Unfortunately, it’s not so simple: Traumatic events are almost impossible to put into words. This is true for all of us, not just for people who suffer from PTSD.

These reactions are irrational and largely outside people’s control. Intense and barely controllable urges and emotions make people feel crazy—and makes them feel they don’t belong to the human race. Feeling numb during birthday parties for your kids or in response to the death of loved ones makes people feel like monsters. As a result, shame becom

Dissociation. You ‘leave your body’ during a stressful event so that you don’t ‘experience’ the trauma in the first place. Sexually, this form of detachment can involve having sex with people we aren’t truly interested in; instead, it might involve dedicating ourselves to our partner’s pleasure, without any awareness of or attention to our own.

Freud's novel framework suggests that the neuroses are not illnesses in the accepted sense, but a consequence of incomplete development, reawakened infantile desires and unmastered childhood conflicts.