PTSD & Me
- Lisa C
- Dec 22, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Dec 3, 2025
Everyone talks about how a volunteer helps but no one talks about how they hurt. I can't be the only one who is struggling to process some of the things I've seen or experienced? Help break the cycle of silence and get involved in the discussion about volunteers & PTSD.
My doctors recently diagnosed me with PTSD and related anxiety attributed to emergency services volunteer work. To say that I was surprised and confused is an understatement. I know I was struggling and needing help, but PTSD seemed too significant, a condition reserved for others. It certainly was not and still is not a condition that I identify with.
None of the volunteers I have met have ever mentioned PTSD and I have met so many amazing volunteers over the years so it seems incongruent that I would have a condition that no one else has. Nothing I have done as a volunteer is remarkably different than those around me.
Initially I took the view that I could not have PTSD, but perhaps I am wrong.
Perhaps more important, is that there are many other volunteers out there suffering from either diagnosed or undiagnosed PTSD.
No one talks about it in my volunteer circles. They do not talk about PTSD, and they rarely talk about the difficult experiences that could lead to it. Difficult feelings are not something that my volunteer friends talk about.
I am hoping that this blog will help normalise the conversation about PTSD, feelings of anxiety and difficult or big emotions that often come when you get home from a volunteering activity.
PTSD and Me
I have been actively volunteering in emergency services for 12 years and are fortunate to have been involved in a lot of different natural disasters (fires, floods, cyclones & storms), search and rescue operations for missing people and a wide range of other emergency related activities.
There have been so many memorable moments and the vast majority of these are incredibly positive. I consider it to be a privilege and extremely rewarding to help people on what is often the worst day of their life. I have shared many special moments with my friends, family, and volunteer peers. Everyone is always eager to hear the highlights, and it is usually nice to share a bit about the circumstances and how you have helped in the community.
On the flip side, the very nature of volunteering in the emergency services space is that you are usually helping when there is an emergency.... and when someone is having a really bad day.
Sadly, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. On a difficult day there can be dead or injured people and animals, destroyed homes, vehicles or businesses and devastated landscapes. Too often there are things that you wish you did not see, hear, or smell.
There are some experiences that you would very much like to forget.
As a volunteer that is there to help there it is not appropriate to focus on how you feel at the time. You might see, smell, hear and feel negative things. But you cannot express them at the time because it is not about you, it is about the people and community you are helping. In many cases, you are there to help someone who is often experiencing the worst day of their life.
So instead of talking about how you feel, you put on a mask and push all the difficult parts aside, focus on the task, the people you are there to help and simply carry on. It is part of the job and what every volunteer I have met seems to do too.
Over the years I have been fortunate to help so many people and there are hundreds of positive memories. But there are also experiences that haunt me. If I were to count, there are a dozen or so difficult memories tucked away in the safe dark depths of my brain that I should have talked more about long ago. On paper none of them are particularly extraordinary or in my mind significant enough to trigger PTSD.
There are plenty of volunteers that have experienced much the same and in some cases much more. Everyone is outwardly fine. No-one ever talks about PTSD. Yet here I am. Confused, unsure and struggling with life and the diagnosis.
Somewhere along the way, I became increasingly overwhelmed by anything and everything. The smallest things would send me spinning out of control. Everything was going so fast that I just could not keep up.
Early one morning after a fitful night’s sleep and in a rare moment of clarity (or it was desperation...), I decided to take the brave step of getting some help. I sat up in bed, reached for my phone and booked an appointment with the doctor for later that day. Not trusting myself to remember why, or to be brave enough to say the words aloud once I was there, I got up and wrote down how I was feeling. The writing was not very eloquent, or very long, just some clumsy and jumbled thoughts.
Then I just shut the door to the difficult feelings, had a shower, turned back into auto pilot, and carried on with the everyday demands of life.
A few hours later I found myself sitting at the doctors. "How are you?" she said. "I am good", I replied with a bright cheery smile. "Well....I am fine except when I am not" and then handed her the crisp white paper that I had printed off that morning. I have included a few of the points below for context:
I am feeling like a bit of a train wreck…
I have been trying to navigate myself out for a while now, but I can’t ...
I keep taking one step forward then two back...
I keep thinking I am ok now, but I am not ...
I keep thinking about some of the horrible things I have seen...
I burst into tears for absolutely no reason too often...
I get anxious, upset, and angry about the tiniest things...
I keep making destructive choices: I quit my job, I quit my relationship, I quit my home...
I keep blowing up my life in the attempt to outrun myself ...
I just need some help to make sense of it all...
She looked at the piece of paper, then at me and asked if I could fill in a mental health questionnaire. After I finished, she studied the results, mentioned the gap between the score, my paper and the person sitting before her and said she thought that I was suffering from PTSD and related anxiety.
I am going to be straight up and say that I was a bit surprised. I am not entirely sure what I thought she would say. In the back of my head a professional version of 'suck it up'; or 'that's no good here's a referral'. I remember sitting there feeling puzzled, my head struggling to compute. Not only was I not expecting it, but I also just did not really identify with this diagnosis. And to be honest to this day I am still a little on the fence. My only knowledge of PTSD is what I have seen in movies, usually involving bombs, and exploding body parts. I am grateful to say that I have not been exposed to either of these things. I suspect this is denial! Or my doctor could be wrong?
So, what is my problem and how did I even get here?
