July 5th, 2020: A Case of PTSD

 

I received a phone call from a young man who knows one of my associates. He was quite distracted and nervous during the call. He kept telling me that he had some terrible nightmares, and he has called in sick and not showed up for work for about a week. He assured me that he is not addicted to any substances and not a heavy drinker. I asked him about seeing his family doctor, and he said he did. He got a prescription for some sleeping pills, and that did not help.

I asked him to walk me back to the beginning of this struggle that he has. It started about two months ago, he said. He said that he surfed the internet a lot in April and May due to no work. He lives alone and doesn't have any hobbies besides computer games. Most of his nightmares have something to do with what he reads and sees online. Sometimes he relives his games in his sleep. He told me that he has a hard time remembering normal daily things and yet has vivid memories of his bad dreams. Many of these images are traumatic to him.

The more I listened to him, the more I think I he has suffered from a form of PTSD by being exposed to unthinkable and shocking images online. Dr. Graham Davey, a professor emeritus of psychology at Sussex University in the UK and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology said this during an interview with Time Magazine in May:

 "These bystander-captured media can be so intense that they can cause symptoms of acute stress—like problems sleeping, mood swings, or aggressive behaviour—or even PTSD."

I referred him to a colleague who is a clinical psychologist who specialized in PTSD treatment. I told him he is welcome to call me anytime, but I will respect his time with my colleague. He is better served this way.

Stress can enter our lives in many ways. During the last three months, 70% of my conversations with people have to deal with stress: not having work, problems in relationships, not knowing when things will be back to normalcy,  health problems, uncertainty about future education, and more. That didn't help with the bombardment of news and its repetition with an artificially intense tone. Many young people are dealing with this, not just older folks. So it will be good that we become a little more patient and understanding when some people seem to come unglued in the way they react to simple things in life.

Psalm 91:4-6. "He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings, you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday."