Wildfire, "IF NOT ME, THEN WHO?" is a great thought, but you will not help anyone if your not atleast 95% yourself, because there is a difference between caring, and actually having to do. I am not saying that you cannot help others, as I think the more that are helping the better, to be honest. What I don't encourage though is people attempting to help others when they have so many issues themselves, as what this does, is become another method to suppress one's own issues, instead of dealing with them, we hide behind trying to help others.

If you can say that you are 95% recovered from your PTSD, then I would highly encourage you to help others with PTSD wildfire. Can you say that honestly?

There is a difference between something like this forum, where in actual fact, the sufferer helps themselves, everyone else in the community just provides their experience and opinions vs. starting a community group or self awareness program, implementing it, putting others livelihoods in your hands to get better, is a huge burden if you still have so many burning issues yourself to get past. What ends up happening, is you try and help someone else, then you go home and crash for 3 days because the stress, anxiety, etc etc all come crashing down upon you.

If you walk away from this forum more than two or three times a year with symptoms, then your not in a position to help others directly with PTSD, instead you are better off playing an indirect role, provide your experience, your suffering, what you have done to make it this far, etc etc, and allow others to learn from your experience, but not give you a symptom outburst yourself.

It is like YA being a super moderator here. She is by no means at 95% running, and she doesn't say she is, and is honest about her current state, yet she helps out in an indirect way by helping me moderate this forum, but has no actual commitment placed upon her by myself to do anything. If she feels well enough, she helps, if not, she looks after her first. She is helping in an indirect method, and has escape to heal herself at all times.

If you commit to running groups and so forth, its not good enough for you not to turn up and run the group because your having a bad day or the like. The group would then be let down, things would get worse very quick, and your world would crash around you before it really began to open up. Its a cautious line that one must be 100% committed and dedicated to follow through, and be capable to follow through mentally, without an often risk of sickness or health issues.