Two things start to happen immediately. Military training is designed to get soldiers to always choose fight, but they wouldn't have to train men or women to do that if we were natural born killers. The symptoms of PTSD are a normal response to an overwhelming experience. Sometimes PTSD surfaces months or even years after the initial trauma. Psychiatrists categorize symptoms into three categories.
Intrusive symptoms are when a person has the traumatic event intrude into their current life.
This can happen in sudden, vivid memories that are accompanied by painful emotions. Sometimes the trauma is reexperienced. This is called a flashback, and it can be so strong that the individual thinks that he or she is actually experiencing the trauma again or seeing it unfold before his or her eyes. The flashback can occur in nightmares, or it may come as a sudden, painful onslaught of emotions that seem to have no cause. Avoidance symptoms affect the person's relationships with others, because he or she often avoids close emotional ties with family, colleagues, and friends.