“Survivor's guilt is a combination of traumatic experience of guilt of loss and grief,” Edy Nathan, a psychotherapist and author of "It’s Grief: The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss," told Fox News. “And then along with that comes complicated grief and the combination of a PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) response.”Nathan said survivor's guilt and PTSD are a dreadful combination that often don’t get treated properly. Aiello’s mother said her daughter struggled with survivor’s guilt and was recently diagnosed with PTSD. One of the best things people who are suffering from survivor’s guilt can do is try and reduce the stress in their lives, Nathan said. “What happens when someone is going through a PTSD response and a survivor's guilt response is their cortisol levels are very high,” she said.

Source: Fox News April 05, 2019 17:03 UTC