it is especially important to work with a clinician who is qualified to treat all three disorders. Anxiety disorders and depression disorders alone are enough to make someone profoundly miserable.

Being in a relationship with someone who has one or the other disorder can be a huge challenge and this is very taxing to the family environment. If you are in a relationship with someone who has told you that they have this disorder, you have to prepare yourself for these and other symptoms to appear. There is a strong connection between PTSD, anxiety, and depression that has to be addressed in a manner that is appropriate for the individual as opposed to a “one size fits all” model. A trained mental health professional and a strong support system are essential in the management of these symptoms when they become too severe for the person to deal with.

If you are dealing with symptoms of PTSD or know someone who is, I urge you to pick up a copy of my book PTSD: WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.  It was written by someone who has this disorder for those who are suffering now and their friends and families. It will give you concrete answers and solutions that you can use to lessen these awful symptoms. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder- An Emotional Roller Coaster Ride.

PTSD is an atrocious disorder. You never know when the symptoms are going to creep up on you.  One day, things seem ok and the next day you’re bombarded with memories that send you straight into anxiety and panic attacks. Some days, you’re just going about your business and all of a sudden, you are flooded with intrusive memories or flashbacks. This sets the tone for the rest of the day. You can see something, smell something, or hear something that reminds you of your trauma and you become dizzy and dissociated for a few hours or for a longer period of time. Some people go to bed and stay there for days. It’s just too overwhelming. Some become angry and lash out at everyone around them. Some people cry for hours. Your reaction to this symptom is a personal reaction that reflects your style of coping with the strain of this disorder. 

Some people have a nagging sense that “ something is wrong” or that they have forgotten something. A lot of times, feelings like fear, anxiety, and sadness come over you without a specific reason or trigger. Other times, you can’t feel anything and you can’t decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Emotional numbness is a big part of this disorder and this occurs when you are on an emotional overload at times.

Having a full and unexplainable range of emotions to no emotion at all are all a part of having PTSD and this can be very frustrating and hard to deal with. The bottom line is that fighting the emotional roller coaster ride is like trying to stop the ocean with a cotton ball. The trauma that you’ve experienced also traumatized your emotional system, so it may take some time to find balance. You may wonder if you will ever heal from your experience at times. The answer is that you will heal, but this requires time and for you to proactive about your healing. Acceptance is the first step toward dealing with this symptom.

When you find yourself becoming overly emotional, take a minute to evaluate where these random emotions could be coming from. Can you pinpoint an exact reason? Is it related to your experience? Or are you experiencing emotions for which you have no explanation? Is your emotional response appropriate or inappropriate to the situation? If that it the case, you are likely having a symptom of PTSD. Sometimes these symptoms don’t seem to make much sense to us, but it is how we deal with them that make all of the difference in the process of healing. 

  

There are some psychological techniques and tricks that help with having a wide and varied range of emotion as well as feeling numb and generally locked up inside. Ultimately, you need time to adjust and you need time to physiologically heal from trauma. If you want to learn more about how to handle the symptoms of PTSD, I have written a book entitled PTSD: What to do about it when you don’t know what to do about it. This writing will give you specific steps that you can take in managing the disorder and it’s debilitating symptoms. It was written for those who suffer from this disorder, those who are in a relationship with someone who has this disorder, and those who need information and a solid plan of how to deal with the symptoms of PTSD.

Could Playing Tetris Become A New Treatment For PTSD?

I was reading an interesting study from Oxford University the other day that reported that people who have PTSD and play Tetris have fewer flashbacks. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and this makes perfect sense to me. I think these guys are on to something.

The study involved 20 people who did not have PTSD. They were shown a violent movie and then divided into three groups. One group did nothing, one group played Tetris, and one group played a trivia game. The results were quite amazing. The group that did nothing experienced an average of 12 involuntary flashbacks. The group that played the trivia game experienced an average of 6 flashbacks. The group that played Tetris experienced an average of 4 flashbacks. Imagine having PTSD and being able to overcome or lessen your flashbacks by playing Tetris.

This makes solid sense to me as one of the recognized and highly effective treatments for post traumatic Stress Disorder is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or (EMDR). EMDR is an information processing therapy that involves proper clinical evaluation and training of coping skills. You should never try to do EMDR alone or with someone other that a therapist. It’s very harmful to do that to yourself.

The similarity is that memories or thoughts are processed as the therapist directs the patient’s eyes to move back and forth. Rapid eye movement combined with other physical stimuli and the awareness of memory and sensation are the keys to getting the brain to categorize fragmented memories and sensations. As I said, do not do this by yourself.

 People who have PTSD typically have intrusive thoughts and fragmented memories surface when engaging in repetitive tasks. The researchers at Oxford report that playing Tetris, planning how the blocks will fall and watching them fall into an organized pattern may be just as beneficial as doing EMDR therapy.

If you are in therapy, why not talk to your therapist about this theory and see if he or she thinks that there is sound logic behind this? I know that I intend to talk to mine about it.

Is it possible that a very effective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment can be found in the form of a Nintendo game? It is starting to look that way. The research and theory is certainly solid enough. If playing Tetris will lessen a PTSD symptom like experiencing involuntary flashbacks, I think the guys at Oxford have hit a home run.