The Full Cup and Understanding PTSD

Post traumatic stress disorder, more commonly referred to as PTSD, is a condition where a person experiences profound, severe distress events as a result of a trauma or traumas. This extreme stress can be constant, but is often instead triggered by sounds, smells, memories, or other unrelated tensions.

For example, a veteran that served in combat might experienced PTSD when they hear a loud noise back at home. A young woman that has experienced assault may experienced PTSD when feeling scared or overwhelmed by people around them in a room. These are all examples of how post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms can be triggered.

But what makes PTSD a bit more confusing to people is that, for some people (although not all), the individual feels or appears mostly “normal” for much of the time. Maybe they’re a little stressed or anxious, but at times they can be their typical, non-PTSD selves, only to find that there are triggers that cause them to experience severe symptoms very quickly.

Why does this happen?

Let’s talk about the filled cup theory.

Imagine an empty glass. It has some fluid in it already. This is your “baseline stress.”

Also in the glass is an imaginary fill line. This fill line is this is the amount of stress your brain knows how to cope with before you start to feel the stress. Adding more stress to your life fills the cup with fluid. As long as you keep the fluid under the fill line, you won’t even feel stressed – you’ll feel normal. You might say you’re not even really that stressed at all.

But the more you fill the glass above the fill line, the more stressed and anxious you feel. If the cup overflows, that is when you are overwhelmed with extreme stress. Most people without anxiety/PTSD/severe stress do not reach this point, as they have plenty of room to spare.

When a person experiences severe stress and trauma, two things change.

First, their baseline stress increases dramatically, and their cup is permanently filled to the brim with this fluid. It never goes down, and is always close to overflowing.

Second, their fill line moves up with it, typically at or slightly below their baseline stress. This is why they are able to feel relatively normal when nothing significant is going on. Some people do not have this – their “fill line” remains well below their baseline stress, so they feel stressed and anxious constantly, but some people find their tolerance has also moved up.

But what happens if the person experiences any stress in their life?

Remember, their cup is already almost full. Adding any additional stress to it will cause the cup to near instantly overflow, leading to overwhelming stress symptoms.

And because of other symptoms of PTSD – such as a hypersensitivity to sounds – it takes very little to cause stress that will overwhelm the person’s mind and body.

Understanding the filled cup can help you understand why PTSD can be so damaging, but also why some people think they can ignore it. They may feel psychologically healthy at times, but when faced with triggers that case stress, their stress level becomes near-instantly severe, as there is very little room for them to handle more.

That stress doesn’t go away overnight. Psychiatrists like Dr. Sehdev need to take a look about how you’re experiencing your symptoms, their origin, and more, in order to help you identify what you can do to unfill your cup. But with the right, personalized approach, it is possible to find relief, manage the symptoms, and take back control over your life.

For more information about our psychiatric services, please reach out to Aware Behavioral Health, today.

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