Information Processing Defects & PTSD

MedPage Today has an article that explores the relationship between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and defects in a person’s information processing ability.

A study was performed involving 22 soldiers diagnosed with PTSD who had served in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as 20 others who had also served in combat but were not PTSD sufferers. MRI scans were performed of all 42 soldiers as they were shown pictures of faces that they were asked to remember. The soldiers were also shown other pictures that were meant as distractions, such as combat and noncombat scenes and digitally scrambled nonsense scenes.

The results were striking – PTSD patients exhibited “enhanced activity in ventral regions” that are normally associated with processing emotion when viewing the distracting pictures. The results, say doctors, point to a link between PTSD and cognitive processing disorders.

This is significant to me, because people suffering from trauma-induced anxiety typically interpret otherwise innocuous circumstances as personally threatening. I’ve often wondered why I did that!

The good news is that behavioral and/or exposure therapy can help “recalibrate” how trauma patients interpret information.

Defects in Information Processing May Underlie PTSD

Recession Anxiety

The New York Times has posted an in-depth article in their Health section concerning recession anxiety. It’s a good thing no one has officially declared this downturn as a depression. It would be sort of redundant to write an article on Depression Anxiety.

It seems that with the plethora of bad economic news coming at us from every possible angle, otherwise well-adjusted people are caught in a cycle of panic attacks driven partly by their inability to look away from the carnage. 24×7 cable news provides a steady stream of information to keep the anxiety level raised, leading to sleepless nights, worried days, and heightened generalized panic.

As I’ve watched friends and co-workers lose their jobs and go months and months without finding employment, I’ve been able to keep myself somewhat grounded by sticking to my philosophy of embracing impermanence, understanding that the world is constantly changing, and trying to keep that from occurring is not only ludicrous, but the cause of suffering, dear Buddha.

That’s said, in the past few weeks I’ve begun to wonder when my boss might show up, unannounced, in my office, and how that scenario might play out. I remind myself of that deep pit I tend to walk around where I play worst-cases over in my mind, and how unproductive that is, so I knock it off. But the bottom line is – why not me?

This seems oddly familiar, and the last time I took notice of a similar heightered anxiety at a group level was in the weeks and months after the Sept. 11 attacks, and it’s amazing that around-the-clock news coverage and our inability to look away from it was a major contributor back then, too. Being constantly pounded with fear-inducing data is like repeated blows with a blunt object. Eventually, you’ll begin to show some ill effects.

It’s hard to imagine that things will eventually turn around, but all such economic turmoil is cyclical. The current crisis is obviously manifesting itself in new and interesting ways, and the list of villians is both broad and deep, so anger and frustration join fear and loathing in this psychological ballroom dance. But this is not new in the history of the world, and there are plenty of resources available to help if you’re experiencing some of the same symptoms and feelings as the ones recounted by the people in the article. I hope there’s less resistance to outreach than usual, because panic and anxiety can’t be solved alone.

Things are bad right now, but they’ve been bad before, and we’ve survived. They will be bad again, and we’ll need to summon our strength and pull out our coping tools to keep our sanity intact. It’s cyclical.

Everything is as it should be.

Recession Anxiety Seeps Into Everyday Lives