 Hi there fans, welcome to another video by Psych2Go, made possible only through your love and support. We aim to unravel the mysteries of psychology along with you, one video at a time. So let's begin! Have you ever gone through something so unspeakably horrific that it left you psychologically scarred? Is there a certain event or experience in your life that still haunts you to this day? If so, what you are experiencing is called trauma. Statistics show that approximately one out of every three people who experience severe trauma develop PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a mental illness that is brought about when we experience a traumatic event ourselves, or when we witness or hear about a traumatic event that happened to someone we love. The American Psychological Association defines trauma as, any event where there is a serious threat to one's life. The severity of danger is what sets PTSD apart from other trauma and stress-related mental illnesses, such as, adjustment disorder and acute stress disorder, or ASD. It typically manifests as a persistently negative mood, hypervigilance, intrusive flashbacks, and recurring nightmares about the traumatic event. With that said, here are the six most common causes of PTSD. 1. Physical Assault Assault is what happens when someone physically overpowers you in a way that's meant to cause you harm, and it usually involves instances of theft, mugging, battering, stabbing, murder, or kidnapping. With that said, going through any one of these examples would be enough to traumatize a person for life. The likelihood of PTSD developing increases in these cases when the perpetrator was someone you knew, or someone close to you. A weapon, like a gun or a knife, was used. It happened when you were younger, and help was not immediately available. 2. Sexual Assault Sexual assault has been identified as one of the leading and most dangerous causes of developing PTSD. Victims of sexual harassment or rape are afraid of getting blamed or being ridiculed and so often feel unable to share what happened to them. Repressing your trauma only makes it come out in uglier and far more dangerous forms. Studies show that survivors of sexual assault, whether attempted or completed, often struggle with feelings of depression, anxiety, fear, isolation, anger, and sadness. 3. Serious Accidents Running over someone, getting run over, being in a car crash, having a stroke or a heart attack, falling from a great height, or seriously injuring yourself are some of the examples of the kinds of serious accidents that can cause PTSD. The most common culprits are vehicular accidents, which have been rising at an alarming annual rate. 4. Natural Calamities If the traumatic event was a natural calamity, part of the reason why it can be so enduring and so overwhelmingly frightening is because of how helpless it makes us feel, whether it was a flood, a fire, a hurricane, or a high-magnitude earthquake. Environmental disasters like these can leave you fearing for your life and unable to do anything to stop it. PTSD develops when you can no longer control your fear of it happening again and you start living in a state of constant anxiety and trauma. 5. Combat Exposure Interestingly enough, while physical and sexual assault were found to be most common in patients with PTSD, it was actually combat exposure that led the condition to become an officially recognized mental illness. Being exposed to combat violence, serving in a war or witnessing war at a young age can do a lot of psychological damage to a person. 6. Inherited Vulnerability While trauma is definitely present for a large majority of PTSD cases, genetics has also been shown to play a role. As studies have found, it's actually possible for two people to experience the same traumatic event, but only one of them develops PTSD. This is explained in the Diathesis Stress Model, which states that for mental illness to develop, there must be external stressors and an inherited vulnerability. Vulnerability refers to a person's family history of having that certain disorder. This means that the more relatives of PTSD you have, or the closer your relationship to them is genetic, the more likely you are to develop it as well. According to the National Institute of Mental Health in 2017, 7-8% of the global population suffers from PTSD. Children are up to two times more likely to develop it than men, and it tends to have a chronic course that persists for years, decades, or even a lifetime when left untreated. If you have experienced any of these traumatic events, it's important that you reach out to a mental health care professional and get the help you need. Even if you don't think you're at risk of developing PTSD, it would still do you good to speak out to a counselor and open up to them about what you're going through. Communicating how you feel and surrounding yourself with people who support you and understand what you're going through can make all the difference. Had you heard of PTSD before? Are the causes of PTSD now more clear? Does the video make it seem less intimidating to seek help? Please let us know in the comments below. Also, share this video with those you think might benefit from it. Stay tuned for more psychology.