PTSD and your teen

Covid has created a unique situation, where your kiddo could more likely be suffering from mental health issues. PTSD is something that is very prevalent in teens. Checkin in with them is important!

Doc David

Transcript

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Hey friends, let's talk about post-traumatic stress disorder in kids.

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You are listening to Hedgehoging, your answers to life, relationships, and daily living.

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Hello, hello. I know uh you are completely shocked right now because um there's another podcast in a week, right? Um if you go back and look at how many I'm posting, it's usually I'll go for maybe once one a week, and then I'll take a break of six weeks, and then I'll do one one week, and then four weeks. Anyways, yes, I am back with um another podcast this week. So welcome, welcome. Um, I just wanted to do some housekeeping stuff. So one of the things that happens when you listen to one of my podcasts often is there's either an ad in the beginning or there's an ad in the middle. Um and essentially w that monetizes the podcast. I'm sure you know that, but um, so what I when those ad plays, it gives revenue, and so um I I make money and um the amount I made so they they it gets to a certain amount and then it pays out to uh I think it's a PayPal account. Um and so I just want you to due to your awesome listening support and your generous listening support, um I last month I made ten dollars. So thank you for your generosity and listening. Um, anyways, so I'm just that's the housekeeping I wanted to take care of. So um most of you know, I mean, I'm I'm fairly certain all of you know that we're in a pandemic. Some some people call it a scamdemic, some people call it, oh, people are freaked out by the flu. Whatever you want to call it. We're we're in this thing that has been impacting um businesses, has been impacting relationships, um, and definitely has been impacting mental health. Now, the the relationships that's that it has been impacting, it's been interesting because a lot of times um, you know, you get married to somebody and then you're stuck home with them 24-7, and it really has been bringing challenges to the forefront in relationships. I've seen it in my office, so it's it's been kind of interesting. Um the one area that I keep hearing about, but I haven't like actually seen um in my office is the mental health issue with teens. I think where we've where I've read it's been really impactful is in teen suicide. Um and that could be any number of reasons, like lack of social interaction with friends, school suffering because you're having to do on online or hybrid. Um a lot of schools are back in now, but um I think that like the social isolation has been really impactful and negative. And so today I wanted to talk about um, excuse me, I'm getting over my COVID still. Um today I wanted to talk about PTSD in teenagers. Um, I think it's been more people paid more attention to it recently just because of the pandemic and a lot of things that are going on with teenage behavior that parents are reporting. Um so PTSD in teenagers can be caused by a wide range of things. Um, you know, accidents that they experience either at school or at home, uh natural disasters, the loss of a parent or their family member, um, a car accident, a school shooting, um any number of things can create PTSD in teens. It could create PTSD in anyone, but we're talking specifically teenagers. Um so ongoing traumatic events such as um domestic violence, gang violence, these are called chronic trauma events. The other ones that like a car accident or a violent incident, like a school shooting, would be acute trauma events. Um and so there's this other thing that people and teenagers and children can experience called vicarious trauma. It's also known as secondary trauma. Um, it's it's caused by exposure to traumatic events via media. Um, or if you if you have a close family or friend that has gone through domestic violence in their home, or um there's been a suicide of a third party that you don't know, but you know people that know them, um, that could create some vicarious trauma as well. So one of the so I I wanted to go over some uh classic PTSD symptoms that are in teenagers. Um I mean there's classic PTSD symptoms, but again, I'm speaking specifically to t about teenagers. And so um the symptoms, so I'm gonna go over about 12 common symptoms, and they have to be at least 12, they have to be at least uh more than a month and severe enough to impact daily functioning. Um and and these that's kind of when it becomes a diagnosable thing. Um again, it has to be more than a month and has to be bad enough that it's um interfering with daily functioning. Okay. Um, so we'll go through these 12 kind of common PTSD symptoms. So one is flashbacks, um, and that could be like you're just going through the day and there's something that reminds you of the event, and then you have a kind of intrusive thought about it. Um, like you're back at that moment, and kind of everything else clouds out, and that your mind focuses really in on that kind of event, and that would be considered a flashback. There's nightmares, um panic attacks, confusion, inability to make decisions, difficulty sleeping, finding it hard to enjoy activities that were once pleasurable, irritable, aggressive behavior, emotional numbness, constantly feeling on edge, avoiding people, places, or situations that trigger memories of the traumatic event, uh, difficulty focusing, and suicidal thoughts. Now, let's be clear. Um, just one of those, like if you if you notice, there's some things in here that um sound like depression depression symptoms, and I would say that's true. There are things in here that sound like depression symptoms, and PTSD and depression often go hand in hand. Often I call it like the same side of a coin, uh, two different sides of a coin. Um, and so what you have to do is you you these 12 I mean you can easily go on and Google PTSD symptoms. But with