I don't think your through with it yet mate... I believe you now fully understand one of the areas your lacking in order to heal, but certainly not through with it. You need to make lists, you need to get every little piece of problem that you doubt into writing, whether here or in a book at home, but somewhere so that you can read back what you wrote when needed, because you will need to read it over and over. You need to write the statements, you need to learn them, until such time as your brain knows the difference between logic and false logic. Acknowledging the area of issue is not enough to heal from it though... far from it. Moving to the next area when your just discovering one of the areas of concern, would simply be applying another bandaid which is just going to come off and bite your arse.

Anthony, There is so much and so many incidents that right now I don't think I have enough time left on the planet to even get close to dealing with most of them. It kinda gives me a hopeless feeling. Kick my butt and get me going please.

Done... ka boot. Terry, whilst every little situation is unique, you would find that the same emotions keep cropping up, time and time again, and that is how you shorten your list, for example: every time a person died that you are trying to keep alive in a car, whilst the fire brigade attempt to cut them out, even though each situation has different visuals, the same emotions would come up most of the time, with only exceptions on cases that maybe where a child, or something oddly different to you. This means that hundreds of actual scenes can be summed up in one or two emotions, because you continue to feel the same things each time, not new emotions. Get them out, ie.

# I feel as though I failed every time I lose a person when trying to save them.
# I feel empty when a person dies in my arms
# I feel as though I have absorbed a little of each person who died on me
# I feel joyous when I bring a person back when they die on me, and they live
# I feel ......

You get the idea. You can sum most things up into specific emotions, because remember, its not every scene, its not the images that create the problems, its the emotions. When you dream and see images, these images are provoked by the emotional state you currently have.

I really don't know what else I can do with this incident. My doc and I are working on it and I'm begining to get it. I'm to hard and negative on myself. Do you think I should post the one that's bothering me right now ?

Yep... absolutely. Mate, jump into the mental imagery diary if you want, and fill that out... see what jumps into your mind after that one!

This one has always stuck with me. About 10 years ago I worked a housing project and got to know some of the resident's. One in paticular was a young mother who was a great person. One day she came up missing and her family had gone to her apartment to see if anything was wrong and called us. I knew Bonnie pretty well and knew she would not just leave. At the very begining I suspected her boyfriend had done something to her. We weren't allowed to search the apartment by law and it seemed everytime we went back someone was looking over our shoulder. I tried a bunch of times to get the dumbass detective to get a search warrant so we could do a good search. It seemed like everytime we tried to do something good for the family or find evidence, we got slapped down by the law or police admin. Bonnie had been missing for about a month and the family called us again. This time the apartment had been hot and closed off. The second we entered, I smelled what was obviously a decaying body. The smell has never left my mind from the first time I smelled it (as an EMT in 1981). A housing supervisor ran us out of the apartment and said the only time police or the family could move anything was when the evicted her. That day finally came. It was fall and raining, the family had gone in and started moving things. Bonnie was found in a crawl space behind a sofa in a black trash bag. Her body had decayed to the point it was almost turning to liquid. The autopsy should she had been beaten to death. This peice of shit killed her, took her son too school, then went back and cleaned the apartment. I had all the info on the peice of shit so when homicide got involved I had made the case for them. I raised as much hell as I could about the detective who had the case as a missing person, nothing happened to him. The news media blasted me and my partner for not being able to find the body. We were the one's who even went out and caught the peice of shit. Nobody else even worked the case. What I can't get out of my head is the black plastic bag (won't touch um now), the smell (always afraid to go around any place that looks like where I've found bodies before), Bonnie's son looking in the apartment at her decaying body sticking out of that bag, the smell stuck to my uniform maybe B/C of the rain (I threw away the uniform, boots,socks an underwear). I now go out of my way not to go close to that housing project. I think maybe sometimes I get too close to the things I'm working and get too personal but isn't that what humans are supposed to do. I mean aren't we here to take care of one another ? Why is it that people act like this. Sometimes I wish most of the world would just disappear. Animals are more civilized than the people I deal with. Sometimes it wouldn't bother me to stack these shitheads up like firewood and save animals instead. I wonder if I'm the only one.

Didn't remember this untill I laid down on the couch to take a nap and closed my eyes. We wern't supposed to do it but I did search behind the sofa in that crawl space. I put my hand in the bag Bonnie's body was in. There were clothes pilled on top of her. Right now the anx. is really high. Damn it's so strange. Things I haven't thought of for years come back in vivid colors, smells, conversations, it goes on and on. I'm glad we have this forum. It does help to be able to put my thoughts and feelings up for others. Kinda like talking in my head but not in a crazy sort of way. Thanks forum starter people.