Acute Stress Disorder

 

I don’t have a lot of the symptoms for PTSD, but I sure have some of them. Is that unusual?

 If you have experienced some natural or human-made disaster or death, you may have a stress disorder that has not yet reached the PTSD level. The DSM-5 Manual defines Acute Stress Disorder as a Trauma and stress-related disorder that resembles PTSD, but its duration is over a shorter period of time. Symptoms may occur after an individual either experiences personally or witnesses or experiences a disturbing event indirectly. Symptoms begin or worsen after the trauma occurs and can last from three days to one month. If symptoms persist after a month, the diagnosis becomes a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some symptoms for may include:

·       A sense of guilt about not having been able to prevent the trauma, or for not being able to move on from the trauma more quickly

·       Panic attacks, which are common in the month following a trauma

·  Children with acute stress disorder may also experience anxiety related to any separation from caregivers

If you are having some symptoms of PTSD but not all of them and they have been present for less than a month, mental healthcare professionals would likely say, now is the time to get some help. It may prevent developing a full-blown PTSD.

 Listen to my weekly audio podcast https://anchor.fm/arlene-r-taylor