Yer, I feel those things. A traumatic even is a traumatic event, and each person handles each one differently. If you have gotten PTSD from the death of a loved one, and the rest of your family hasn't, it doesn't make you different as such, your mind has simply said, "enough". Its like my experiences, where I have PTSD, some others I served with in the same locations have PTSD, though we are a minority of the total people who were in the same place at the same times, doing the same things. Some people just handle it, some don't. Accepting that is one of the biggest hurdles.

Reading about the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, may also help you identify what you will, are, or expecting to go through. It really is no easy ride, and unfortunately, there is no cure. This is something that we are going to live with for the rest of our lives. The good news is, is that there are ways to deal with it, and talking with others who know what your feeling, is always a good start.

From my experience, and others who I talk to regularly, our days initially used to be quite horrible, though now we are much better informed to what is going on with us, we have less bad days, and more good days. The reason for Michigan, I expect, is that you actually won't like being out of your comfort zone, ie. your home, your bed, your bathroom, etc etc. It is going to be very hard to deal with going away from this point forward. You can get around it though, by simply ensuring you know well in advance, don't make stringent plans that will increase stress and anxiety upon yourself, and simply preparing yourself for a new environment. It takes practice...

Before I really knew what was going on with myself, I used to visit family across the country, and basically do nothing but sit tight at their house, and not move. I didn't want to go out, nothing. Sit their, talk with them when I felt like it, drink alcohol to suppress things a bit more, and basically not really enjoy myself to the full extent.

I know that I can't go into shopping centers when they are crowded, that is just a known now. I feel as though I basically want to start punching and kicking my way out, so I have lots of open space and room around myself. Its not that your clostraphobic as such, its just the crowd that does it too you. We all have to go into shops, regardless how well we don't deal with it, but there are things you can do to help. For example, take five deep breaths before going in, the moment you start feeling anxious, stop what your doing, take five deep breaths and look around, as everything is ok. There is another technique used by some, and works quite well, is the five things method. When you begin to get anxious, think about five things around you that you can touch, four things you can smell, three things you can see, two things you can pickup and one thing that you can tell yourself that its ok.

There are other methods also, which your counsellor could tell you to try. These things work, as they distract our brain from being anxious and working ourselves up over very little... well, what others perceive as little, but we perceive as anxious. Its very hard for others to understand.

The biggest thing I could tell you at this point, is make sure your husband is learning with you. Get him online here, and chat in the spouse section with my wife, and other spouses, as it is very important for them, as they often don't understand, probably will never understand, but they can learn about why these things happen to us, why we feel a certain way at times, and what they can do to help us. More often than not, them helping us is simply agreeing to leave the shops and return tomorrow to finish off, or help calm us down, distract us to other things, make us do our breathing and exercises to control anger and anxiety when in these situations, but most of all, so they understand what is happening to you, so when you get a bit moody at the partner, they know you don't mean it.

The biggest thing I learnt, which I forgot, was to say sorry. As PTSD goes on, that word tends to be left behind for some reason.