Why do we experience post traumatic stress? 

A small part of the brain called the amygdala is shaped like an almond, this is the part of the brain responsible for emotional reactions and is primarily involved with your survival, it is responsible for more than this but I will keep it simple for explanation purposes. 

When the amygdala is overloaded with a huge volume of emotional value it goes into panic or “fight or flight” mode and is unable to send the information to the hippocampus, which would then pass this memory to the neocortex for evaluation. 

This means that the brain is unable to make sense of the situation or event experienced and so the amygdala stays in a constant state of arousal causing flashbacks and high levels of anxiety. 

If you imagine tunnels being connected in the form of a maze, you are trying to walk through and suddenly a shutter comes down, you can’t get out until the shutters have been lifted, or in this case, you are unable to recover unless the information has been processed. 

Can PTSD be treated? 

Yes, of course, it can, it is possible to help the brain process the memory through a number of different methods, and personal recommendations are eye movement desensitisation reprocessing (EMDR) and/or emotional freedom technique (EFT), in fact, doctors highly recommend EMDR for cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

EMDR works by using movement of the eyes and allows the clients’ brain to process this disturbing information that is stuck by recall distressing images while receiving one of several types of bilateral sensory input. 

I hope this has given you a little insight to why you may be suffering from a traumatic event, you can get over it and move on with your life so go see someone asap and pay whatever it takes to become happy again!