Fort Hood Response


Special Edition Newsletter	Balanced Living is brought to you by Insight EAP

Responding to the Fort Hood Shootings

Yesterday, another tragedy affected Fort Hood. The resources collected in this newsletter are specifically focused on helping those impacted by this event cope with what has happened. We hope these articles help to create a positive foundation for care and recovery. You will also find a link to additional help for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the bottom of this newsletter.

Coping with a Traumatic Event

What Is a Traumatic Event?

Most everyone has been through a stressful event in his or her life. When the event, or series of events, causes a lot of stress, it is called a traumatic event. Traumatic events are marked by a sense of horror, helplessness, serious injury, or the threat of serious injury or death. Traumatic events affect survivors, rescue workers, and the friends and relatives of victims who have been involved. They may also have an impact on people who have seen the event either firsthand or on television.

What Are Some Common Responses?

A person’s response to a traumatic event may vary. Responses include feelings of fear, grief, and depression. Physical and behavioral responses include nausea, dizziness, changes in appetite and sleep pattern, and withdrawal from daily activities. Responses to trauma can last for weeks to months before people start to feel normal again.

Most people report feeling better within three months after a traumatic event. If the problems become worse or last longer than one month after the event, the person may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What Is PTSD?

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an intense physical and emotional response to thoughts and reminders of the event that last for many weeks or months after the traumatic event. The symptoms of PTSD fall into three broad types: re-living, avoidance, and increased arousal.

Symptoms of re-living include flashbacks, nightmares, and extreme emotional and physical reactions to reminders of the event. Emotional reactions can include feeling guilty, extreme fear of harm, and numbing of emotions. Physical reactions can include uncontrollable shaking, chills or heart palpitations, and tension headaches.

Symptoms of avoidance include staying away from activities, places, thoughts, or feelings related to the trauma or feeling detached or estranged from others.

Symptoms of increased arousal include being overly alert or easily startled, difficulty sleeping, irritability or outbursts of anger, and lack of concentration.

Other symptoms linked with PTSD include: panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts and feelings, drug abuse, feelings of being estranged and isolated, and not being able to complete daily tasks.

What Can You Do for Yourself?

There are many things you can do to cope with traumatic events:

Understand that your symptoms may be normal, especially right after the trauma.

Keep to your usual routine.

Take the time to resolve day-to-day conflicts, so they do not add to your stress.

Do not shy away from situations, people, and places that remind you of the trauma.

Find ways to relax and be kind to yourself.

Turn to family, friends, and clergy for support and talk about your experiences and feelings with them.

Participate in leisure and recreational activities.

Recognize that you cannot control everything.

Recognize the need for trained help, and call a local mental health center.

What Can You Do for Your Children?

Children may struggle with a traumatic event in ways very similar to adults. Knowing what you can do to help a child recover is important when helping him/her rediscover a sense of normalcy. Try these steps:

Let your child know that it is okay to feel upset when something bad or scary happens.

Encourage your child to express feelings and thoughts without making judgments.

Return to daily routines.

When Should You Contact Your Doctor or Mental Health Professional?

About half of those with PTSD recover within three months without treatment. Sometimes symptoms do not go away on their own or they last for more than three months. This may happen because of the severity of the event, direct exposure to the traumatic event, seriousness of the threat to life, the number of times an event happened, a history of past trauma, and psychological problems before the event.

You may need to consider seeking professional help if your symptoms affect your relationship with your family and friends, or affect your job. If you suspect that you or someone you know has PTSD, talk with a health care provider or call your local mental health clinic.

Trauma Affects Relationships

Trauma survivors with PTSD often experience problems in their intimate and family relationships or close friendships.
PTSD involves symptoms that interfere with trust, emotional closeness, communication, responsible assertiveness, and effective problem solving.

Survivors may experience a loss of interest in social or sexual activities, they may feel distant from others, and they may be emotionally numb.

Partners, friends, or family members may feel hurt, alienated, or discouraged because the survivor has not been able to overcome the effects of the trauma, and they may become angry or distant toward the survivor.

Feeling irritable, on guard, easily startled, worried, or anxious may lead survivors to be unable to relax, socialize, or be intimate without being tense or demanding. Significant others may feel pressured, tense, and controlled as a result.

Difficulty falling or staying asleep and severe nightmares may prevent both the survivor and partner from sleeping restfully, which may make sleeping together difficult.

Trauma memories, trauma reminders or flashbacks, and the avoidance of such memories or reminders can make living with a survivor feel like living in a war zone or like living with the constant threat of vague but terrible danger.

Living with an individual who has PTSD does not automatically cause PTSD, but it can produce vicarious or secondary traumatization, which is similar to having PTSD.

Reliving trauma memories, avoiding trauma reminders, and struggling with fear and anger greatly interfere with a survivor's ability to concentrate, listen carefully, and make cooperative decisions. As a result, problems often go unresolved for a long time.

Significant others may come to feel that dialogue and teamwork are impossible.

Survivors of childhood sexual and physical abuse and survivors of rape, domestic violence, combat, terrorism, genocide, torture, kidnapping, and being a prisoner of war often report feeling a lasting sense of terror, horror, vulnerability, and betrayal that interferes with relationships.

Survivors who feel close to someone else, who begin to trust, and who become emotionally or sexually intimate may feel like they are letting down their guard. Although the survivor often actually feels a strong bond of love or friendship in current healthy relationships, this experience can be perceived as dangerous.

Having been victimized and exposed to rage and violence, survivors often struggle with intense anger and impulses. In order to suppress their anger and impulsive actions, survivors may avoid closeness by expressing criticism toward or dissatisfaction with loved ones and friends.

Intimate relationships may have episodes of verbal or physical violence.

Survivors may be overly dependent upon or overprotective of partners, family members, friends, or support persons (such as healthcare providers or therapists).

Alcohol abuse and substance addiction, which can result from an attempt to cope with PTSD, can destroy intimacy and friendships

In the first weeks and months following a traumatic event, survivors of disasters, terrible accidents or illnesses, or community violence often feel an unexpected sense of anger, detachment, or anxiety in their intimate, family, and friendship relationships. Most are able to resume their prior level of intimacy and involvement in relationships, but the 5-10% who develop PTSD often experience lasting problems with relatedness and intimacy.

Yet, many trauma survivors do not experience PTSD, and many people in intimate relationships, families, and friendships with individuals who have PTSD do not experience severe relational problems. People with PTSD can create and maintain successful intimate relationships by:

Establishing a personal support network that will help the survivor cope with PTSD while he or she maintains or rebuilds family and friend relationships with dedication, perseverance, hard work, and commitment

Sharing feelings honestly and openly with an attitude of respect and compassion

Continually strengthening cooperative problem-solving and communication skills

Including playfulness, spontaneity, relaxation, and mutual enjoyment in the relationship

Additional Resource

As an additional resource to help you, a friend, or a loved one understand the silent impacts of post-traumatic stress disorder, here’s a special booklet prepared by the National Institute of Mental Health. Use this resource to better understand what steps you can take and what options are available to assist in the recovery related to this tragic event.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

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