Question about possible PTSD

[acarter0508]

I am a 25 yr old female who has been having increasing amounts of nightmares about a certain incident at my old job and was trying to get an opinion about it. I used to work at a state psychiatric hospital for 8 months earlier this year on a max-security unit with adult males and there were several times where I was physically assaulted at work. However, I was assaulted by one patient towards the end of my time working there (I just couldn't psychically take it anymore so I left) that has been causing me to have nightmares the last 4 1/2 weeks or so. At first, I just had 1 nightmare a week for the first two weeks, then last week I had 2 nightmares, then this week I have already had 2 nightmares back to back. It wasn't getting to me to much at first, but this morning after having the nightmare, I had bad chest pains right under my sternum about a minute after I woke up and it lasted a good 15 mins. This is the first time that I have had physical symptoms from one of these nightmares. These nightmares are only about this one patient, but it seems as if the whole scenario of when I was assaulted changes; It's not like how he assaulted me originally and more times than not, the nightmares make it more gruesome. I have been hurt worse by some of the other patients on the unit, but for some reason, this is the one patient that I keep having the nightmares about. It hasn't affected my day (except for the lack of sleep) and I live a normal married life (and I do work in psych again, but with kids instead which is a much better fit for me) I am just wondering if this is going to be the beginning of something I hope it's not (PTSD?) Any advice would be helpful. Thank you so much:)

[drifter0213]

PTSD can show up months later. the nightmares could be an indication that you have anxiety issues concerning your experience by the time my symptoms emerged i was already thinking about what happened to me everyday you may try counseling or group therapy to help out you may develop PTSD

[acarter0508]

One more thing the assault happened back in June but the nightmares didn't start happening until September