Acute stress disorder: Symptoms, causes, and diagnostic criteria

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There are many people who suffer from anxiety disorders. For the most part, medication is not always 100% necessary to treat anxiety disorders. Usually, these types of disorders require talking. When you talk about the problem and find where the problem is coming from, then a person can begin the healing process for an anxiety disorder. There are many causes of anxiety disorders, but the one common trait between them is the feeling of losing control. One type of anxiety disorder is acute stress disorder. This post will provide a description, the symptoms, and the causes of acute stress disorder.

Furthermore, the purpose of this post is to make people more aware of this disorder. If a person does experience this disorder or witnesses someone who experiences this type of anxiety, then he/she will know how to properly handle the situation because he/she will have a better understanding of what is occurring.


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A person who suffers from acute stress disorder usually has experienced a traumatic event. This traumatic event consists of witnessing or facing a near death experience and/or faced extreme physical or mental physical or mental injury. As a result to this experience(s), a person usually responds with intense fear and/or feelings of helplessness. Some of these experiences can include, a rape, an intruder, a car accident, a hold up, a kidnapping, an abuser, a shooting, etc.

During the time or after this traumatic and threating experience, the individual will face three or more of the following dissociative symptoms:

  • A person may experience a sense of emotional and possible physical numbness, emotional detachment (distancing), and/or absence of emotional responsiveness
  • The individual may also lose a conscious awareness of his/her surroundings, for example, the person may be spaced out or always daydreaming.

  • Derealization, depersonalization, and/or dissociative amnesia may occur. Derealization is the inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Usually the fantasy world or imaginative world is created to repress the memory and reality of the traumatic experience. Depersonalization is the loss of an identity; you simply do not remember who you are or how to reconstruct your old self or construct a new self. Finally, dissociative amnesia is the voluntary or involuntary separation of thoughts emotions, and memory about the traumatic experience.

The individual usually re-experiences the traumatizing and dramatic occurrence in one or more of the following ways:

The individual will recurrent images, thoughts, nightmare, and flashbacks. All of these recurrences will cause the individual to fee a sense of reliving the experience. Usually, any reminders of the experience, such as a smell, a sign, a sound, etc., will cause the person to experience these recurrences.

He or she will experience difficulty sleeping, irritability, lack of concentration, sensory sensitivity, startled responses to sudden movement or loud sounds, and/or restlessness.

The result of such a traumatic experience will make a person feel that the walls are closing in on him/her. The individual may feel like his/her world is getting smaller and smaller. Difficulty in breathing or fear of losing control may occur. Paranoia of having a heart attack or some other life-threating incident on a mental or physical level is not unusual. These symptoms prevent the individual from carrying on with the normal routine or work, school, functions, etc. These types of symptoms can last for a matter of minutes to days or even weeks after experiencing the traumatic occurrence.

There are several treatments available for this type of disorder, such as medications, per your doctor’s discretion. However, love, support, and therapy are always the best way to deal with such an experience. Sharing your experience and identifying with others who are going through or went through a similar traumatic experience and this type of disorder are always the best way to begin the healing process. Keeping your mind occupied with exercise, meditation, yoga, tai chi, hobbies, and being around loved ones are the elements that lead to the road of recovery for acute stress disorder. When you understand what you are going through, then you can begin self-healing.

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