Tag Archives: PTSD

PTSD Symptoms and Support Organizations

February 21, 2017 By in Caregiver Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Mental Health Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

After airing my podcast reading of a previous post about PTSD I was asked to gather and provide more information about PTSD symptoms and support organizations. I’ve thought long and hard about how best to cover this information. After all, people who are suffering from PTSD need professional help. Self-diagnosis isn’t reliable and it’s difficult to comprehensively describe any medical issue, much less a mental health issue, on a website with such a broad international audience. The approach I’ve decided upon is to aggregate the information as concisely as possible. I strongly advise anyone who believes they might have PTSD to seek the assistance of a therapist who has experience treating someone with PTSD.

If you are in need of immediate assistance call 911 or go to an emergency room. This post is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical care.

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Podcast – PTSD in Special Needs Parents

October 31, 2016 By in Podcasts Tags: , 2 Comments

 

Available for subscription on iTunes.

Available in written format on our website.

Be Careful with Your Fireworks

July 2, 2016 By in Celebrating the Holidays, U.S. Independence Day Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments
Be Careful with Your Fireworks

Besides the typical, “don’t blow your hand up,” advice there’s something else you might not have considered. Please be understanding with people who have combat PTSD, autism, sensory processing disorder (SPD), and other related conditions. How? The best way is to set your fireworks off in an area that’s not residential. If that’s not possible and someone asks you to stop setting them off, please stop.

What’s the big deal? It’s a little different for each condition. Combat PTSD triggers memories of the battlefield. The explosions and screaming, even if they’re because the people involved are having fun, are enough to trigger the memories of combat to overtake a veteran. Once the memories become active the person is no longer in the present and may not be able to come out and ask nicely for you to please set them off somewhere else. Not all veterans have PTSD but it would be most kind this Monday to assume they do unless told otherwise.

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PTSD in Special Needs Parents

August 16, 2015 By in Caregiver Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , 5 Comments

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is typically heard in the context of war veterans. You can develop PTSD from any experience that’s painful or upsetting, including caring for a special needs child. How does this happen?

  • Long NICU stays where the child is on the verge of death.
  • Babies so pre-mature they need constant 24/7 care to survive.
  • Hospital admissions for life-threatening infections.
  • Finding out your child has a life-altering and lifespan shortening diagnosis and watching them fight it every day.

There are many more examples. I wanted to name just a few to make my point clear. Almost every special needs parent is at some level of risk for PTSD. They are constantly exposed to situations that are extremely stressful where the results are completely out of their control. All the while, something bad is happening to someone they love more than anyone else in the world (except their other children of course).

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