Hi Tracy

I saw your call to Canadians but I thought it better to respond to this post.
Our health care system. Can anyone relate to that? Too few people trying way too hard and just not quite able to cope. Don't blame the workers!
(FYI) I live about ten minutes outside of Niagara Falls.

So, is this normal? Nope. PTSD is a strange thing, it doesn't really have a normal. Normalish times, but never really normal. Reminds of forest Gump, (Life is like a box of chocolates). PTSD is like a box of triggers, never know what flavour your going to get when one those things pop's out of the box . Sometimes it's related to the incident, other times not at all. Everybody's different, so what helps you, might freak somebody else right out. Because you've lost your normalcy, your normal rules of emotional behavior no longer apply, Have you asked yourself “Why am I reacting this way? I don't understand!” I've done that so many times.
You could take the word phobia and put just about any adjective in front of it and I've had it to one degree or another at some point in time. I'm very good at hiding my feelings, so people around me never really knew what I was going through. At least you have this place to come and compare notes with kindred spirits, that will be a big help. Oh, and you can thank Doc John for the opportunity. By any chance did you read the website dedication?
I didn't even know what PTSD was until I didn't have it anymore. When my life spun out of control there was no diagnosis. I went to psychiatrist once and he told my mother that my problem was her. He said that she coddled me to much “frickin idiot” he could have said: I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with your son. Instead he blamed her. Put her on a guilt trip, told her she was a bad mother.
My father was a World War II vet, he spent some time in a field hospital for a shrapnel wound. He said that I was acting like some of the guys that came through with battle fatigue, but he couldn't make a connection. All I did was witness a robbery and then testify in court, it wasn't like I'd been in a war. “I was nine years old when it happened, he could have taken that into consideration”.
I see people mentioning meds a lot: I got a night light and the knowledge that my mother was close by. I did get a prescription for Maalox, because my stomach was always upset... Times sure have changed.
On a brighter note: I went for a bike ride the other day. My third time out this spring and I'm up to five and half kilometers already. Every time I go out, I get at least one person to pass back a smile as I ride by. This time there were three, and one person who beat me to the punch and smiled first. It might not seem like much to you or anybody else reading this, but after spending over four decades watching my feet, or looking the other way to avoid direct eye contact, it feels pretty special to me.
I did my best to manage it for all that time, and now it's just gone.
Has that happened to anybody else?
As for how it went away: I think that somewhere in that Pandora's box of triggers there's one, or a combination, that shuts it off, or more specifically, brings your emotions back into balance, for me it was an overwhelming sense of guilt. I described the circumstance in my new member introduction “It's pretty long” but you can read it if you want. I haven't made ten posts yet, so I can't post a link yet, however you can find it by clicking on my profile.

Many years ago I lost all hope of ever being normal again. That was the worst part of the whole thing. So don't ever lose hope. I made it back.

Second to the hopelessness was the feeling of isolation “Nobody can understand”. I felt so alone. If it's any consolation, there are literally hundreds of millions of people around the globe stuck in the same place, for a million different reasons. Most of them have never even heard of PTSD, they have no idea why they feel the way they do. It's so sad.

If you have any more questions, don't be afraid ask. I am sure that there are people reading forum who are too afraid to even register, hoping that someone will start a thread that somehow relates to them.

In the mean time,
“Keep your stick on the ice”