Life After Trauma: How to Help a Loved One with PTSD

The loss of a loved one, experiencing violence, a car accident or participation in military operations rarely passes without leaving a trace. Experiencing psychological trauma is often associated with increased anxiety, changes in mood and behavior, insomnia and headaches. Understanding and support are important in helping those suffering from PTSD, but the needs of their relatives and friends are often overlooked. What can you do to speed up the recovery of a loved one’s psyche without harming your own? Where can you turn if you feel that you are overwhelmed by the workload? Relatives and friends of victims have to make many difficult decisions. You are constantly tormented by questions: how should you behave with him, how can you help him, how much time should you devote to him? Questions can also concern small, everyday problems: “Should I stay home with him today or can I go out with my friends?” Or: “She’s going to leave at the very beginning of the party anyway – so is it worth inviting her at all?” But some questions concern much more significant aspects of your life: “He scares me when he punches the walls, but I love him - should I break up with him?” Experienced clinical psychologists Claudia Seifert and Jason Deviva in their book talk about how to behave with people with PTSD, how to provide effective support, but not to forget about your own well-being. Their book is a detailed guide that will help you overcome difficulties together with your loved ones and live a healthy, full life. As already mentioned in Chapter 2, avoidance is one of the three main symptoms of PTSD. Experts believe that avoiding people, places, and events that remind you of the trauma or cause thoughts and feelings associated with it prevents victims from realizing that the world is generally safe for them. Until they realize this, they will be in a state of post-traumatic stress. By learning and understanding this process, you will be better able to understand what your loved one is experiencing and help them move on. When a survivor fails to process the impressions of what happened during or after a traumatic experience, the trauma memory becomes an unfinished business. The brain continues to process it, either during sleep or when the memory returns for some reason. When the memory enters the consciousness, it brings with it all the sensations, emotions, and meanings that the survivor associates with the event.