Chennai Advocates Highlight Cost of Untreated Trauma on PTSD Awareness Day

On Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day, mental health advocates in Chennai highlighted how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) remains highly under-recognized and undertreated across the city due to stigma and limited healthcare access. The awareness campaign aimed to address the severe consequences of untreated trauma, which causes persistent, daily-life-disrupting psychological distress for many individuals.

According to advocates, PTSD develops when the brain's normal stress response fails to reset after a person experiences, witnesses, or learns about a traumatic event. This leaves the brain in a heightened state of alert. While many people recover naturally from distressing experiences, those with PTSD experience symptoms that persist for more than a month, significantly affecting their daily functioning.

The campaign highlighted that many individuals in Chennai suffer silently because they attribute symptoms to general stress or feel they should simply "move on." Stigma, fear of revisiting painful memories, and limited access to mental health care further prevent people from seeking professional evaluation.

The symptoms of PTSD are categorized into four major clusters. These include intrusive memories, nightmares, or flashbacks; active avoidance of reminders of the trauma; negative changes in mood and thinking, such as emotional numbness and hopelessness; and hyperarousal symptoms like irritability, poor concentration, and sleep disturbances.

Advocates also detailed how seemingly harmless sensory inputs, such as smells or everyday sounds like fireworks and slammed doors, can act as triggers that provoke intense emotional and physical responses.

Left untreated, PTSD can lead to severe occupational, academic, and interpersonal difficulties. It also carries physical health risks, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, chronic pain, and impaired immune function.

However, advocates emphasized that PTSD is highly treatable. International guidelines recommend trauma-focused psychotherapies, such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Prolonged Exposure Therapy, alongside medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) when necessary.