Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
PTSD develops differently from person to person. If you’ve lived through a traumatic incident, your symptoms may appear within hours or days of the event, or they may take weeks, months, or even years to develop. Symptoms can arise suddenly, gradually, or come and go over time. There are three main types of PTSD symptoms:re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoiding reminders of the trauma and symptoms of hyper-arousal or heightened anxiety. In the days or months following a traumatic event, you may find yourself alternating between re-experiencing the event and avoiding reminders of it, with symptoms of increased arousal as the common backdrop. Re-experiencing the traumatic event The most disruptive symptoms of PTSD involve the flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive memories of the traumatic event. You may be flooded with horrifying images, sounds, and recollections of what happened. You may even feel like it’s happening again. These symptoms are sometimes referred to as intrusions, si