Hi,
I just came upon this forum searching through Google. Im 31 and live in the UK as a mechanic for a heavy goods vehicle company. Just over three years ago I was involved in an accident that ended up with one of my work mates losing his finger. To cut a long story short, I was working on the rear brakes of a vehicle with my work mate and using a special lifting device to put a brake drum back on (very very heavy) and somehow or other it the brake drum came off the lifter and fell on the guys hand smashing his finger up very badly. He was taken to hospital and spent 6 months odd off work and had his finger removed. I went into lock down and told no one at home about what I had done, and just put a big act on and pretended that nothing had happened and that I was ok,I was obviously in denial, all the while very slowly going into a massive anxiety filled depression. I kept this act up for over a year, constantly thinking about what I had done and what if I had done this or that...It was haunting me 24/7 I was always thinking about the accident until one day I had a total emotional breakdown driving into work which was a turning point and I went and got myself into a counselling programme. It's taken me about two years of counselling to even to be able to speak about what happened and for me to be able to type this out now shows how far I have come along. I still suffer terribly with anxiety and depression, I am on Dosulepin, two every night for the foreseable future. I have had a lot of hassle with certain people at work (management), I think mainly because they don't understand what I am going through and it's an invisible "injury". I have been going downhill in the lead up to Xmas and been very down. I have however in the past few weeks been in contact with a different manager who has been a total ray of light and is 100% behind me, so much so that he has offered to get the company to pay for me to see a specialist (Psychiatrist etc).
I have also been referred to my local hospital's mental health unit.

It's been a real struggle and I have come close to finishing it all on a few occasions. And to top it all off I have just had the worst Xmas ever, managing to catch the flu.

That's my story in a nutshell !!

K