What is PTSD?

A short video clip that explains what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is, who it affects, and how.

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Depression in Women with Migraine Linked to Childhood Abuse

... "This study confirms adverse experiences, particularly childhood abuse, predispose women to health problems later in life, possibly by altering neurobiological systems," said study author Gretchen Tietjen, MD, with the University of Toledo-Health Science Campus and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "...

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Addressing trauma - body and mind

Interesting blog post about addressing trauma

“.. How can anyone address trauma without also focusing on the real impact such trauma has on the body? When you speak of rape survivors, abuse survivors, survivors of war - the body is just as important a point of focus as the mind ..”

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Power And Sexual Arousal in the Abusive Relationship

“.. When we think of children who have been sexually abused, we think of fear, anger and violence. Most sexual abuse survivors talk of the terror and disassociation surrounding the abuse. Many still feel that way as adults and don’t enjoy sex now, even in a loving relationship. But there are those who have a more complicated story to tell. These survivors may have hated their abusers but experience an unspeakable shame over the fact that their bodies responded sexually to the abuse ..”

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Dissociative Identity Disorder

“.. DID entails a failure to integrate certain aspects of memory, consciousness and identity. Patients experience frequent gaps in their memory for their personal history, past and present. Patients with DID report having severe physical and sexual abuse, especially during childhood. The reports of patients with DID are often validated by objective evidence ..”

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Abuse Victims Have Long Term Bad Health

" .. New research shows that abuse victims feel the impact of violence long after it occurred. A recent study in the Journal of Women's Health found that older African-American women who were exposed to high levels of family violence at some point in their lifetimes -- whether by a partner or family member -- are at a greater risk of poor mental and physical health status.
"Not just ongoing violence, which everybody thinks about, but even when it's over, there's something about what happens that seems to have a lingering effect that we don't quite understand yet," said Dr. Anuradha Paranjape, co-author of the study and associate professor at Temple University School of Medicine.
It makes sense that abused women would report worse health, given that people in stressful situations have higher levels of stress hormones, which interfere with immune function, Crawford said.
Other studies show a clear connection between depression and abuse. Adult women who have been abused in a relationship in the past five years have rates of depression 2½ times greater than women who have never been abused, according to a different study of more than 3,000 women. They are also more likely to be socially isolated, said author Amy Bonomi, associate professor at The Ohio State University .. "

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Childhood Traumas: An Outline and Overview

" .. There appears to be a group of problems brought on in childhood by the experience of extreme fright generated by outside events. Some of these childhood problems are created by one external shock, and others are created by a multiplicity of blows. Untreated, all but the mildest of the childhood traumas last for years. The child’s responses, in fact, may create a number of different kinds of problems in adult life. There are four characteristics, however, that seem to affect almost everyone subjected to extreme terrors in childhood. These findings seem to last and can be retrieved in histories. They include repeated visualizations or other returning perceptions, repeated behaviors and bodily responses, trauma-specific fears, and revised ideas about people, life, and the future .. "

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Psychological Impact of Child Abuse

" .. According to a new Mayo Clinic study, a history of child abuse significantly impacts the wide range of challenges facing depressed inpatients. Included are an increase in suicide attempts, prevalence of substance use disorder, and a higher incidence rate of personality disorder .. "

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