Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects many people who have suffered difficult, dangerous situations in which life or personal safety has been severely threatened. Hence many soldiers and emergency service workers are in danger of developing this condition, sometimes through single harrowing events, sometimes through repeated exposure to traumatic circumstance. Rape, abuse and violence victims, those who have been in accidents, people who have been bullied and many others suffer PTSD symptoms, often unrecognized. And some can also be severely traumatized by experiences in which they have been made to imagine very vividly that they are menaced.

• flashbacks
• constant reliving of particular traumatic events, sometimes as if the experience were still happening
• nightmares
• sudden uncontrollable sweating, trembling and other automatic nervous/physical reactions
• repeating and often inexplicable feelings of terror
• hypervigilance
• loss of confidence
• panic attacks

Many sufferers do not know why they experience such symptoms and they too commonly lead to depression, anxiety, addiction and other difficulties. Untreated PTSD has been responsible for wrecking many lives - quite unnecessarily.