Welcome 30,
I'm glad you joined us. I can relate to some of what you've said. It must be really hard to have PTSD and to continue to go through so much that adds to it.
I'm sorry that you lost your brother. My brother is a real support to me and I always worry about how I would be able to handle it if something happened to him. He is the person that I share with that understands what only he and I can understand. I know that you must feel like you lost a big part of yourself.
I also witnessed a plane crash. It was a big prop plane with 180 people on board. It collided with a small plane that put a hole in the bottom of the prop plane. I don't really know what a prop plane is. I just know that's what they called it and it was really big. I think it was the kind of plane where the people just sit on the bottom and not in seats. A military plane maybe. I'm thankful that I wasn't close enough to actually see it hit the ground. They did put the 180 body bags in the park next to my apartment through. I've never been able to get on a plane since then. Even the loud noise of the engines throws me into a panic.
The hardest part of my PTSD was the things I experienced as a child. Those things get buried pretty deep. The memories and the emotions. I went through 5 long years of hell remembering everything and a good ten years before that with panic attacks. I'm doing pretty good now. The startle response is my biggest problem now. I'm not really startled, but I feel like cringing sometimes when the phone rings or someone calls my name. I'm also obsessed with keeping people that I love safe. I have this illusion that I have some kind of control over their life and death.
I am sorry that the young man used you to take his life. I'm sure you've probably replayed that a million times in your mind. I struggled with huge guilt after my husbands suicide. I finally just had to force myself to let the guilt go because I just couldn't fix it or reason it away. Those situations are very hard. They come at you from no where and it happens so fast and suddenly your life has been changed forever. There is no going back.
Congratulations on your sobriety. That's hard to do when you have PTSD.
Please feel free to vent. You're very brave to witness what you've seen in your life. I try to hide from anything that will upset me now.
Hugs,
MG