PTSD what is it?

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder-a snapshot put in layman's terms

For those of you not familiar, there is a book that therapists use to make a diagnosis called The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that is published by the American Psychiatric Association.

The manual outlines criteria for PTSD in the following general ways.

A. A person has been exposed to a traumatic event that  involved threat of death and involved intense fear.
B.The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced by recall, dreams, feelings, distress when exposed to cues that remind  the person of the event.
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma
D.Persistent new increase in arousal including 2 or more of the following-difficulty sleeping, irritability/anger, difficulty concentrating, hyper vigilance, and aggravated startle response.
E. Duration of B,C, D for more than a month
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment of functioning

Breast cancer and PTSD

Breast cancer is a wicked sycophant that tries to suck the life out of its host. It's best friend and companion is fear, which can be incredible debilitating. Fear actually fuels breast cancer by keeping the immune system busy while cancer does its ugly little mating dance. Only if you have heard your name  and the word cancer in  the same sentence can you really grasp this concept. Hearing that you have cancer is a poisonous mortality pie in the face. Suddenly you realize that nothing is safe, nor was it ever. Death becomes a real possibility and it changes the way you view everything.