It’s a condition that affects more than three million Americans each year, a debilitating disorder that can cause its victims to experience frightening flashbacks of a traumatic event and leave them feeling emotionally numb. The condition is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and it doesn’t just affect soldiers.

What Is PTSD?

Once called shell shock or battle fatigue, this mental condition was first recognized in war veterans, who had experienced the traumas and harrowing experiences of war and come home changed men.

However, we now know that the condition can result from a wide range of traumatic experiences, from physical assaults such as rape and child abuse to surviving car accidents or natural disasters. It can also be triggered by a traumatic event that affected a loved one, such as a kidnapping or murder of a relative, or witnessing the destruction that comes with a tragedy such as a train wreck or plane crash.

PTSD can affect people of all ages, from young children to the elderly. However, Mayo Clinic has identified risk factors that make a person more likely to develop the condition. Among them:

-       Experiencing or surviving a major or long-lived traumatic event

-       Having survived childhood trauma, such as child abuse or neglect

-       Having a job that puts you in regular contact with traumatic events, including being in the military, being a police officer, EMT or firefighter.