Witnessed death and am struggling with it

Over a month ago now, I found one of my coworkers in cardiac arrest. I can’t get the image of how his face & body looked out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about how it looked for his eyes to be open yet lifeless while cpr was being performed on him. And I can’t stop replaying the moment and thinking about how I just froze. I physically couldn’t move. Someone else had to start yelling for help, and I couldn’t even get my fingers to type 911 on my phone. Luckily they got his pulse back after 25+ minutes. Last I heard, he was in a coma.

Our work gave us some days off that week, and offered counseling/EAP for help. Since the incident though, I have trouble sleeping, and when I do sleep it’s always a nightmare. I also keep zoning out anywhere I’m at (especially at work). Sometimes I just unconsciously keep replaying that moment in my head, other times I don’t even know what I’m thinking about, I just kinda feel out of body.

I tried distracting myself by joining a run club and by thinking of stuff I could look forward to. This for me was an upcoming camping trip with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

Honestly it helped a little distracting my thoughts by thinking about the trip. I still couldn’t really sleep, and I kept zoning out, but I was at least not replaying the incident in my head 24/7.

Anyways, when the camping trip came and I met up with my friends, the first two nights were great. I actually slept at least 4 hours w/o having a nightmare or waking up, and didn’t think too much of the incident. However, throughout the trip, I noticed I wasn’t really remembering previous conversations or even some moments from the previous day. This happened before at work too, but honestly I just figured it was bc I couldn’t focus. Anyways, I just kinda ignored, but towards the end of the trip the only things I could really remember were any moments where I felt either annoyed or upset (and maybe 1 or 2 moments when I felt really really happy). On the last day I was so upset bc I felt like the trip was such a bust. Plus I was upset about the fact that I now had to go back home, back to work, and now I don’t have the trip to look forward to anymore. I ended up zoning out pretty much the entire last day of the trip. Like I barely said a single word to anyone. And I could feel myself tuning everything out, and I noticed my friends probably thought I was upset with them which made me feel even worse bc I just couldn’t snap out of it.

Anyways that last night of the trip, I was really struggling to sleep but I was so exhausted so I kept trying. I had multiple nightmares that night and there were two times when I woke up bc it felt like I was forgetting to breathe in my sleep.

When I got back home from the trip, I was honestly so exhausted and upset by how I felt the trip went. All I could mostly remember were the bad moments. But then, I started going through my camera roll and found sooooo many fun and happy moments I took that made me realize that the trip was actually fun. A few of the videos I don’t remember experiencing at all, however, a lot of the videos helped me remember moments I had that were great. And I’m so mad about it bc rewatching those videos I took felt like I was watching someone else live my life because I couldn’t really remember the moments.

I have an appointment with a my therapist next week, but has anyone else experienced these symptoms before? Is this thing normal?

I also feel so bad because my friends don’t know about me witnessing a traumatic event last month or the symptoms I’ve had since then. I was in such a bad mood the last two days of the trip. I was being so rude and such a downer, I don’t even know what to say to them. I want to apologize but also I’m not sure I wanna admit I have ptsd to them. How do people go about doing this? I can barely even admit it to myself. I also feel like if just be using that as an excuse for how I acted the last couple days.