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important to understand that saying this does not mean your loss is “no big deal.” You might be extremely upset and miss your grandparent for a very long time. It’s just not what a doctor would describe as a trauma. But the death of your sister or brother probably would be described as a trauma. The death of a sibling is not part of the “natural order of things.” It is outside what we would call normal human experience. Another key difference is the level of stress the person experiences. You might feel stress before you take a test or if you get in trouble with your parents. But if you compare taking a test to fighting in a battle, your level of stress is actually fairly low. And it will pass once the test is over. On the

When people hear the term PTSD they often think of soldiers, but traumatic events can happen to anyone.

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