How to Know If You Have PTSD: Recognizing the Signs

Many people don’t realize that what they’re experiencing could be trauma or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They often assume that their symptoms stem from anxiety, depression, or another mental health condition. However, for many individuals who have experienced trauma, undiagnosed signs of PTSD might be the real issue.

One of the reasons for this confusion is that most people associate PTSD with extreme, life-threatening events like war or violent assaults. As a result, many people think, “What I went through isn’t severe enough to be PTSD.” This is a common misconception. In reality, trauma can come in many forms, and its effects can be just as damaging, even when the event doesn’t seem catastrophic on the surface.

In this blog, we’ll explore the different types of trauma that can lead to PTSD, how PTSD might manifest in your life, and the signs to look for so you can better understand your mental health needs. Recognizing these signs is the first step to getting the right kind of help and starting your healing journey.

A major misconception about PTSD is that trauma requires a large, catastrophic event—like a war, natural disaster, or violent attack. However, trauma is much broader than that. Trauma occurs when an event overwhelms your ability to cope with the stress involved, and it can be emotional, psychological, physical, sexual, or even financial.

So, what does this mean in practical terms? It means that trauma doesn’t have to involve visible scars or dramatic life-and-death situations. Trauma can be subtle and often goes unrecognized by the person experiencing it.

The key takeaway? Trauma is any event that overwhelms your ability to cope. It’s not just about what happened, but about how your mind and body responded. It’s a deeply personal experience, and there is no “right” or “wrong” kind of trauma. Your trauma is valid, regardless of how it may compare to others’ experiences.

While most people think of trauma as being tied to major incidents, there are many different types of trauma that can lead to PTSD. Here are a few key categories of trauma:

1. Relational Trauma: This occurs when there is a violation of trust within a relationship. It might be a partner who manipulates or controls you, or a parent who emotionally abuses or neglects you. Relational trauma is particularly insidious because the damage comes from someone you thought you could trust, making it harder to heal.
2. Childhood Trauma: Trauma experienced in childhood often has a lasting impact into adulthood. Children are especially vulnerable because they are still developing emotionally and cognitively. Experiences like neglect, abuse, or witnessing violence can lead to long-term emotional challenges.
3. Sexual Trauma: Whether it’s childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, or coercion, sexual trauma leaves deep wounds. It affects a person’s sense of safety and self-worth, and the shame or guilt associated with these experiences can make it difficult to seek help.
4. Betrayal Trauma: This occurs when someone close to you violates your trust in a significant way, such as through infidelity or deception. It challenges your perception of relationships and can leave you feeling isolated and deeply hurt.
5. Complex Trauma: This happens when someone experiences multiple traumatic events, often over an extended period. It could be repeated instances of abuse or neglect, or living through ongoing war or violence. Complex trauma can lead to a particularly challenging form of PTSD known as Complex PTSD (C-PTSD).
6. Vicarious Trauma: Sometimes, trauma doesn’t happen to you directly, but it impacts you emotionally because you witnessed or heard about it. This is common among first responders, therapists, or even friends and family members who support someone who has been through trauma.

Each type of trauma can lead to PTSD, depending on how the individual processes the event and the resources they have to cope with it.

One of the most common ways trauma manifests is through avoidance. After experiencing a traumatic event, it’s completely normal to want to avoid anything that reminds you of the experience. No one wants to relive their pain, so avoidance seems like a protective mechanism. However, avoidance can quickly become problematic when it starts to shrink your world.

Avoidance can take many forms:

• Substance use: People might turn to alcohol, drugs, or other addictive behaviors like gambling or excessive shopping as a way to numb the pain or distract themselves from traumatic memories.
• Hyper-independence: Some people cope by becoming hyper-independent, burying themselves in work or taking on excessive responsibilities to keep busy and avoid facing their trauma.
• Emotional detachment: Avoidance can also look like detaching emotionally from loved ones or isolating yourself from relationships that bring up feelings of vulnerability.

While avoidance might feel like a form of self-protection, over time, it actually makes your world smaller and smaller. You may find yourself missing out on important relationships, experiences, or even career opportunities because the fear of being triggered controls your decisions.

These shifts in perception can leave you feeling disconnected from the world around you. It can also lead to feelings of hopelessness, as if life will never feel “normal” again. Recognizing these changes in your perspective is a key indicator that trauma may be at the root of your emotional struggles.

Another way PTSD manifests is through changes in your mood, behavior, and anxiety levels. Often, people mistake these symptoms for anxiety or depression. While PTSD shares symptoms with both conditions, there are distinct differences in how it shows up.

With anxiety, you might find yourself constantly worrying about the future—what could go wrong, what might happen, and how to prevent it. With depression, you might experience feelings of hopelessness or a lack of motivation. PTSD can bring on both of these feelings, but there’s an added layer.

PTSD feels like a deep withdrawal from the world. It’s not just about worrying about the future or feeling low energy. Instead, it feels as though the world has betrayed you, and you can no longer trust it. This leads to an emotional shutdown, where even simple, everyday activities can feel overwhelming. Your mood and behaviors change because you’re no longer engaging with the world in the same way.

If you think you might be experiencing trauma or PTSD, the first step is seeking a professional assessment. Many therapists are “trauma-informed,” meaning they have an understanding of trauma and how it affects people. However, being trauma-informed is different from being trauma-focused. A trauma-informed therapist might recognize the signs of trauma but may not have the specialized skills needed to treat PTSD.

To effectively treat PTSD, it’s important to find a trauma-focused therapist. Trauma-focused therapists have specialized training in how to address PTSD and the deep wounds caused by trauma. When you see a trauma-focused therapist, they’ll likely use a combination of standardized assessment tools and an in-depth review of your personal history to understand how trauma has affected you.

During this assessment, your therapist will help you determine whether your symptoms are related to trauma and PTSD, or if there’s another underlying issue. They’ll also track the severity of your symptoms and monitor your progress over time. This process ensures that your treatment is tailored to your unique needs and that you’re making measurable progress.

Therapy for PTSD is different from traditional talk therapy. While talk therapy can be helpful for processing emotions or dealing with everyday stress, it isn’t always effective for treating trauma. Trauma requires a specialized approach because it affects not only your thoughts but also your body and how you react to the world around you.

The three most common evidence-based therapies for treating PTSD are:

1. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): This therapy helps you reframe negative thoughts related to your trauma. CPT is structured and works by teaching you how to challenge unhelpful beliefs you may have developed as a result of your trauma. It’s particularly helpful for individuals who feel stuck in patterns of guilt, shame, or self-blame.

1. Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE): This approach gradually exposes you to trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations that you’ve been avoiding. Over time, exposure helps reduce the emotional intensity and fear associated with these triggers. By reprocessing these memories in a safe and controlled environment, you can begin to integrate them in a way that no longer causes significant distress.
2. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR combines elements of cognitive therapy with guided eye movements to help your brain process and heal from traumatic memories. It’s based on the idea that trauma can disrupt the brain’s natural ability to process information, and EMDR aims to help restore that balance.

These therapies have been extensively researched and proven to help individuals recover from PTSD. The goal of trauma-focused therapy isn’t just to talk about what happened, but to actually change the way your brain processes those traumatic events, reducing their emotional power and helping you regain control of your life.