Winning the War on PTSD:
The Two Faces of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder:
How PTSD Manifests Differently
in Men versus Women
By Dr. jamie Turndorf, Ph.D.
In this article, I will examine the sex and gender differences in PTSD.
According to research, women are more than twice as likely to develop PTSD than men (12% for women and 6% for men). https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_women.asp. (As I’ve previously stated, I believe the incidence of PTSD is much higher than we realize due to the fact that a single illness, accident or trauma depletes the body of magnesium. Magnesium depletion triggers hypothalamic/adrenal/pituitary (HPA-Axis) dysfunction. HPA-Axis dysfunction is the cause of PTSD.)
Women are more prone to PTSD than men for several reasons:
High Impact Trauma:
The first reason why women are more prone to PTSD is because women are exposed to more high-impact trauma. The higher the physical impact, the greater the risk of PTSD.
Of all forms of high impact assault, sexual assault is more likely to cause PTSD than any other event. One in four women (25%) are raped by age 44, as opposed to only 8% of men.
In addition, research shows that more women experience childhood neglect or abuse, and the sudden loss of a loved one, all of which are PTSD triggers.
Domestic violence is also a powerful PTSD trigger. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, each year over 12 million women and men are victims of intimate partner violence. Moreover, 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence, according to the United Nations.
Both men and women are at a higher risk of developing PTSD if they have a pre-existing mental health issue such as depression or anxiety, if their assault was severe, resulted in injury, and/or was life-threatening. If the reaction was extreme at the time of the assault, additional stress occurred after the trauma, and they do not have a good social support system, PTSD is likely to result.
The Earlier the Trauma the More Severe PTSD:
Not only are women more likely to experience sexual assault, sexual abuse most commonly occurs at an earlier stage of life.
Trauma early in life has more impact in that it effects neurobiological, personality and brain development.