Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD can develop after living through or witnessing something overwhelming. It is not limited to combat or to one catastrophic event: assault, accidents, medical trauma, childbirth, sudden loss, and sustained abuse can all produce it, and so can repeated exposure to other people’s trauma through your work.

At the centre of it, the memory does not get filed away the way ordinary memories do. It keeps arriving in the present, with the physical fear intact, which is why a flashback is not a vivid recollection so much as something closer to the event happening again.

You do not have to start with the worst part

A common reason people put off getting help is the belief that treatment means describing the worst thing that happened to them, in detail, to a stranger, on day one. You do not have to do that to start. The first appointment covers what is happening now: how it is affecting your sleep, your relationships, and your ability to function day to day, and what you want to change. You decide how much detail to share and when, whether you come in person in Raleigh or meet by secure video.

There is also a clinical reason for that pacing. Trauma treatment tends to work better when some stability comes first. If you are not sleeping, are in crisis, or do not have steady ground to stand on, processing the trauma too early can make things harder rather than easier. Stabilising first is not a delay before the real treatment; it is part of it.

Medication and therapy, in the right order

Medication can meaningfully ease the parts that make everything else harder: sleep, nightmares, hyperarousal, and the depression that frequently comes with PTSD. That alone can open up enough room to do the rest of the work. Psychotherapy for PTSD has strong evidence behind it, and depending on what fits you, that may happen with your provider directly or with a specialist in trauma-focused therapy. Being pointed towards someone better suited is not being passed along; it is part of getting you the right care.

If you are in crisis

If you are in immediate danger or at risk of harming yourself, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call 911, or go to your nearest emergency room. This practice does not provide emergency services.