OpenEyes, I don't have PTSD, but I do think I can relate to some of what you're saying.

You were someone who was strong, independent, took pride in meeting challenges, felt competent, and believed in herself. Yet, you STILL had something very traumatic happen to you. Even though you did everything right, bad things still happened. So, you looked within and thought...if only I had done this...maybe it wouldn't have happened. You became hyper-vigilant to the point of exhaustion. You thought you could handle anything until this happened and made you painfully aware of your own limitations. It broke you.

I think it's completely reasonable that this thread upset you. You are dealing with something that is the result of someone else's actions. You were harmed and devastated, and it was not your fault. You couldn't prevent it, and that's scary because if you couldn't prevent something once, that means it could happen again in the future.

I couldn't have prevented that severe weather event that destroyed thousands of homes, including my own. I did nothing to invite that tragedy into my life. It just happened. Lots of my neighbours suffered from depression and PTSD following the event, and some still do. There were many, many insensitive people who said things to us like "well, you knew that levy could break, so why are you so upset about it?", or "you shouldn't have lived there in the first place, we all know that hurricanes are common". Those sort of statements were unhelpful at best, and cruel at worst.

The only reason that I didn't come out of that experience severely damaged was that I didn't lose what was truly important to me. I still had the people I cared about most and I still had my health and life. Others, unfortunately, were not so lucky.

Sometimes we truly are powerless and weak, and I think it's important for people to acknowledge that without judgement. There is nothing wrong with being weak sometimes, and by acknowledging weakness, we have the opportunity to grow. We can then choose to learn how to strengthen ourselves or accept the things that we can't change. We all have limitations.

I think that's what you've done, by asking for help and trying to heal. That's really all you can do. You're moving in a positive direction. You can't go back in time and change what happened, but you're moving forward. Everyone experiences loss differently, so I don't think you should listen to those negative people who don't understand what you're going through. You are in pain and no matter what the reason, you need to do what you can to feel better.

Those people who are making your pain worse can be forgiven later, but you can only deal with so much at once. I hope you can surround yourself with mostly positive people who are supportive of your struggles. Best wishes.