What Causes Stress Disorders (Acute Stress Disorder & Post-traumatic Stress Disorder)

Stress disorders are psychiatric conditions that occur as a response to psychological trauma. In this article, I will attempt to explain how these symptoms can develop following a traumatic event. There are two major stress disorders, known as Acute Stress Disorder and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

Trauma Response

Dramatic and malignant events in human life often can be traumatic. When a person’s sense of identity, worth and the meaning of everything they do has been challenged in a cruel incident, they tend to have long lasting effects. These vile incidents have two major aspects to them. They are

• Physical
• Psychological
• Mixture of both

Physical Violence

Some traumatic incidents constitute physical or sexual violence. Both the actual happenstance of violence and the threat of violence can be considered ‘violent’ because of the involvement of extreme physical or sexual insecurity. If a certain incident made them extremely insecure about themselves, their life or autonomy, there is a chance that their responses to cope with it will be extreme as well.

Psychological Violence

Often events which cause a person extreme stress are psychologically violent. These incidents might involve exposure to or the response of extreme emotional disturbance and the loss of ‘belief’ or severe dysregulation of behavior. An example could be of a very emotionally draining divorce with a partner who was psychologically abusive.

Mixture of both

Traumatic events usually involve violence of both a physical and a psychological nature. For example, soldiers in war while also facing insecurity about their physical wellbeing also have to go through extreme amounts of psychological stress.

By the very nature of the extreme response to trauma in both Acute Stress Disorder and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, these violent incidents have both physical and psychological aspects.

Experience of Trauma in Acute Stress Disorder

Violence makes us hyperaware of the indications where that violence has a greater chance of influencing us. This includes the smell, sounds, and visual aspects that we were exposed to, during that incident.

So, every time the traumatized person is exposed to a similar environment or cue, they experience extreme psychological disturbance.

Why does this happen?

Well, because we want to protect ourselves from danger.

We are observing things around us, learning how things work so that we could either achieve a reward or stave off danger.

And when something really threatens our security, we tend to remember the cues around us. This is because the next time we are exposed to danger, we can cope better with it.

However, the emotional disturbance that a person with ASD or PTSD experiences during that traumatic event is too extreme. They can experience hyperventilation, severe anxiety, worry and their sleep cycle can also be disturbed significantly. These responses become conditioned to certain cues from the environment.

Thus, every time the person is exposed to similar cues, they generate such responses – especially if they pay attention to those cues.

In the case of Acute Stress Disorder, these conditioned responses become lesser and lesser, and stop before a month after the traumatic incident.

On the other hand, in the case of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, they persist for much longer periods of time.

Conclusion

Both Acute Stress Disorder and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder are very debilitating conditions. They can affect a person’s life to such a level that they might give up their jobs, shut off contact with others and even consider taking their own life. However, understanding how such a condition can start can help you cope with it and take the necessary actions.

If you or someone you know is experiencing this disorder, I would advise you to seek professional help. Do not take your mental health lightly!