Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Reflection

From a young age, I struggled with disordered eating tendencies. Although my weight would go up and down, my thought process was almost constantly clouded with thoughts of food, calorie contents, and numbers on the scale. Upon entering high school, I began therapy and was able to make leaps and bounds toward recovery. Things were finally looking up, but I knew all too well that people affected by eating disorders were at a continuous risk of relapse. In my freshman year of high school, I took a health course where we began to cover some heavy topics, such as suicide, depression, and substance abuse. Eventually, we got around to discussing eating disorders, and that was all it took. One fifty-three-minute classroom discussion about anorexia and

As expressed by Mayo Clinic (2017), “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it.” Along with PTSD comes a multitude of symptoms that can negatively impact a victim’s well-being. It is not uncommon for someone who has experienced a traumatic event, such as verbal, physical, or sexual abuse, to have flashbacks and nightmares (U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, 2015). These symptoms are often exacerbated when the victim experiences something that causes them to recall vividly the trauma that they have experienced. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs (2015), if you suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder you “may see, hear, or smell something that causes you to relive the event.” Experiencing the triggers that cause victims to relive their trauma may also result in panic attacks or cause generalized feelings of anxiety and paranoia within the