The Ontario legal system.... I know it too well! It's enough to drive anyone with PSTD back to medication. Wait! It did! Me!

The Australian Embassey even advised me to come home because they knew I would never win.

So apart from all the other you have to deal with, my condolences on having to put up with them.

And they still haven't fixed their ecoli problem with some of their water supplies? pffft... useless they are. They should spend more money on their emergency services, water, etc & less money on trying to make the province bilingual.

I feel for you on all fronts mate!

I want to extend a belated welcome to the group, it sounds like you need all the help you can get! I am so sorry that you have been served with so much hardship, I can't imagine what it must be like dealing with your children having been poisoned and having to deal with alomost loosing them, their health problems now, court battles and lawyers...It could be that the stuff with your kids took the focus off your PTSD from your job and your system must be backlogged (for a lack of a better way to put it), so much more hard work for you, no wonder your mad as hell! Hope your "discovery" went the best it could for you and your family, you deserve a break!

Hi Ontcopper,
Welcome - even though it's a belated one!
I'm so sorry to hear about your children, and I do hope that things get better for you and your family. I too live in Ontario and was shocked at how the whole thing was handled - but then that's our "hard-working" politicians for you! They believe that if they stop bringing attention to it and stop talking about it, it never happened, and they (the ministries) are aghast if you question them about the colour or smell of the water.
Anyway, I was just wondering how the "Discovery" went? Are you able to talk about it?

HI there. i also have had a second trauma (to do with my kid too) and my previous PTSD which i had thought i had 'recovered' or at least become a survivor from, resurfaced much worse. I too have no flashbacks nightmares or agitated thinking to the origional event- only to the second event which is ongoing just like yours. I feel really selfish for admitting this but i feel a bit better knowing it is possible and maybe maybe you can identify with this as you asked a question and no-one else said yes it can happen. maybe we are just two co-incidences but i doubt it. When these symptoms started reappearing i thought i was suffering from a breakdown and did not think it was ptsd as it was so intense and more symptoms and mainly because the origional event does not cause me disress. Iithink what was being said before about it never being cured only endured and coped with is fairly true. i know that for the years between the two events i had reactions and emotions but they were livable and could easily be put down to personality (defects??!!LOL). However when triggered into full blown hyper aroused ptsd the second time including nightmares, agitated thinking and non stop rumination with emotional response, anger and sadness and bitterness there was no mistaking it when i checked the symtom list PTSD in my experience exits but is mangable but the second truma included (includes as it is on-going) impairment to the point where minute by minute or hour by hour getting by is the norm (maybe up to day at a time ) . It is this extremely reactive state that makes PTSD so awful and this state which we all strive to overcome or avoid by using techniques that help. I have been told by some therapits whom i have sought advice that it is not advisable or possible to cure the symptoms until they are not so severe and one is not so reactive which makes it a real pisser when things are on-going. Some things are on-going in people because the ptsd stops them from being able to make changes neccessary to aviod triggers .i mean things like staying in an abusiv erelationship or destructive behaviours whhich result in turmoil themselves but other times , like as i suspect in your case there is nothing you can do about what is happening with your kids. nothing you can do to make lawyers and doctors more 'humane' within the system to which they are constrained. This , i have been told may possibly be the link back to the origional event where something dreadful happened that threatened life and limb and should not have happened in a fair world and you were powerless to do anything. all one can do is know this and try not to fixate on the injustice of this truth.How not to do that often eludes me though! so i empathise and understand what you are going through would myself like to hear from others in similar positions.many blessings. Tania

me again- i'd like to mention to carpedium that i thought flashbacks do not neccessarily happen with all ptsd survivors and that for years i had nightmares and instrusive thoughts about the event which i labeled as 'flashbacks' but i am now not so sure they fit that definition.i do not feel that i am back in the origional event but rather my mind starts thinking about the event and i get reactive -fight or flight i.e. i get agitated and can be verbally assertive to the point of aggression and feel very angry or i retreat and become very still and out of my body.to me , flashbacks imply that one thinks and acts as though one were back in the event and therefore it is kind of a break from reality . what do you think?? blessings

Tania, you are correct, in that flashbacks are not an automatic symptom of PTSD. Many people have PTSD and never have a flashback as such, because their brain simply does not process the trauma in that light. Then, some have them from the beginning, some get them years past actually being diagnosed with PTSD.

