After a traumatic experience, symptoms can arise that make everyday life more difficult.
The affected person sees images of the traumatic experience. This unwanted re-living is extremely unsettling for the traumatized person - he is afraid to be going crazy. It takes a lot of effort to get back to reality. Whoever has to deal with such so-called "flashbacks" can only cope with his life with half the power and thus often doesn’t work to his full potential.
Another symptom is hyper arousal, which can manifest itself in sleep disturbances, trembling, sweating or a strong frightfulness. The traumatized person is therefore constantly active, cannot relax and cannot respond well to situations that require a fast response.
In addition, many situations that are associated with trauma are avoided. For example, the traumatized person might not be able to drive a car after an accident.
Emotional symptoms such as irritability or even an emotional "being numb" can make living together more difficult.
In the life of a person, this can leave a profound impact. If after a natural catastrophe or a civil war, large parts of the population are suffering from trauma and its consequences, the development of a community can be significantly impaired.
Fortunately, today we can successfully treat the consequences of traumatization. The purpose of TraumaAid is to make these more recent opportunities accessible to countries with a lot of trauma but little financial resources.