Mental health has seen a special emphasis in the medical world over the last few years. Mental Health awareness, or lack thereof, can affect many aspects of an individual’s life.
But where does negative mental health come from? It can stem from several things, but none more than mental and physical trauma.
If you have experienced these in the past, it can affect your mental health in the future. Here are five ways how it can.
Effects of Trauma on Mental Health
An individual can experience one or more of these effects, but they are all just as concerning. If you have any of these, be sure to consult a professional
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
One of the major ways trauma affects people is PTSD. Individuals will suffer for a long time after their traumatic experience. Often the trauma will manifest through nightmares or flashbacks.
This can cause sleepless nights, panic attacks, emotional numbing, and many of the others on this list.
Behavioral Change
This and drug abuse may go hand-in-hand, but when suffering from a traumatic event, individuals will try to escape the memories by engaging in behaviors they previously did not do.
This can be as simple as excessive eating or as high-risk as unprotected sex with strangers.
Drug Abuse
Some of the other high-risk behaviors include alcohol and drug abuse.
In the short term, this makes them more susceptible to endangering themselves and overdosing. In the long term, this can destroy their lives and cause loved ones to suffer as well.
Drug abuse can compound with PTSD and cause more depression to develop.
Depression
traumas can cause depression, where the individual experiences feelings of anxiety, hopelessness, and despair. And this symptom is shockingly common; over two million youth in America suffer from crippling depression.
Often this can be from childhood trauma or dealing with various mental traumas that develop throughout their life. Depression can be the cause of suicidal thoughts and tendencies.
Suicidal Tendencies
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 800,000 suicides every year, or a suicide every 40 seconds.
Although this does not specify the amount are due to responses to traumatic situations, one can infer that many are due to this very same thing.
WHO also stated that every one in nine people who live in traumatic settings affected by conflict develops moderate to severe mental disorders.
When applied to Americans, it’s staggeringly higher. Over 10 million adults in the US have suicidal thoughts.
Beat The Odds Of Your Trauma
All these are side effects of physical and mental trauma on your mental health, but they are not always surefire responses to the traumas. If you find help, these can be handled effectively or even avoided altogether.
We at the AJ Therapy Center believe in you and we can help you get through any of the effects associated with trauma.
If you have any questions or if you need help with dealing with your traumas you can contact us here. We are always here to help.