I have always been one to be busy and fill my life full of work, family, volunteering, and adventuring. The statement should really be ‘overfill my life! Either way it is me and apart from the usual ups and downs I have been happy with this busy and sometimes crazy life.
Everything was my version of normal until I came back from volunteering as a fire fighter at one of Australia's largest bushfires. Suddenly, I found myself in trouble. I did not know at the time just how much trouble I was in, that realization came later. Initially, everything just was going too fast, and for the first time I can remember I could not seem to keep up.
Over the coming weeks and months, it became increasingly difficult to function effectively.
At work I just worked longer hours to compensate. I would work until late into the night tapping away on my computer and sending out emails to my team until I was too tired to stay awake. I would catch a few hours of sleep but then despite still being tired, would wake up early, my mind too busy with chaos to go back to sleep.
In my personal life, my relationship bore the brunt of it. In a matter of weeks, I went from being annoyed or angry occasionally to all the time. I am sure that my partner could not as much breathe beyond a whisper without triggering some level of anger in me. I would escalate so quickly and over such trivial things. I could see myself doing it but could not seem to stop. The lack of good reasons just made me angrier until before long I was in a constant state of rage.
Eventually I just could not take anymore and so I told my partner to leave. Initially it was supposed to be for a couple of days, but I was such a wreck that it was not long before I quit the entire relationship. I will never know whether our relationship would have survived had I not gone to that fire, or if it would have ended regardless. But I am regretful and sorry for many of the moments where I was full of rage over things that were of no importance at all.
You might think that by this point I would already be seeking some sort of help and if I could go back I would. But at the time and in keeping with my usual style, it never occurred to me that I would not be able to catch up or sort it out on my own. So, I just kept going, juggling what seemed like a million work and life issues, barely sleeping, and going as fast as I could to keep all the balls in the air.
Then just as I was about to explode or collapse in exhaustion, I was thrown a lifeline in my volunteer space. Storm season hit hard with several severe storms that created widespread damage and a cyclone.
This sounds counter intuitive, but when you are an active volunteer who is passionate about helping others, particularly during natural disasters, it seemed to be just what I needed.
For the next couple of months, I practiced the fine art of avoidance and escapism. I no longer had to face my demons, inability to function or imminent failure in a range of areas. Instead, I jumped straight into natural disaster volunteer emergency services mode, pushing away the chaos and using all my time and energy to help others.
Heading out in the pouring rain to chainsaw or climb on a wet slippery roof was the perfect distraction. I would abandon my responsibilities at work, at home and in my relationship to clear fallen trees, tarp houses and do whatever other tasks were required.
It seemed much more important (and easier) to help a distressed homeowner, than to slow down and face my fears or deal with the increasing panic that I could not function properly.
Every time I went off to help someone I could slip away from the panic and chaos of my mind and into emergency volunteer mode. I was not even sure what I was running from, but it was a relief to be too busy to worry about it and provided the perfect excuse to escape.
The end of the year came quickly and for a moment the storms stopped, and the pressure of work came tumbling in. A few days out from our mandatory shutdown and 2 weeks break I finally realized that I needed to take some time out for myself and made the decision to have 5 weeks off so that I could catch my breath. My boss was shocked at first but supportive, granting the 5 weeks off despite such short notice.
My plan was to do some shopping, enjoy time with family over Christmas and then go overseas for a lazy stay at a beachside resort. I fully expected to be back to my happy normal self by the time I was due back at work in late January.
Christmas came quickly and was amazing but so did some more destructive storms and then another cyclone. At the same time, I was needed to support some special people in my life who were going through some challenging times.
Before I knew it the 5 weeks was over, and it was time to head back to work. I did not last long, just 2 days and then without warning or a plan, I just quit my job. I was so highly strung and wound up that I could not think straight. The complete inability to function was terrifying. I just was not coping at all, and something had to give. It seemed like the only option.
When I look back now, and after some immensely helpful psychology sessions, I know it was not the volume of work, it was the inability of my brain to process information effectively or efficiently.
Apparently when the prehistoric part of your brain that is designed to protect you in imminent danger, the ‘amygdala,’ is turned on, everything else is turned off to make sure you focus all your energy on surviving.
This is all good and well if you are in imminent danger. But what if your amygdala gets into a pattern of continually hijacking you over smaller things that are not real threats at all. This is what happened to me and suddenly it became extremely difficult to think straight or function properly.
To make things worse, when things were quiet and I had time to think, a big part of my mind seemed to keep replaying the challenging moments at the bush fire. None of the images or feelings were things that I wanted to replay, so I ended up in a loop of thinking and trying not to think about it. Sometimes the only relief I got was thinking about something worse - usually dead people from past Missing Person searches with SES.
It became exponentially difficult to function or think straight, and I built up a huge sleep debt which compounded the problem.
Do I have PTSD? I am not sure - it seems like a big diagnosis. I could just be in denial. Or my doctors are wrong? Or I do have PTSD? I will never know.
What I do know is that I am ok except when I am not. Sometimes in the quiet darkness when I am alone, I think about the difficult things I have seen, heard, smelt, and felt, and I just hurt.
I am sure that I am not alone and hope that my writing encourages others to share their stories.
You can help by spreading the word far and wide, sending me your own story if you have one, sharing this post with your network, and by being empathetic and a good listener if you ever get the chance.
If you're struggling or need help:
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