GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) — With June being Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Month, it’s important to know how this can impact everyone, especially through social media.
According to Psychology Today, Vicarious Traumatization is when the human brain is negatively impacted by traumatic events without personally experiencing or witnessing that event.
“Reading and absorbing all of this information and it definitely negatively affects us and can traumatize us even though we had no part in it whatsoever, the event,” said Keith Hamm, the community liaison for Integrated Family Services in Greenville. “They may be five states away, but it doesn’t matter, they’re still traumatized. But to exacerbate the problem even more, we have the internet.”
Hamm said not only does social media fuel this but we may not even notice the damaging effects.
“People don’t recognize the symptoms of being traumatized,” Hamm added. “Things like in the aftermath of a trauma, difficulty concentrating, or irritability, sadness, sleep impairment, these are things that can happen to us in the aftermath of a traumatic event.”
That’s why it’s still important to reach out to a mental health professional.
“It’s always important to seek help from a mental health professional because a mental health professional can help mitigate those symptoms and help in recovery from the aftermath of a traumatic event or PTSD,” Hamm said. “They can help in that recovery so that we’re not constantly for the rest of our lives plagued by those symptoms.”
