the beginning

I was first diagnised with PTSD back in 2003 as a result of responding to 2 fatalities as a first responder. The first event happened on a Friday night and involved a stolen car that had crashed into a building killing 1 young lad instantly and trapping another in the wreck. It took close to 5 hours in order to safely extract the casualty from the wreck and once that was done we had to secure the scene until the police had completed their investigation. Basically I didn't sleep that night and went home to look after my family thinking nothing of it I had done it before. The Saturday was taken up with securing the building after the police had done there part so it turned into a long day.

Then on the Sunday another  death this time a young child who had been buried alive while out digging for old earthware bottles behind the local High School I worked at. By the time we responded it was a body recovery and the father was still on site. Pretty emotional as many of the crew form the various emergency services that had responded stuggled to hold in their emotions. As the senior on site I not only had to deal with retriving the young boys body but look after my crew. One refused to assist, another worked out that they knew the boy as he played with his grandson, he was also the same age as not only my son but another of my crew. Pluss itwas on my work site and I had raised the issue of people digging there with management as being unsafe and something neede to be done to stop it, but my concerns had obviosly fallen on deaf ears. Hence the situation I now found myself in, matters became worse when the mother and older brother also turned up at the scene. It was then I discovered that the brother was one of my students.

We did our job and had a debrief back at base before all going home. I din't talk to my wife abpout what I had seen apart from giving her the basics of the task and thought that would be it.

Next day I went to work at the school like normal,. The students where of course talking about the car accident on the Friday night, lots of rumours had been spread and I tried to shut the discussions down and as my class left the room one of them moaned. That was the trigger. I just froze, tears falling down my face. Lucky another teacher who also voluteered as a First Responder found me and took me straight home. A  trauma counsellor visit and said I just needed rest and to not go to work for the rest of the week. That was the extent of my treatment at the time and after the week I had rested and was sleeping so returned to work.

Little did I know that the events of that weekend would slowly eat away at my well being over the following years, infact I refused to believe it was affecting me until last year. When after another stressful series of events I sort help and was diagnosed as still suffering with those events and had PTSD.  

Fast forward to now and I have completed a course of treatment, but the recent deaths of 2 of my crew who where there that day has hit me hard and as a result the first romatic relationship I had entered into since the death of my wife 5 years  ago from cancer has broken up. This hit me hard and again I sort treatments one of which was to join this support group.

Reading other peoples posts has helped me put my own expierences in perspective and that has allowed me to focus and keep things under control. But I am always on guard. I don't want to let people down by not doing my part, nor do I want to be taking drugs to make me feel better. Thats not who I am, but if I have learnt anything from the last 12 months it is that it is ok to tell people what I went through and that it is ok to trust.

I am gratefull for that.