I think I am going to re-read this thread, because I am seeing things in here that may need some clarification or further thought...

Ok... I am now back on net with this topic.

PTSD itself is not curable. Never has been, and nothing is jumping out at present for a near future cure. Never to say though, someone could discover it by accident or intentionally... time will tell. Where people get confused with PTSD, is that they assign PTSD itself to their trauma, in that if you heal your trauma, you must heal PTSD also. Well, it doesn't work like that. If you only had anxiety and depression, then healing your trauma would heal both the anxiety and depression, life would continue as you percieve it to be normal. Once PTSD is formed though, your life itself now involves a constant entity, being PTSD, regardless of past, present or future trauma, PTSD is now embedded.

If a person only develops certain symptoms with a trauma, no chemical imbalance has taken effect within their brain, hence you can cure all. Once a trauma or multiple traumas are present, if the brain chemically imbalances, all the healing in the world will not reverse the chemical imbalance between the right and left brain.

So... what occurs with undealt trauma is you have constant bouts of PTSD symptoms in various stages influence your life. If you heal the past trauma, the fear stimulated from the trauma itself is no longer present, hence PTSD becomes a much more approachable and manageable entity. Remember, once PTSD is present, it is seperate to all other occurences, because it is unique from trauma itself. If you no no fuel as such (past trauma) to feed the fire (PTSD), then the fire cannot burn productively, however; it still lingers as more a pilot flame instead. It impacts a little, but not much. The moment any aspect within your daily life is exposed to fuel (stress, another trauma, family death, etc etc) the fire can once again burn. How long it burns is purely based on your ability to implement your education off management upon the symptoms, ie. talk about the incident, discuss why, who, how, what if, etc etc, rid the fear as such, so the fuel burns out once again to a pilot light.

Each person is different, and the progress of their PTSD itself depends on the flame size at exposure. You can have mild PTSD for instance, easy enough to manage and continue life, but then if your partner or child died for instance, or close too death, possiblity, etc, that fear is then back within your mind, once again fueling the fire (PTSD). This can change your PTSD itself (the chemical imbalance) to further degrade and imbalance completely to severe PTSD (for example purposes). Now, not only do you have this fear you have to heal, you now have a newer, stronger range of symptoms you must also relearn, understand, educate and manage.

Now you have the most severe of what PTSD has, instead of your PTSD being capable of the stress of daily work, regardless what you do now, your PTSD is bad enough that simply performing the act of going to work is enough stress to overwhelm your mind, which overwhelms your body, which shuts you down and you end up back in bed. Regardless how much you try and learn, educate and manage your PTSD, you may never be capable to physically perform getting to a job again, because the daily stress incurred is now a new benchmark to set your PTSD symptoms off and give them some control once again.

Now, does this mean everyone with the most severe of PTSD will never work again? No, it simply means they could never work in a job that endures stress upon them individually. For example, many who have this level of PTSD, being the same level I have, could go and work with small children, as children are often found to be more therapeudic than a stressor, though to another they could be a stressor, hence once could work with small children, another could not. The one who could not, could work for themselves, something like a sole cleaning business, or computer work, where they have no boss, no stressor over them, deal with minimal people (stressors) within their day, and can happily and therapeudically work a day with no impact from PTSD. Some, will just never work again longer than an hour or two a day maybe, some not at all. It is an individual level of which each persons PTSD affects them uniquely, and no two are the same for all intensive purposes. We suffer the same symptoms, the same issues as a result, though no two are exactly the same as such, just like people, no two DNA are identical (that even applies to identical twins... similar, but still different).

OntCopper Here's another belated welcome for you. Thrilled you found us. I've had PTSD for many yrs. now and what you said about traumatic events that keep cont. w/o a stop is, Yes a very tough road to travel and yet it can be done. With great suffering and much perserverence I survived with little to no help, all beyond my control. Trauma, again and again, because I just simply could not find the help. You can and you have. I'm not in control of my PTSD as of yet, but I hope to use the same perserv. and surrender that got me through and kept me alive, before with little help, to get through the healing now. Almost anyone who suffers PTSD, wants you to have hope again. We want this for you OntCopper, for you and your family. You sound like a great person. You love your family and your children and all, and they love you. They love you! You can do this. The amount of service I've provided in my whole life is slim pickins' to what you must have. I hope you find the hope & therapy you need and hang with it, for yourself and family. Join us often, and my best to you, your wife and beloved children.