Here it goes...

Hi, this is my first day here on the daily strength website. My therapist recommended I find an online support group for survivor guilt and i stumbled upon this one for PTSD and figured I'd give it a go. My story goes like this, when I was 17 years old I was driving drunk and was in a car accident. I hit another car and killed a man. I served my legal punishment of going to a placement facility, therapy and alcohol rehabilitation. I did everything I was asked to do and am now a completely different person than I was then. I don't drink or do anything bad at all for that matter. I grew up a lot. But the hard part wasn't the repercussions of the court it is the agonizing guilt I feel every single day of my life.  It has been 5 years since the accident and there hasn't been a single day that I haven't thought about it in one way or another. Everything reminds me of it, I mean everything! I ask myself the same questions over and over in my head I can't help but feel like I am the one that deserved to die not him, he was minding his own business, why am I alive? I have horrific nightmares about car accidents and it happening over again, and i get hurt and hurt everyone around me. I am beginning to take blame for deaths I haven't even caused like my friends death and when I was 4 years old my grandma died in a car accident and I was in the car and I keep saying well if I wasn't in the car she would have lived and so on,   I constantly punish myself everyday for it and I can't get passed it, I'm not saying I want to completely forget about it but put it in its place so I can go on living, because I didn't die that day for some reason I just haven't figured it out yet.