Estimated to affect 1 in 3 people who have been through a traumatic experience, Post-traumatic stress disorder can be a debilitating condition.
The condition which can develop at any time after the traumatic experience not only affects the sufferer but can also have a ripple of effects that implicate family members, loved ones and those closest to them.
Fiona Wilkinson a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist shared her personal experience with PTSD that struck seven years after the death of her father:
“It was seven years later when my husband and I found my mother in law collapsed in a field unconscious. I had to give her CPR, we had to get out the helicopter ambulance services, get her to hospital, where I watched her die.”
Witnessing the death of her step mother in hospital brought back the events of her father’s death, which brought about the PTSD.
“At night I heard a phone ringing when there wasn’t a phone ringing. It was a really frightening awful experience and I had no control over sensations of panic, I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t shut off these images, I actually felt as if I was going mad.”
Jacob Flannery reports:
[audio:https://archive.org/details/PtsdAffects1In3WhoveSufferedATraumaticExperience]