Behind the Facade, Post-Traumatic Stress
A soldier returns from war unable to get the images of battle out of his head. An earthquake survivor rides out long, anxiety-filled nights. A young woman in a pretty floral dress walks her dog along the streets of Manhattan.
All three may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The woman walking her dog is Robin Hutchins, 25. She looks confident and self-assured, and few would guess that a year ago she discovered that she had the stress disorder.
“When I tell people I have P.T.S.D., it’s like I have to convince them it’s a real issue,” she said.
The disorder — in which a traumatic experience leaves the patient suffering from severe anxiety for months or years after the event — is often associated with battlefield combat and natural disasters. But as Dr. Frank Ochberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University, noted in an interview, the typical trigger is more mundane — most commonly, a traffic accident.
In Ms. Hutchins’s case, it was sexual violence. During her first year in college, ...
