Why Most of Us Don’t Have PTSD

Anniversaries are times when we remember what has come to pass, but when the nature of what has come to pass involves trauma, then what we tend to remember is the fear, the suffering, the loss and victimization that we experienced at that time.

We were all affected by the destruction of September 2001, shocked by the images on the TV screen and by the inner emotional truth that we felt in our guts. We were terrorized by the sense of danger that soon spanned the whole of our country, with the realization that these acts of madness could have happened anywhere. Now, a year later, nearly all of us have resumed our routines, while news and personal reports tell us that many of those who lived or worked near the epicenters of destruction still suffer lives of financial uncertainty and continued emotional distress.

Survey estimates inform us that more than half of all adults have had at least one traumatic experience, such as witnessing someone else’s death or witnessing or suffering significant injuries, accidents, disasters, or combat. In spite of that, only one in twenty men and one in ten women go on to develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), characterized by such symptoms as: frightening recollections, feelings of unreality, sleeplessness, loss of mental control, and increased efforts to withdraw and avoid risk for fear that something bad will happen again.

Why do some of us develop PTSD and other not? Ultimately, the answer is a matter of perception. It is largely how we think about, process, and feel about these experiences that determines their effects on our lives. From the beginning, we each handle the stresses and challenges of our lives differently. Our own biological abilities to self-sooth or to respond favorably to our parents’ attempts to sooth us were in place before we could even speak a word. Simply put, some of us started out with the advantage of a certain amount of psychological resilience, shielding us from some of the disruptive effects of later traumatic experiences.

Gratefully, our parents and teachers also taught us to cope with adversity, believing in each other and ourselves. We learned that some problems could be solved if we thought about them intelligently, and that good people would be there to help us if we developed strong bonds of friendship and understanding. Those of us who acquired sufficient coping skills may have been saved from the worst of PTSD because we were able to act and be at our best during times that threaten our mutual survival.

Getting PTSD is a bit like catching a virus: you have to be exposed to it first before you can get it. In that oversimplified sense, it is also a matter of chance that some of us were not there or that our friends on the East Coast got a much bigger dose of the horrors of that September day. It is through a fateful combination of good feeling, active coping, brotherly love, and sheer luck, that most of us still manage to survive such personal and national traumas, as 9-11, retaining a sense of hope about our lives, our futures and the world that we live in.

Next week we’ll discuss how to heal from the painful memories of the past.

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