PTSD Survivors of America

09/29/2024

We do not generally support GoFundMe initiatives because it is difficult to vet them. However, in this case, we are making an exception for a long-standing member who has been separated from their support animal. Please consider helping Wes and Mackey reunite by contributing to their GFM. Even $5 would be so very helpful.

This is Mackey. He is desperate to be reunited with his owner, Wes… Erin Colleen needs your support for Help Reunite Mackey, A Support Animal, With His Human!

07/05/2024

Powerful reminder of the hidden costs of emergency services jobs.

01/31/2024

Text of a Los Angeles Times article revealing new information about how PTSD memories are processed differently, and why people can't just "stop living in the past."

A new brain imaging study shows that traumatic memories use different neural paths than normal memories. This shows that they work as vivid pieces of a current event rather than processed past memories. Findings from the study help us understand how traumatic memories stay with us for a long time. They shed light on why they keep coming back as flashbacks and night terrors, which are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Study co-author Daniela Schiller from Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine remarked, “The brain doesn’t appear to be in a state of memory; rather, it seems to be in a state of present experience.” The research team utilized MRI scans to observe PTSD patients while they listened to pre-recorded audio featuring their own traumatic memories.

In contrast to ordinary autobiographical memories, traumatic memories failed to activate the hippocampus – the area responsible for memory consolidation that places recollections into context. Instead, trauma activated the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), a region governing introspection normally disengaged during memory recall.

“Traumatic memories are not experienced as memories as such,” concluded lead study author Ilan Harpaz-Rotem of Yale University, but rather as “fragments of prior events, subjugating the present moment.” The findings may help explain why seemingly minor sensory stimuli like firecrackers can trigger full-blown trauma responses in PTSD patients years later.

Clinicians confirmed it often appears victims mentally transport back into past traumas when recollection is triggered, reliving them as unfolding now rather than accessing memories of distressing events that already occurred. “Traumatic memories are not remembered, they are relived and re-experienced,” said University of Western Ontario trauma expert Ruth Lanius.

While verifying empirically that traumatic memories follow distinct neurological pathways represents a major contribution, some experts disputed whether the findings directly validate modern therapeutic approaches. Treatments like prolonged exposure therapy aim to help PTSD sufferers integrate traumatic memories into ordinary mental schemas, draining their immediacy.

By actively confronting traumatic memories, researchers posit patients can come to process them similarly to other experiences cataloged in personal history. But National Center for PTSD Deputy Director Brian Marx warned individual reactions vary too widely to confirm reliving trauma definitively helps integrate recollection.

Still, the study provides what other studies didn’t- biological markers verifying traumatic experience. Scientists hope that by learning more about how stress affects the mind, they can find better ways to treat the horribly vivid symptoms that keep people with PTSD stuck in their pasts.

04/12/2023

12/03/2022

Today is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. In the US, between 16 and 20% of all SSDI claims were due to mood disorders, such as depression, anxiety and PTSD.

10/04/2022

According to the CDC, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience physical violence by their intimate partner at some point during their lifetimes. And please remember, physical violence is NOT the only form of domestic abuse. Verbal, emotional and financial abuse, as well as isolation and intimidation, are also real and damaging components of domestic violence.

08/20/2022

Up to 70% of people who have experienced trauma report positive changes arising from their traumatic experince. This is known as post-traumatic growth.