these symptoms, again, they have to be going on for more than a month and have to be severely impacting your daily living. And I I would also add that there needs to be more than just one. Um, I would say two of these symptoms for more than a month that severely impacting your um daily living. If that's happening, you should seek out a professional to get a diagnosis or to see if something else is going on. Um so man, my coughs are strong today. Um so what are some triggers that that happened? Well, a trigger is, and I use that term uh lightly because I think a lot of times people often will say, Oh, well, he said he spoke to me angrily and it triggered me, and I responded rudely back. And I feel like the word I believe the word triggered is often just thrown around as um synonymous with he did something or she did something that bothered me. And I don't view triggered as something as a bothering um kind of emotion. I view triggered as something like something happens and it specifically um sets off a chain of events for you. Um and so when someone speaks rudely to you or they talk to you rudely and then you respond rudely back, I don't view personally that as a trigger. I view that as like, well, this person was rude to me and that was annoying, and so I was rude back to them. Um so triggers can be external, such as a certain place, uh people, situations, smells, sounds, or object that I don't not only remind you of the trauma, but take you back to the trauma. Um because simply just reminding you of the trauma, it's like, oh yeah, there was this thing that happened to me, and like that's one event. But a trigger is something that reminds you and literally like emotionally, physically, mentally, takes you back to that trauma and to where you are having difficulty functioning. Um, and so some triggers can be very straightforward, such as a video of an accident or assault, or the anniversary of a traumatic event. Um, I mean, definitely there's those are things that would you know create memories like that to come up and kind of create a triggering event, but they can also be more subtle and individual. Um hearing a song, let's say you had a parent pass away and there was a song playing at the time. Um that for lots of other people, that song is like a great song, but for you, it really takes you back to the traumatic event that you had around your parent passing. Um and and again, I'm not a neurologist, but I but kind of what what happens is that when you experience a traumatic event, a neural pathway is formed in your brain. And one if you think of it like a well-worn trail, right? A well-worn trail or even a rut. You get stuck in a rut. Like if you have ever uh ridden a bike down a trail and there's mud and there's a it's a rut, it's hard to get out of that rut with your bike. You have to take some like very forceful action sometimes to get out of that rut. And sometimes that even won't work, and sometimes you'll fall over and you'll still be stuck in that rut. And so that's kind of how I talk to my clients about um PTSD, and that's why there's a there's a treatment called EMDR, which I we're not gonna go into that. I am definitely not an expert on EMDR, but EMDR is a way to treat trauma, and it has to do with neuroplasticity and creating new pathways in your brain, and it's a it's a pretty fascinating treatment that I probably at some point should get an expert on to have a conversation about it. Um so there's been a new study that was just released that talks about PTSD PTSD in teens. Um and it showed that 28% of teens experience moderate to high levels of PTSD. Um 28% had anxiety symptoms, and 37% had depressive depressive symptoms. And that's that's not I mean that's happening regardless of COVID. COVID just exacerbates it, I think, I believe. Um as I've been talking to parents and kind of been reading, you know, news articles and things. Um and teens are more likely than adults to have PTSD. Um one study uh states, I mean, a study from Columbia University had talked about um PTSD in teens is way more common than in adults, right? And so, and then PTSD is higher for certain types of trauma survives survivors, and children and teens who go through the most severe traumas have the highest level of symptoms. So with COVID happening right now, um we should clearly understand that there's a uh definite, like I don't know if the last two years could be considered a PTSD event, but there's things going on in the last two years that that we just as a general society aren't used to. And so definitely teenagers aren't used to the used to the things that are going on, right? Um parents are dying, grandparents are dying. Um, there's a lot of negative news reports going on, you're being forced to wear masks when you don't want to wear a mask, um, potentially. And so a lot of times us as parents, we um have pretty strong opinions about things, and that's sometimes being transferred on to our kids, and then they have to be um then they're in conflict with maybe peers who have different opinions about things. And so um how you could like other than those 12 things that I said talked about earlier that are very specific things, um there's PTSD. PTSD can um make daily functioning difficult for teenagers. So some of the long-term effects of PTSD for teenagers is increased risk-taking behavior. The idea behind that is like life sucks, life's short, what do I have to live for? I'm just gonna do what I want now in the present. So they take like kind of risk, risky, they do risky things. Teenagers generally often do risky things, and so this just enhances the risk-taking behavior. There's difficulty focusing, thinking abstractly. That could be PTSD and depression, um, poor academic performance, inability to form relationships with peers. That's been a that could be a challenge because of COVID, right? So you're stuck at home, and if you're having PTSD, it's going to be harder to interact with peers, possibly when you get put back into a school setting. Um, resisting challenges due to fear. One of the things I I think is super important for parents to do is to um help our