It’s very easy to confuse post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma because they have overlapping symptoms and similar names, given they both describe a type of trauma. Individuals with both conditions suffer from:
- Avoiding the place or situation in which the traumatic event occurred
- Feeling nervous or fearful
- Nightmares
Although they are similar, PTSD and trauma are different in the severity, duration, and treatment of the symptoms that occur.
What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is when someone experiences a frightening event that causes them emotional distress to the point that it affects their daily life. The person either experiences the event themselves or witnesses the event happening. Some of the symptoms may include flashbacks of the event, nightmares, severe anxiety, or uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
“PTSD symptoms are generally grouped into four types: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions. Symptoms can vary over time or vary from person to person.”
Symptoms from PTSD can happen as quickly as within a month of the event, or even occur years later. The symptoms that women experience could affect their daily lives including social or work situations and their relationships
What is Trauma
When you think about trauma, it’s probably safe to say that every individual on the planet has experienced one form of trauma at one point in their life. Often, when people hear the word “trauma” they associate it with some sort of life-threatening event that has changed a person’s life. The reality is, that trauma can happen to anyone. Trauma is an event that causes someone to feel hurt, injured, disregarded, unloved, unwanted or unnurtured.
The most important thing to remember about trauma is that we are all capable of healing from it if we get the appropriate support to heal our wounds. Many times, women don’t get the proper care for their trauma and begin to hold onto their feelings surrounding their trauma, or emotional “baggage”, and carry it from one relationship to the next. Women are by nature nurturing, supporting their family members, and favor harmony. This creates a risk for women in relationships to recreate the same traumatic history that they had during their earlier life. When trauma is left unresolved, it is often repeated in future relationships because the woman has not addressed or healed those traumas to learn a different way of responding.
Types of Trauma
- Physical or life-threatening events such as domestic abuse, car accident, drug overdose
- Neglect
- Sexual abuse/assault
- Medical trauma
- Military trauma
- School violence or bullying
- Traumatic grief or separation
- Community violence (i.e. gang-related violence, interracial violence, police and citizen altercations, etc.)
- Natural disasters
- Forced displacement (i.e. refugees)
- War/terrorism/political violence
- and/or being a witness to any of the above traumatic events
How are PTSD and Trauma Different?
Although they have similar symptoms and often seem interchangeable, PTSD and trauma are different.
“According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event. Trauma can occur once, or on multiple occasions and an individual can experience more than one type of trauma.”
PTSD is a mental health disorder that is associated with when someone experiences or witnesses a trauma. Women will typically relive the event over and over in their heads through flashbacks, dreams, or intrusive thoughts. They will actively avoid places that may remind them of the event, can be easily startled, have trouble sleeping, and have angry outbursts that come out of nowhere.
Commonly, PTSD follows a traumatic event, although not all traumatic events that occur will result in PTSD. After the event, some will develop severe enough symptoms to diagnose PTSD, others will only have some symptoms and others will have none. Even though traumatic events can lead to devastating symptoms, or a PTSD diagnosis, know that you or your loved one can recover from these symptoms, and/or diagnosis, and live a fulfilling life.
PTSD and Trauma in Women
Everyone can experience PTSD if they witness or experience a traumatic event. Both women and men who experience PTSD may differ in their symptoms or how they handle it. Typically, women have PTSD symptoms for a longer period than men.
Symptoms that women usually experience with PTSD include:
- Be easily startled
- Have more trouble feeling emotions or feel numb
- Avoid things that remind them of the trauma
- Feel depressed and anxious
“Women are about twice as likely as men to develop PTSD. Women who have gone through trauma, including women in the military, are more likely than men who’ve experienced trauma to develop PTSD. Among women who are raped, about half develop PTSD”.
Women who are dealing with PTSD are more likely to develop substance use disorders and need treatment that includes a dual diagnosis. Among female patients at New Directions for Women, the dual diagnosis rate is much higher than that of men. Women typically become addicted more quickly and intoxicated at a faster rate than men.
Treatment at New Directions for Women
At New Directions for Women, we treat every individual and are committed to serving ALL women. This means we treat all backgrounds, situations, and ages. We know the importance of including family members during recovery, which is why we offer children’s services, family counseling, and family 12-step principles.
Types of Treatment
There are many modalities at New Directions for Women that are used to treat the individual women that come to our facility. We treat each case as its’ own and work with each patient to meet their needs. Some of the types of treatment methods that we use include:
Seeking Safety
An evidence-based treatment method that helps people in recovery who suffer from concurrent substance use disorder and trauma.
Psychodrama
An interactive method of therapy that allows the person to act out or role play to help patients understand the inner and outer world experiences that they have gone through.
Wellbriety
We treat women from various cultures, recognizing that it’s important to understand each woman individually based on their background. Wellbriety is a Native American curriculum that addresses intergenerational trauma.
Meditation and Spirituality
Daily mindfulness meditation, yoga classes, 12-step groups, and faith-based treatments, and gardening sessions allow our patients to explore and reflect on their Higher Power.
Physical Activity
Daily exercise is an important aspect of recovery and allows the women in our program to release all the heavy processing that they experience daily. Some of the activities provided include ropes courses, paddle boarding, kayaking, and indoor rock climbing.
EMDR
Psychotherapy allows women to heal from trauma much more quickly than talk therapy, alone. It helps the information processing system from being blocked by the trauma impact and allows healing to resume.
Holistic Care
The connection between mind, body, and spirit is apparent and can help with the trauma healing process. Our calm environments for holistic services include our sound lounge, mindfulness meditation and acupuncture are among some of the programs that help build internal comfort when we are not processing the trauma we faced.
Our program has been proven to be effective because it allows women to recover with other women. Women have different needs than men, and addiction treatment modalities should reflect the needs of the women in our program. The reason for these differences is biological and sociological.
Contact our caring intake coordinators for more information about our rehab for women in Costa Mesa. We are happy to verify your insurance benefits and answer any questions about treatment.
References
What is Psychodrama Therapy?
