During my trauma, there was a moment so overwhelmingly horrific and painful that I literally willed myself to die. I became intensely still and allowed all energy to flow out of my body. Very soon, I felt myself leave my body and move toward a tunnel in the ceiling that was ringed with white light. Obviously, I wasn’t successful in my death quest. But in that moment what did I experience?

I received an email from a client last week; he was very upset. Usually, he's the kind of guy who likes to travel on the drop of a dime but since PTSD began to control his life, he’s noticed that traveling takes an enormous toll on him. After even the smallest trip, he wrote, "I have to sleep all the next day. Is this part of the PTSD profile?" In a word: Yes.

If you have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), you’re no stranger to excessive feeling, acting and behaving. Think of it this way: Living with PTSD, you are like a pitcher filled to the brim with water. As long as no one and no thing pours more water on the pitcher, it can stay at capacity and not overflow. You can hold yourself together, cope and manage if, not easily, at least often somewhat effectively. When more water is added to the pitcher, however, what happens? That’s right! The liquid overflows and there’s just nothing you can do about it.

One of the most difficult things to do in balancing life and PTSD is to maintain, develop and/or build a career. There are times we are able to channel all of our anxious energy into being a super-duper employee (there are, you know, great benefits to hypervigiliance in how you perform your job!) – and times it’s just not possible to expect that level of performance from ourselves. During my own PTSD decades, I had eleven jobs in five industries over thirteen years because sometimes I could hold a job – and sometimes I really just couldn’t.

Pop quiz, peeps! While everyone knows that veterans struggle with PTSD, do you really know how many? Or who PTSD affects more, men or women? And did you know these important stats about children?

As a mental health advocate, author and speaker, I attend many events surrounding posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). All too often, I experience a conversation that goes like this: “What do you do, exactly?” someone will ask. “I help trauma survivors learn to cope with, manage and overcome symptoms of PTSD,” I reply. “Ohhhhh,” their eyes light up. “You work with veterans!” People often don't realize that the causes of PTSD result from many types of trauma.

Any serious PTSD blog (and that is definitely what I want this to be!) has to start with the lowdown on the details of posttraumatic stress disorder itself. If you've heard about PTSD in the media or if you have a friend or family member - or even think you, yourself, might have a touch of this completely normal reaction to an abnormal circumstance - then right off the bat, it's good to know how to recognize PTSD (symptoms of PTSD) so that you can begin to wrangle the beast.