Yes, I’ve experienced PTSD.
Several years ago I awoke from a short slumber after I heard a scream outside my house. I opened the garage and I noticed that my brother had been stabbed on the left side of his body while his friend was facing him with a Bowie knife. I remember being calm, calculating and waiting for an opportunity.
My brother kept screaming, “you stabbed me dude, you stabbed me!” After a couple of seconds my Dad was standing behind me so I walked forward and I could see the two men from a side angle.
Probably for a billion micro seconds I was thinking about how there was no way I would let my dad make the first move so I focused on that stabbing weapon and moved like the speed of light and rushed the perpetrator.
I used some CQC techniques and grabbed the flat part of his blade and threw it on the ground. Then I kicked it towards my dad while he was attending to my brother. I held the man by one arm and forced his momentum over my shoulder. He landed flat on his back and I laid on top of him like a wet tarp.
Then my dad yelled, “you stabbed him!” and that’s all it took. A switch had been turned on that was very familiar to me. I looked in his eyes and said, “you stabbed my brother, now I’m going to fucking kill you.”
I picked up his head like it was a pumpkin and continued to pound it into oblivion on the ground. Soon I lifted my fists and I kept hurting him and hurting him. Lucky my dad screamed, “don’t kill him!” and the switch turned off.
I calmly held him down until the police arrived with guns drawn and I put up my hands when they told me to do so and that was the last of that.
I remember at first I wasn’t phased by it because I don’t fear death, I’m actually looking forward to it when it comes. Life cycles end and after that our molecules will continue to provide a service for the universe.
What haunted me from the experience wasn’t the fact that my brother was stabbed but that my dad was there. I kept thinking of my brothers friend killing them both over and over again. The thoughts were unbearable but there was nothing I could do about it.
When I went to my initial psych evaluation they asked me if I had suffered any trauma in the past and I told them that story. By the end, an avalanche of tears had already fallen from my face and the therapist said that these were signs of PTSD.
The experience doesn’t haunt me anymore but I can still replay those thoughts of my father and brother being butchered in my garage. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••@ + (ptsdUS – US) + PLUS = @ptsdPLUS | #WORLDPTSDDAY • 30MAR16 • #WPD30MAR16 | Starting Now I’m Going 2 Teach U Everything, All of My Ways, All of My Secrets… • https://goo.gl/YKnhHE
@ptsdUS 
Powerful. Sorry you all had to go through that…
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