My name is Ryan and I was diagnosed with chronic PTSD in August.

8 years ago my fiance at the time terminated a 6 month pregnancy with a coat hanger. I was very involved, going to every appointment and seeing every image of our son that was available. This messed me up pretty bad, I wound up developing alcoholism as well as some very violent behavior. My symptons were ever present but were reduced for some reason after a year or so had passed.

Approximately 2 years ago I witnessed a 9 year old boy get gunned down in broad daylight while on duty and I was unable to respond. After that happened I started developing more severe symptoms. I started having hallucinations of shadowy/demon looking things every night. I also became alot more paranoid and rageful. At this time the things I was seeing were somewhat far away, but over time I would see them scurrying around more closely.

In June, I was involved in an hour long gun battle. I had bullets bouncing all around me. Oddly I handled the situation quite calmly and felt at peace for some reason. That all changed when I noticed that people were standing outside in the line of fire with their young children. At that point I totally omitted the fact that rounds were zipping past me and completely focused on the children. After the fight ended I went back to my position and saw the most blatant shadow/demon hallucination to date. This time the damned thing was crawling up onto the hood of my vehicle, during daylight. It was so vivid that I backed my vehicle up to make sure it wasn't a person, I then saw the thing scurry into the bushes next to me. That night and for the following couple months I hit a major low.

I didn't want to die, but I didn't care about living. I just felt like riding off into the sunset, to be alone like Rambo was in the first movie. I felt as though I was a danger to my family. Everytime I had a paranoia situation occurr I had horrible thoughts of what I was going to do to this person if he were to harm my kids. I would actually create revenge situations in my head just to feel that vengeful feeling. Everytime somebody drove past me or my house slower than I thought they should be I thought they were scoping us out (still occurs). I was angry and felt numb to everything, I couldn't feel love for anyone. I was and am still having nightmares, but they aren't specific to any of the traumatic situations I was involved in. These nightmares involve various post apocolyptic type environments with me fighting alone to protect a child/children, usually children I'm not familiar with. These are quite vivid, I can actually feel pain or fear.

I decided to go and voluntarily admit myself in an in-patient hospital at a mental health hospital. This worked well, but they originally diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder with psychotic features. It wasn't until I was released that I met with their star doctor that I was diagnosed with PTSD and bipolarism.

I am now getting by while on 600 mg of Seroquel. This medication makes the hallucinations few and far between and helps with my paranoia a little bit but not enough really. I am still significantly messed up, but it's somewhat managable. I hope to connect with people on here that I can discuss these symptoms with and relate to.