I remember being in a new-to-me therapist's office a year after 9/11 and days after I saw the specialist in bipolar who diagnosed me because it was a little tricky for a few reasons. I was talking about PTSD (which I have) and about how I had been through some struggles with it in the last year as I moved from one state to another and then one city to another, started my first job in my profession, had to pass my board exam which was soooooo stressful for some reason, and several other things. And then I said that I hadn't realized until the anniversary but that I realized that 9/11 had been very traumatic for me in the middle of the chaos. I was not in NY and the only person I knew there was fine and able to let us know pretty quickly that evening but I was in a situation where we couldn't get the news in any way where I was working and so we only knew bits and pieces and so believed things were even worse than they were because the news reported a lot of incorrect things and we'd miss the corrections. I saw the 2nd tower fall on tv so that was a fact but so much of that day was full of rumors and fear and a need to get out of work and find out what really had happened. It was scary and powerless and they didn't even know if they should send us home or keep us available in case of an emergency where staffing would be vital. So I have some traumatic memories of that day and they bother me at times. My therapist said she'd heard a lot of people feel that way.

If I didn't already have PTSD I might not have reacted that way but I do and so trauma kicks of the PTSD signals in my brain.

I think that it's unfair to try to determine if someone else has or doesn't have something they are diagnosed with. That's between that person and their dr. since the dr is the only one who can diagnose. The fact is that what causes PTSD in one person may not in another and since the diagnosis is a psyhiatric illness and not really the pain Olympics I think it is better to just trust people with what they choose to share.

The best way to get someone to not want to share anything with you is to make her feel that her experiences are not worth anything even if you do not understand them.