[firefighter369]

I was not diagnosed with ptsd but I get flash backs of stuff Ive seen and ive done,ill fill you in. ive been a volunteer firefighter for 4 years in march.ive been doing it since I was 16.just like my father(my father has nothing to do with whats wrong) and 2 summers ago the station I run with got called to a tractor trailer fir on an on ramp to the local high way, I just got back from summer school and I was kinda tired but I went anyway and I ran to the station as I did many times before and I remember it all like yesterday. Most of the trucks left.like our engine and tanker but our rescue was their. Its a rescue/pumper meaning it also carries water and hoses so I got my gear on and jumped in their and we went.We got their and I went to command and asked what they needed me to do as I have done many times before.Command told me get on a hose and attack the fire in the trailer so I did.I wasn't prepared I didn't have an air tank or mask but I did it anyway so I stayed their for 30 minutes and went to get my heart rate checked and after that I went to where the cad of the truck used to be and their laid the driver burnt to death.i still see the body. I helped pull him out after the had to cut his hand off at the wrist because the fiber glass melted it to pavement. we loaded him into a van and he went to the funeral home. I went to look for a passenger luckily their wasn't one.but it didn't bother me when I was their,now I cant see a burnt body on a movie without crying I cant get onto the highway were he burned without getting flash backs. how should I handle it?

[Rapunzel]

If it is bothering you then you are experiencing trauma. There is treatment, and it will help. The sooner you go, the easier it is to overcome the trauma. Our brains don't know how to process things that are too far outside of our normal expected/acceptable experience. So these things don't get filed properly because our brains don't know how to make sense of it or what to do with it. Those memories keep jumping out when anything reminds us of them, because those things don't fit anywhere. There are some very helpful therapeutic techniques to help your brain to accept and make sense of those experiences and to file them like we do our normal memories so they don't keep jumping out at you and the flashbacks will stop. There might be counseling available through the fire department to help firefighters who have something like this happen to them. It is a normal reaction to an abnormal experience, and you can be sure that you are not the only one who has symptoms like this. But even so, it probably won't go away by itself. You need to talk to someone.

[Yoda]

I can relate to this as I saw some things when I was a paramedic that I cannot forget. I wish I could. Talking to a T may help with the PTSD. Can you avoid movies and TV that triggers your PTSD?

[firefighter369]

that's just it,i don't know if theirs gonna be a burnt body on the screen. I was at a hospital for depression for a week and they showed a burnt body from a meth lab explosion and I had to leave the room before I freaked out