Complaints & connections · borters.ch
What was experienced is not filed away but stays present — there are effective, well-studied therapies for this.
Also known as: PTSD · post-traumatic stress disorder
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Post-traumatic stress disorder can develop after events experienced as life-threatening or overwhelming: an accident, an assault, violence, sexual abuse, war and displacement, but also serious illness. It can also affect witnesses and relatives who hear of it. The most reassuring sentence first: most people do not develop PTSD after a severe event. In the first weeks, being jumpy, sleeping badly, intrusive images or irritability are normal reactions to something abnormal — in many people they settle by themselves. If they persist beyond about a month and restrict daily life, this is called PTSD. It shows up in four areas: re-experiencing with flashbacks and nightmares, avoidance of everything that reminds, negative changes in thinking and mood such as guilt, shame and estrangement, and hyperarousal with startle, disturbed sleep and watchfulness. In children it looks different: repetitive play, developmental steps going backwards, tummy aches or headaches. Trauma-focused psychotherapies are effective, above all trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy and EMDR — and they still work when the event was years ago. A forced debriefing right after the event, by contrast, can do harm. Alcohol as self-treatment brings brief quiet and worsens everything else. After prolonged violence this is called complex PTSD; it needs longer treatment. Asking for help is not weakness — and treatment works.
Consistent times — even on weekends — stabilise the body clock and sleep quality most.
Bright morning light and dim evening light support the natural rise of melatonin.
Caffeine lingers for hours — in the afternoon/evening it disrupts sleep depth.
Protection, sleep, food, trusted people and a simple daily routine. A forced debriefing right afterwards can do harm.
Trauma-focused CBT and EMDR are best supported — and they work even when the event was years ago.
Start with the family doctor; Victim Support Switzerland and the cantonal victim advice centres advise free and confidentially; Die Dargebotene Hand 143 around the clock, Pro Juventute 147 for young people; in acute danger, 144.
They dampen briefly, disturb sleep, intensify nightmares and create dependence. That is not weakness but a known pattern — and it can change.
Regular sleep, movement, set meals, daylight and contact with people steady things noticeably — they do not replace therapy, they carry it.
Listen when they talk, do not push when they do not. No advice like “just forget it” — and accept support yourself too.
Explain simply, keep routines, allow closeness, never force talking. Child and adolescent mental health services can help.
After prolonged violence or neglect, difficulties with emotions, self-image and relationships come on top — treatment is longer and phased, but it helps.
There is no drug that changes a memory. Antidepressants lower hyperarousal, sleep disturbance and the accompanying depression, and need eight to twelve weeks for that. Prazosin acts specifically against nightmares. Benzodiazepine-type sedatives are unfavourable here, because they damp the processing the therapy needs. What reaches the core are trauma-focused approaches over eight to sixteen sessions.
After a severe event, very many people have symptoms in the first days and weeks — that is the normal reaction. A disorder is only spoken of from four weeks; before that it is the acute reaction. About five to ten in a hundred of those affected develop the full picture, considerably more after interpersonal violence. Trauma-focused therapy works over eight to sixteen sessions in about two thirds.
Memories can return with bodily sensations — palpitations, tightness, a start without cause. That is described and no sign of weakness.
Images, sounds or smells intrude as if it were happening now. A smell or screeching brakes can be enough to set it off.
Places, conversations, people and thoughts get avoided. That relieves in the short term and keeps the problem alive long term.
Guilt, shame, mistrust, feeling beside oneself or cut off from everyone — common, and nobody’s own fault.
Startling easily, irritability, poor sleep, concentration problems, constantly checking doors and exits.
Repetitive play of the event, going backwards such as bedwetting or baby talk, clinging, tummy and head aches instead of words.
In the first weeks much of this is a normal reaction. Only if it lasts beyond about a month and narrows daily life is it PTSD.
No value detects a stress disorder. An overactive thyroid does cause a racing heart, restlessness and sleeplessness — the same signs, and it is treatable.
An iron shortage lowers resilience further and worsens sleep. It explains nothing, but it takes away strength that is needed.
A lack causes exhaustion, problems concentrating, low mood and forgetfulness — and it is one of the few causes that can be found and put right with a single blood draw.
Low values are common with low mood. Whether correcting it lifts the mood is not settled; that it makes sense in winter at our latitudes is.
An empty store causes tiredness, lack of drive and problems concentrating long before any anaemia becomes visible. In women of childbearing age the most common single reason.
A building block of the cell coverings in the brain. The studies on mood are inconsistent; as part of a good diet it belongs there anyway.
Needed for making the messengers in the brain. It runs short with alcohol and under certain medicines — and it is always judged together with B12.
Trauma-focused psychotherapy is in this field the only treatment with clear evidence, and it works even years after the event. No preparation comes near that — what supplements can achieve concerns sleep and the basics, and honestly that is not nothing.
The torn sleep is one of the most stubborn features and at the same time what worsens everything else. Melatonin helps with falling asleep, not with staying asleep and not against nightmares — small amounts, 0.5 to 2 mg, one to two hours beforehand.
Both are often used here to get through the day and into sleep — and both worsen exactly what they are taken for. Alcohol makes falling asleep faster and tears apart the second half of the night, where the nightmares lie. That is one of the few levers that is noticeable at once.
Clearly worthwhile and well supported when deficient — vegan, older adults, certain drugs. No energy boost without a deficiency.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
Clearly effective with proven deficiency, useless without. Take only with a documented deficiency — excess is harmful.
Effects on inflammation and triglycerides established; cardiovascular prevention is mixed. Watch quality and freshness.
In pregnancy clearly established against neural-tube defects, otherwise mainly with deficiency. Can mask a B12 deficiency — watch both.
Contrary to expectation, cortisol in PTSD is often not raised but rather low, while the stress axis at the same time reacts oversensitively. That is one reason the condition cannot be recognised through a blood value.
The startle response, the racing heart and the nightmares run through this signal. This is why a medicine that dampens its effect in the brain works for nightmares — one of the few with a clear point of attack.
Oxytocin as a nasal spray has been tested for prevention after trauma; the results are inconsistent. What actually works is a person one trusts — the same hormone, only not from a bottle.
Alcohol is often used to calm down and disturbs exactly the dream sleep in which experience is processed. Over weeks that strengthens nightmares rather than dampening them.
Studied as an addition to trauma therapy; for some, body work is the easier route in.