A fruit arises to be nutritious until and except if it gets appropriate daylight, water, soil, and so forth yet when this is denied it begins decaying. Indeed, it won’t be wrong to say that our minds tend to act the same without mental peace.
With the absence of mental peace, an individual or group either gets involved in self-damage or tends to appear perilous for others around. Here, by mentioning this I am definitely talking about the attacks that keep on shattering the peace and harmony of the world.
Lately, you all must have come across the awful Yemen airport attack that occurred in the southern city of Aden. The result of the attack was that around 25 people were killed and more than 110 were found wounded. It took place with the departure of the tenure of the newly formed government. Prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed blamed Iran backed rebels for the same and quoted that the attack was meant to eliminate the new government. Also, during his interview, he stated: ‘It was a message against peace and stability in Yemen.’
Feeling agitated and dejected after coming through such news is one thing but these sorts of scenarios simply compel me to get to the foundations of them and most importantly on the aftermath. There have been multiple reports, researches, case studies, and articles about the relationship between terrorism and mental illness, but, I am here to talk about the effect of such lethal attacks on the mind of people.
Be it Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Nigeria unfortunately these countries ranked top on the list of Global Terrorism Index. The individuals residing there must have faced a lot than the people from other countries as the terrorist attacks add up to their daily issues, hence leaving a scar of the past and present.
The victims of such attacks are prone to grow Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) plus other psychiatric disorders which is alarming. As a Psychologist, I got keen to study more about PTSD and soon found that teenagers are the ones who get the most affected by such attacks and their mental peace is trodden. Additionally, Studies showed that around15% to 43% of girls and 14% to 43% of boys go through at least one trauma in their life. This in fact leads 3% to 15% of girls and 1% to 6% of boys to develop PTSD.
During my research, I even got to know that teenagers and children are the most traumatized ones but they usually have it for a short span of time. Whereas if we come onto the case of young ones it is different, they remain in that trauma for a longer period and it vanishes away from their mind slowly and gradually.
Now there are few traits or events that entails that the person is suffering from PTSD, for instance, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, suicidal ideation, sleep disorders, emotional numbness, etc. So, if you observe the above-mentioned characters in someone around you then you better take care of them and consult a psychologist. And it is important you act on such a situation immediately as the results may turn out to be more dangerous and negative.
Keep an eye around you be it the tendency of an attacker or victim.
Professor Nabhit Kapur is the founder of Peacful Mind Foundation. You can connect with him on Twitter @nabhit_kapur.
