The symptoms of PTSD are wide-ranging, including intrusive memories, emotional numbing, irritability, flashbacks, nightmares, and avoidance of triggering situations. One other particularly common and frustrating symptom category, hyper-alertness/hyper-vigilance, can be pervasive and destructive to quality of life and social relationships while also intensifying many of the other symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
The Survival Skill That Won’t Turn Off: How Hyper-Vigilance Fuels PTSD and What Really Helps Calm It (Homeland Magazine December 2025)