Common Symptoms of PTSD
PTSD develops when a person has experienced or witnessed a scary, shocking, or dangerous event.[2] These events can involve a situation with threats to life or limb, such as combat, natural disasters, or sexual assault, but they’re not limited to these extreme examples.
Symptoms of PTSD may last for months, years, or even a lifetime and include:
- Flashbacks or feeling like the event is happening all over again
- Feeling alone or detached from others
- Losing interest in activities once enjoyed
- Trouble sleeping or nightmares
- Having angry outbursts or other extreme reactions
- Feeling guilt, worry, or sadness
- Trouble concentrating or staying focused
- Frightening thoughts
- Physical pain, such as stomach aches or headaches
- Avoidance of memories or feelings about the traumatic events
- Difficulty remembering things
- Negative beliefs about themselves or others
- Irritability
- Hypervigilance
- Startling easily[3]
PTSD Statistics
Trauma can be used to describe a variety of stressful experiences that can leave someone with feelings of fear and distress, but not all stressful events are the type of trauma that can lead to PTSD. Typically, PTSD arises when people experience events that make them believe their own lives or the lives of others are in grave danger.[4]
Both men and women can experience trauma and may develop PTSD, but the types of traumatic events differ. It’s more common for women to experience sexual assault, while men more often experience physical assault, accidents, combat, or secondhand trauma watching someone die or become injured.[5]
According to the National Center for PTSD, most people who experience a traumatic event will not experience PTSD.[6] About six in every 100 people – or 6% of the population – will have PTSD at some point in their lives.[7] Many people who have PTSD will recover and no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD with treatment.
About 5 out of every 100 adults in the US have PTSD in any given year.[8] In 2020, this equated to about 13 million Americans. Women are also more likely to develop PTSD than men, at about 8% and 4%, respectively.[9] This is partly due to the prevalence of different types of trauma each gender experiences rather than inherent differences between genders.
Veterans are also more likely to have PTSD than civilians, and among them, veterans deployed to active war zones where they see direct combat are more likely to have PTSD than those who did not deploy.[10]
