Saying that one of the most common symptoms is excessive alertness, Elli said: “For example, an anxious individual may experience an intense feeling of panic by a slight noise, a slight shaking of the table while eating, and sometimes even being touched someone nearby. Since the individual in this situation has received a physical threat due to the earthquake, her/his body is still alert and therefore s/he shows excessive sensitivity to external stimuli. Under normal circumstances, we expect these symptoms to disappear after disasters such as earthquakes, but if the symptoms stay, they may indicate a psychiatric disorder we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“LONG TERM ANXIETY REQUIRES PSYCHIATRIC HELP”
Mentioning that people may start to avoid some places or situations due to anxiety,
Clinical Psychologist Ünal Erdem Elli from Istanbul Gelisim University said: “For example, in the earthquake in 1999, since people were caught in earthquake in their beds, most people could not sleep in beds for a long time, and their anxiety was also manifested by problems such as insomnia. Another person may be anxious to enter any building and it starts to cause serious problems in business or in everyday life. Anxiety reactions also require psychological or psychiatric help if the reactions are intense and last long. One of the common reactions is to relive the moment of danger like the moment of earthquake. For example, before the person falls asleep, the moment of earthquake can come back to her/his eye and re-experience the feeling of horror. This is one of the common reactions to trauma.”
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