PTSD - I thought only solider got it

Post traumatic stress disorder is a term I have heard in reference to veterans who have been mentally scared from battle. But as I was informed by my therapist that anyone who has suffered a trauma in their life can suffer from it. I found this to be the case for me. My son's death has left me with some of the same characteristics that I see in my brother, who is a Vietnam vet. I didn't understand his behavior until I myself have had some of the same symptoms. Sometimes there are times when I just feel overwehlmed with life in general, crowds make me nervous and I have the feeling that I must flee my surrounding sometimes. It is hard to explain this to someone who has never felt this way because it is as if you just lose control of your own behavior, your subconcience mind takes control, sending you in a state of panic. My mind replays things over and over, horrible things about my sons death that I don't want to relive, but cannot help but do so. Little things that make the trauma surface again and again....like right now for the last week I have been thinking about cleaning out Brandon's room. Yes it has been over 8 years and it has been left untouched, but I feel it is time to clean it out, but my mind keeps going back to the day we picked out his bedroom furniture. The salesman was giving us the sales pitch that the furniture was of good quality, solid wood and would last him years, even into marriage. Brandon was with me this day and I let him pick out his furniture. I would have never thought that the furniture would out live/last my son's life, but it has. For the past two weeks this thought has passed my mind more than once daily, the words the saleman spoke that day, I never imagined that those words would make me feel so sad. How can this be that this furniture is here, but Brandon is not....I don't understand and again my mind just keep replaying these words. I see a child with blonde hair and instantly my mind goes to a small boy with beautiful blonde hair that was mine and now he is gone. These children always bring a image of my son to me again reminding me that a part of my heart is missing and will never return. There are times like right now tonight that I am so tired but my mind is racing with thoughts of my son and I cannot sleep. PSTD causes floods of panic to run through your body when memories are triggered by something and it can be just the smallest thing. I remember right after Brandon died being in the grocery store, I saw corn dogs, he loved me to buy corn dogs, after this sighting I felt that panic, it is a strange feeling that manifested in me making me wanting to flee, so that is what I did that day got out of the store as fast as I could, my heart pounding, feel anxious and just hurting all over. I still have issues with crowds, I feel stifled as if I cannot take all of the energy that their bodies emit and again feel that I have to get away. Maybe this explains why I enjoy so much going away from my home, too many memories, always wanting to run away hoping that the change of scenery will make vivid pictures go away, at least for a small amount of time. I cannot tolerate people who don't really understand the gift they have been given who have children. Yes they can be exasperating, but let me tell you the alternative of them not being here to drive you crazy is much worst of a hell than all the trouble they give you. I know this is something no one can understand until they have been standing in the shoes that a walk in everyday. The trauma that I have suffered from my son's death has given me a much clearer picture of the value of children no matter how crazy they make you, because believe me if something happens to them that makes them not here to drive you crazy, will actually make you crazy. That is the way I feel at times crazy, trying to sort out all the thoughts in my mind and make sense why this has happened. I found no solutions, I am a practible person wanting the answers and trying to figure out why things have to happen the way they do. I cannot rationlize why my son had to die and that makes my mind go over and over the events of my son's death, which then makes me stressed, my nervous system has never been one of the strongest of my features, now I feel it is just shot.....trying to remember things that happened when my son was small, visualizing what he would look like now and what he would be doing. Obsessing over why this had to happen, reliving the day, the moments after I heard the news, the funeral, the calls, the days that followed when I found myself only able to get up, get my daughter to school and just lie on the couch feeling as if my blood had been drained from my body, everything was an effort to do. Now after 8 years at 11:00 at night my mind still plays the same conversations over and over that my son and I had so many years ago. Maybe I am not far from insanity, because sometimes I feel as if I am right at the edge and I have to pull myself back to reality. PTSD takes away a zest for life, because you have lived through a nightmare and the nightmare continues and will do so for the rest of your life. So in closing, this is another lesson I have learned that we can never judge a person and saying that they just need to get over it, because if it was that simply, those of us who suffer from PTSD and trauma would surely choose to do so, so we would be able to find that peace that I am looking for but still having trouble finding. So now I know how uncontrollable PTSD can be, your mind simply takes over and throws all of fears and hurts right back at you and all you can do is relive them and hope that they become less with time, I myself cannot see this as the case, but maybe this is where need to read more of the Bible to find out how the people of this period lived through so much, but survived. I think because of their faith it gave them the strength to deal with all of the issues. I need to do the same.