Advice please... Recently robbed.

[IllegallyBlond]

Hi everyone. I'm a regular in the Health Forum as I have HA, but last night as I was walking out of our local video rental store, I was grabbed by a man that tried to take my purse. I luckily fought him off and scared him away by screaming as loud as I could. Now today I find myself really jumpy. I saw the shadow of the mail man walking on my porch today and about jumped out of my skin. I was wondering if people get PTSD by an event like this. I'm scared to walk out my own front door when the sun goes down now. I know this is a recent even that is still fresh in my mind, but I'm wondering if this will go away, or if I will go into this shell I have put myself in, in the last 24 hours. I tried going to the store earlier, and these men were walking around the parking lot, and I jump right back into my car. Also do you think I need to talk to my Doctor about this? Thanks in advance for the advice.

Hugs,
Amanda

[maddie]

What a nasty experience! Did you report it to the police? You really should. They have a Victim Support Service. You are probably suffering from shock, which is not surprising. Tell your doc. about it, but please try not to be afraid of going out. It's very unlikely that a similar thing will happen to you again. Don't let one criminal take your life away!

[chickpea]

I can empathise with how you feel.
Nearly 2 years ago, I was carjacked at knifepoint in the dark as I was trying to drive home to my husband - it was our wedding anniversary.

The police were called, there was a chase, he was eventually caught. I had to go through the whole statement thing, victim impact statement, victim support, court dates.
It dragged on for months, during which time he did it again while out on bail.

Initially, I couldn't drive my car without being on the alert at traffic lights etc. I had to go back to the place it happened every week as part of my work, and I relived it every time, over and over.

The best piece of advice I can give is not to give in to your worries. Keep doing everything you did before you were robbed - it may not be easy but it WILL get easier.
If you start changing your way of living, you'll create a new fear which will be harder to get over.

Feel the fear and do it anyway - it WILL get better. You'll never forget it, but you will get over it.

:hugs:

[IllegallyBlond]

Thanks for your replies! Chickpea, I'm so very sorry for what happened to you. If something like that big happened to me, I don't know how I would get through it. I'm so glad that you have the strength to deal with that. Thanks for the advice. I don't want to let this man ruin my life.

Maddie, I did call the police, and they caught him on the next street. The messed up thing is one of the persons who asked me if I was okay was with him. Kind of scary. Thank God there were other people in the parking lot. Who knows what would have happened if there wasn't. Kind of a scary thought.

:hugs:

[Southern_Belle]

Hi,

I am very glad they caught the guy in both of your cases. My purse was taken off of me when I was 7 months pregnant (long time ago, lol) and I actually chased the guy, of course I could not keep up. Anways, I couldn't sleep or relax for a long time because not only did he have my purse he had my address, car keys and house keys. I changed my house keys but obviously could not change the rest. They never found him or my purse.

Now whenever you see a photo of me and I am holding a purse I am clutching it very hard next to my body and I don't even realize it.

Take care,

Laura

[pheetuz]

Hi Amanda.

I can appreciate how an event like this can change the way you feel although everyone is effected differently so i hope this is not the start of ptsd. Im am currently suffering from post traumatic stress from a robbery that took place back in march, however it did not come on untill about two months ago.

I would tend to say that what you are feeling is completely normal for what has happened to you and that you are bound to be jumpy for a few weeks at least, I was constantly looking over my shoulder for a few weeks after the robbery.

I did not suffer from anxiety before my experience so i cannot really relate to the full extent of how you may be feeling but after i was told i had ptsd did quite a lot of reasearch into it and found that people mainly develope ptsd when they have a near death experience or a traumatic experience that goes on for a prolonged period of time or that they cannot get away from. In my case i was tied up whilst the robbery was taking place.

For those reasons i would tend to say that you will be alright from a ptsd point of view, i hope that this experience doesnt effect you in a big way.

I think the reason this developed so late for me was because i was constantly trying not too think about what had happened. It definatly healthier to accept what has happened and try to move on than do what i did and try to block it out.

I would also say to go and see you doctor about it, maybe get some councilling or support, cant hurt to let him or her know what happened.

I hope this passes quickly for you and that you can get back on with things as quickly as possible :)

All the best :)

/Pete