Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychiatric condition that affects an individual after a continued exposure to traumatic or shocking events. It is an emotional distress that exists in someone’s life after a painful experience, and this affects his or her ordinary life and functioning. Some of the traumatic events that can lead to PTSD are accidents, violence, human or naturally caused disasters, wars, death, high conflict divorce, and the most common one is military combat. PTSD is a disorder that mostly affects war veterans because of the life-threatening events they experience and witness during wars. Post-traumatic stress disorder is more common in women than it is men. The survivors of PTSD can either return to normal or get worse over time by impairing their daily lives. Post-traumatic stress disorders affect an individual’s normal functioning because most patients cannot perform their daily duties.
There are different signs that are exhibited by a person suffering from Post-traumatic stress disorder. For instance, they experience flashbacks or nightmares of the tragic events that happened in their lives or the shocking events that they witnessed. The nightmares occur when the person remembers the event or during the anniversary when it happened. Secondly, PTSD patients tend to alienate themselves from the rest of the people or from the situations that remind them or are similar to the tragic event they witnessed or experienced. According to Bradley et al., PTSD patients may detach themselves from the rest of the world and even their family members because they lose interest in them or their passions (2005).
In addition, those with PTSD are very sensitive to situations, emotions, and their bodily feelings. For instance, they have high levels of depression, anxiety, and some of them suffer from insomnia. Most of them will have trouble focusing on one thing because they are always hyper-vigilant for the fear of the tragic event happening again. Apart from depression and anxiety, patients with PTSD may suffer from memory loss, substance abuse, and mental disorders. Watts et al. note that, people with post-traumatic stress disorder become irritable and aggressive because of the effects of the life-threatening events they had to experience (2013).
Dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder can be an uphill task because it is a condition that is hard to diagnose. Moreover, the treatment varies for every individual because they experience different tragic events with various reactions. However, it is important to note that it can be dealt with in a process of reducing the emotional and physical symptoms through psychotherapy treatment supplemented with some medications. Psychotherapy is the best solution to treat patients with PTSD. It can be group based exposure therapy or interpersonal psychotherapy (Watts et al., 2013). Through the groups and IPT models, the patients can bond and talk vividly about their feelings which help them to deal with the trauma.
In essence, post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety malady caused by exposure to extreme psychological trauma. Overall, it is a severe mental disorder if untreated, can have devastating effects on the life of the patient. Therefore, patients with PTSD should seek intensive therapy and medication to suppress its symptoms and live a normal life. What is important is that if diagnosed and treated early, a patient can recover, function, and lead a normal life
Divorce
Divorce has become a common social phenomenon in the world today with the rates increasing day by day. Divorce is a process whereby a marriage between two people is legally dissolved through litigation. Divorce affects both the parents and children if any. There are many causes of divorce, for instance, domestic violence, infidelity, financial constraints, and lack of communication. Marital infidelity is the primary cause of divorce because many couples find it difficult to reconcile after incidences of unfaithfulness. Extramarital affairs cause irreparable damage in marriages leading to conflicts and ending to divorce. The feelings of betrayal in a marriage never fades, and this is the reason most married couples opt for divorce in the case of infidelity. Secondly, financial problems can also lead to divorce. A low-income family where the couple struggles to fend for the family can lead to conflicts and fights, which later on leads to divorce. Moreover, if one couple earns more than the other does and they do not come to an agreement on how to spend their income, this can bring fights and divorce as an end result. Furthermore, the unemployment of one partner and the overspending of the other can also lead to unending issues in a marriage, which later on results in a divorce.
Thirdly, another significant cause of divorce is the lack of communication between a wife and a husband. When there is no communication, a marriage can fail because there is no good relationship between the couples. According to Gottman, there is no marriage without a healthy communication because communication is a vital key to any marriage or relationship (2014). Therefore, if there is no healthy communication between married partners, it will be an uphill task to solve conflicts in their marriages, which can lead to a dissolution of the marriage. According to Clarke-Stewart, divorce can have adverse effects on both the couples and their children if any (2007). Divorce causes psychological/mental problems on the individuals and their children.
The goal to stop divorce starts with prevention of the causes. There is a lot the married couples should learn about divorce, most importantly, the root causes, and how they can be avoided. First, the couple should learn to identify the behaviors that leads to conflicts in their marriages, which can cause a divorce and avoid them. Afterward, they should adopt to healthy behaviors in their relationship because taking an action before a problem arises is the best solution for any problem (Gottman, 2014). This can be done by visiting marriage counselors because this will help them understand how to deal with family issue amicably. Another solution to divorce if married couples to try to maintain a healthy relationship by having a good communication. If they learn to communicate effectively, then it will be easier to solve conflicts arising in their marriages thus no divorce. Thirdly, since it is apparent that infidelity is the primary cause of divorce, it is vital for a husband and wife to avoid extra-marital affairs. This is the only way to save their marriage from breaking up.
In conclusion, divorce is the legal dissolution or a marital union. Today, many marriages are ending in divorce because of issues like infidelity, financial constraints, domestic violence, and lack of proper communication. When there are extra-marital affairs in marriage, it can lead to violence and, later on, conflicts, which leads to divorce. Nonetheless, the rising cases of divorce can be reduced if couples learn that a relationship/marriage is a give and take and all of them should work to keep it. Despite the conflicts in marriage, a husband and wife should learn to communicate and maintain a healthy relationship with their union. Besides, they can also visit marriage counselors who can help them to deal with family conflicts in an amicable manner. Divorce is a serious social issue affecting most households in the society today; however, it can be prevented.
References
Bradley, R., Greene, J., Russ, E., Dutra, L., & Westen, D. (2005). A Multidimensional Meta-
Analysis of Psychotherapy for PTSD. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(2), 214-227.
Clarke-Stewart, A. (2007). Divorce: Causes and Consequences (Current Perspectives in Psychology). Yale: Yale University Press, 2007.
Gottman, J. M. (2014). What predicts divorce?: The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. University of Washington: Psychology Press.
Watts, B. V., Schnurr, P. P., Mayo, L., Young-Xu, Y., Weeks, W. B., & Friedman, M. J. (2013). Meta-analysis of the efficacy of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 74(6), 541-50.
