Understanding PTSD: Recognizing Symptoms and Seeking Help
Understanding PTSD
Today we’re going to talk about a set of initials that everybody hears all the time, but not a lot of people fully understand it. That’s the concept known as PTSD, which is post-traumatic stress disorder. My name is Michael Ashworth. I’m the head of the Personal Injury Division of the Wirth Law Office.
When I started working on child abuse and special victims cases in the 1980s, we started seeing a phenomenon called PTSD in child abuse and sexual assault cases. That was first identified openly after the Vietnam War when veterans came back from Vietnam manifesting incredible stress disorder. That was easily triggered. Well, we started seeing it in the court system. It is now a very well-developed psychological concept.
The Types of PTSD
It is not uncommon when you’re in a really severe accident. It could be a car accident, a motor vehicle accident, it could be some kind of an assault, it could be something involving assault and battery where you’re beaten severely. These are things where you may have post-traumatic stress as a result of that. There are three types. There’s chronic, latent, and acute. It’s diagnosed by what’s known as the Diagnostic Statistician’s Manual 5, the new edition, the fifth edition. It’s something you need to take into account.
Recognizing the Symptoms
After something happens to you that may or may not need a lawsuit if you’re not eating the same way, if you’re not sleeping the same way, if you’re being moody in a different way, if you’re scared to go out or if there’s places you’re scared to go to. These are things you need to address and those are things we can help point you in the right direction.
Seeking Help and Support
I was working a trucking case of a very severe accident in southeastern Oklahoma about a year ago. This girl was coming down a road from where her mom worked and getting onto a rural highway. This guy was from out of state and he was flying like mad in an 18-wheeler. He just smacked the heck out of her. I mean smack the heck. Ever since that time, she’s had difficulty driving any of the roads she grew up on because they’re heavily traveled by out of state trucking groups that constantly are over the line, center line, which is what’s happening here. This guy needed to stop because there was a car ahead of him. Stop. He couldn’t do it. So he crossed into a no passing zone. Here comes the girl out from a stop sign. Boom. Guess who loses that fight? Guess who won that fight? And like I said, she’s never been the same psychologically.
Get the Help You Need
So when you aren’t feeling the same way you used to, when you’re fearful of things, you have a complete fear of getting in the car and driving even, or even being a passenger in the car after a motor vehicle accident. Those are things you need to address and those are things we can help point you in the right direction. Again, I’m Michael Ashworth. Please give me a shout online at TulsaPersonalInjuryLawyer.pro or at 918-924-5528.
