The survivors of civil war always have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the long term. It includes frequent flashbacks, nightmares, extreme anxiety, and hypervigilance that are provoked by memory about war. The symptoms essentially render a feeling of safety and normalcy decades after the end of the conflict.
Another long-term effect is severe depression. The survivors live in continuous sadness, despair, and lack of interest due to huge grief over the lost things. This constant depression impairs the recovery and functioning of the particular person on a daily basis.
The trauma causes a dismal harm to parenting and relations with family. Survivors tend to develop numbness of emotions or they become aggressive all of a sudden. Such challenges hamper good relationships with partners and children. As a result, disruptive patterns and fears are often passed on to the next generation.
Elementary trust toward other people and society is destroyed atrociously. Communal ties are demolished by violence perpetrated by neighbours. Survivors fixate and are extremely distrusting and become afraid of being betrayed. This general mistrust denies much-needed collaboration and social reconstruction months after peace has been proclaimed.
Communal trauma is overwhelming the community as a whole. The collective memory of nightmares and loss are instilled in the collective self. It is this shared hurt that has contributed to continued ethnic or political frustrations and damaging resentment-loops that act as a major obstacle to collective societal healing.
Conclusion:
Civil war leaves devastating wounds that are psychological in nature. The lasting scars are PTSD, depressed chronic moods, disrupted family relationships, universal suspicion, and communal trauma. Such circumstances significantly hinder personal recovery and building back of society decades after the battles are over. These fundamental psychological effects are what should be addressed to ensure real and sustainable healing in the populations infected.