kids learn resilience. And I think a lot of times parents want to protect their kids, and I and I think it's okay to protect your kids, definitely. Don't hear me clearly on this. I think kids do need to be protected from things, they need to have boundaries, but they also need to know that they can do hard things, um, even if it's scary, even if there's fear involved, because that builds resilience in children, which then as an adult, it teaches you have this resilience, and then you can take on more difficult things as an adult. Um and I think that's been that's a whole again, a whole nother podcast about um does society encourage parents to have their kids be challenged when things are scary? I would say currently no. Um a lot of times I see a lot of protecting bubble wrapping children when you know I always refer back to, oh, in my day, we used to drive to the li ride bikes to the library, or we would play in the dirt, or or whatever. And I think that happens, you know, every generation is different. But if you don't help your kid rise to a challenge even when they're scared, I would challenge you on that because kids need kids can be resilient, but they need opportunities to be resilient. Um and that's gonna vary differently based on the family that you're in. So there's a ver there's a variety of ways to um treat PTSD. Um there's a big one that's come out recently is trauma-informed cognitive CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. Um, there's EMDR, there's um somatic therapy, which is again, I'm not an expert in that area, but I believe somatic therapy is also known as body-based therapy. So essentially you're kind of staying in tune with what your body's telling you about whatever events that you're having PTSD about. Um for younger kids that aren't aren't really cognitively there yet, there's play therapy for for younger children. Um, and that that actually works. You know, a lot of times parents say, my kid just goes and plays in a sandbox with this therapist. I mean, it's pretty valuable, it's a pretty valuable treatment. So don't knock it. Just like EMDR. I used to think that EMDR was kind of like, okay, that's really weird and voodoo-y, but EMDR, I've talked with clients that have done EMDR, and I have a colleague who does EMDR, and she was explaining it to me, and it really opened my eyes to the value of it. So if you have trauma in your life that you haven't ever just been able to work through and counseling doesn't work, I'd really encourage you to look up EMDR and maybe give that a um a try. Medication can sometimes be used to combat PTSD symptoms. Um, usually they're the same ones that are the same medications that are used to treat depression and anxiety. But again, there's there's drug-free solutions to PTSD that have been shown to be equally or more effective. So if if you're if you have a teenager that's maybe struggling with some of these symptoms that I'm talking about, definitely get them in to talk to somebody because that's the first step to to having them get get help. I think a lot of times parents um think they can convince their kid to get out of depression or get out of a PTSD thing or get out of having anxiety when medication and maybe talk therapy are actually the the better solution for it. I think again, back in my day in the 80s, um I'd never heard of therapy, right? It still existed back then, but I don't I don't think it was a regularly used outlet for um struggles that people were having. Hopefully now as a society we've gained more appreciation for the value of therapy. And if you're hearing this um and you have a parent or if you have a kid that's struggling with PTSD or maybe some depression symptoms, I really want to encourage you to not uh rely on your parenting skills to get them out of it, but really seek out a therapist that like is uh that specifically has a niche with teenagers or a niche with depression or PTSD. Because I think it could really change your um teens' life and it could change your home life. Because I think that as a fellow parent, when one of my kids is struggling, I I don't want them to struggle, I want them to be okay. And um, if I am powerless to do anything about it, it gets really frustrating. So seeking out a an expert in that arena would be important. Just like if you had um electrical issues in your house, you're probably not gonna try to fix it yourself. There's probably gonna be some things that I mean, you might change the light bulb, let's say. I mean, that's easy, you can do that. But if you have to dig into wires or if you have to change um fuses or things like that, that may be a different story for you, and you'll seek out a professional who knows how to do that. I would say the same thing applies within like the mental health world. Um, talking with your kid is great, but you may not have the skills needed to help them figure out how to deal with any PTSD, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, whatever they're struggling with in that moment. So a great resource to track down somebody that could help you is psychologytoday.com. Now, this is not a paid advertisement, but it's I I advertise on Psychology Today. It has a great search bar where you put in what you're looking for and your zip code, and then it it finds people local to you. Um that that's a that's a great resource. There's other resources that you I think goodtherapy.net is another resource that could um help you find a therapist. But ultimately the goal would be to find a therapist that uh is gonna help you relate to your teen or help your teen kind of work through whatever challenges they're struggling with. Hey, so here we are. It's another podcast. Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, feel free to share, tell your friends about it. Um I want to make ten dollars again. Well, actually, let's make eleven dollars together this next month and see if we can. Um hey, you can always reach out to me on Instagram, um, Dr. David Simonson. You can reach out to me on uh Facebook, DocDavid, or email me at headshrinkinc at gmail.com. Have a great week. We will talk again soon.