Signs Appear Immediately After The Injury?

It is a standard misconception that symptoms of PTSD appear instantly after trauma. In fact, this fallacy could not be further from the truth.

Research to date tends to generally say that symptoms will appear within 3 months of the trauma. Don't confound that as, "I will have all symptoms to meet PTSD within 3 months." That's not what I am saying, nor what present research discusses. The National Institute of Mental Health cites this precise data.

There isn't any single authoritative answer to when and when symptoms appear or how many will show up. The most common opinion in the subject is that an individual may have one or more symptoms within 3 months. Think about it like this -- you may lose sleep instantaneously, have terrible dreams. That's one symptom, and it would be natural to experience sleeplessness and nightmares directly after experiencing injury. That subsides, and then you may find that you just isolate yourself a month later -- another symptom. You may have a really difficult week on the job then burst at someone. It happened this some months after your wounding event, although you've never done that before after a rough week. This is another symptom.

All of the preceding are single, isolated symptoms of PTSD. You aren't experiencing those symptoms concurrently. You experience them as isolated seemingly dissonant, occasions. You may experience them simultaneously, yet they are still a just three symptoms of many. This is what most research points to in relation to having symptoms within the first 3 months after your stabbing exposure.

Without experiencing the symptoms required to fulfill with identification having PTSD isn't all that different --on a smaller scale -- from how we experience viral infections. You incubate it for 5 days with no symptoms, may contract a virus from your child on a Sunday, and then experience the symptoms the subsequent weekend. You carried the virus and were infectious, but how could you possibly understand? Maybe you felt a bit of a sore throat as the week had some sniffles or wore on, but it's the correct time of year to have seasonal allergies. It does not mean you did not have a virus, merely that you didn't fulfill the telltale hints afterwards get treatment and you would need to seek help.

On a bigger scale, how about sufferers of dementia? Many individuals with dementia experience a few symptoms for months or even years before realizing there is a serious problem going on. They become disoriented or lose their balance. If they are stumbling here and there or occasionally being forgetful does not set off any alarm bells, the same way that being anxious, of a particular age or on guard following trauma is a totally non-pathological reaction to lately experiencing injury. It definitely requires more symptoms to be ticked off, before discovering you have a continual problem, even if you do in fact already have the disorder, and frequently takes more time.

MyPTSD has polled this precise question for 9 years to further illustrate the variability for when symptoms begin. Those who've replied, our member poll results, reveal that 31% experience symptoms in the first three months, with 49% taking.

Our results show a much broader result set taken over 9 years at the time of writing this article. If emotional trauma a single statement was made by MyPTSD, as other sources state that is important and the NIMH, then our view would be that the majority of people take more than 12 months to experience symptoms.

This view aligns with resilience data (also mentioned by NIMH) that nearly all individuals exposed to trauma do not develop PTSD, let alone symptoms that would be viewed as a mental health state. PTSD from a single occasion is considerably more infrequent than PTSD from compounded wounding events throughout life.

In short, the myth that PTSD appears directly following a traumatic event has little basis in reality. Sufferers can go years, even decades, without developing full blown PTSD. Build a community around themselves of supportive, compassionate people who are both understanding and trustworthy and the best thing injury survivors can do is to get help as quickly as possible. This base of support will function as a resiliency tool, and it can be invaluable in helping those who experience injury return to a sense of normalcy. The honesty of others can serve as a check against uncharacteristic and irrational behaviour -- an extra set of eyes to surveil the survivor for indications of a growing issue. Also, seeking a professional's help following trauma has advantages that are obvious and manifold, whether to help mitigate developing symptoms with medications or merely function as a guide to return to a steady, healthy lifestyle post-injury.