Violence, excessive bullying or harassment, or a natural disaster that occurs at your workplace in Bergen County can be a traumatic event that affects you emotionally and mentally. Perhaps you are struggling to concentrate on daily tasks or you find yourself reliving the experience over and over again. You may be suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The National Institute of Mental Health states that men are less prone to have PTSD than women, but it can occur in either sex, regardless of age. If you do have it, you may also be suffering with another mental health issue such as anxiety or depression. This is common with the disorder, as well as abusing substances like drugs or alcohol. If you have been experiencing symptoms for more than a month, your doctor will probably determine that you have PTSD. To make the final determination though, your doctor needs to rule out other possible factors such as a medical illness.
The symptoms of PTSD fall into four categories: cognition and mood, arousal and reactivity, avoidance and re-experiencing. Symptoms that qualify as cognition and mood include feeling that you are responsible for what occurred, memory issues related to the event, loss of interest in things that you once enjoyed, and negative thoughts concerning the world or yourself. Experiencing constant anger or stress is one of the descriptions of the arousal and reactivity. This can put your reactions out of whack, causing you to feel tense or finding yourself in a constant flight mode.
Avoidance is any behavior that you engage in as a way to avoid connection to what happened. If you suffered a fall from a high place at work, you may find yourself doing everything possible to avoid getting on a ladder or a scaffold. Re-experiencing the event through your dreams, thoughts or flashbacks could leave you unable to function.