nee
then callously made the comment "that is how you can get PTSD".
I'm chiming in a bit late here.
My take on this is a bit different. It COULD be something different, one of two things:
1. This person might have referred to PTSD as a way of showing that she now 'gets' PTSD (no matter how incorrectly), that PTSD / your 'illness' is now in the open and can be referred to, that it is no longer a closely guarded secret. Perhaps it was an attempt (albeit stupid) at demonstrating that she accepted you with your PTSD.
OR
2. Has it happened to you - as a child, for instance - that you sat in church, where you were not allowed to laugh, and a really insignificant thing happened that then became hysterically funny simply because you were not allowed to laugh?
Let me give another example: I'm generally unconcerned with people's appearance, but it has happened to me that in the company of a person who has a physical 'condition', let's say, obesity, and THE PERSON HAS AN OBVIOUS ISSUE WITH IT, I made a terrible faux pas by referring to it, for example: 'I was cooking and this FAT fly zoomed around the kitchen.' OMG! I've done it many times.
I once told a very close friend how difficult the three hours at my mother's death bed was. A few months later he was telling me about having to do something really unpleasant, and said: 'I think I'd rather spend three hours watching my mother die'. It felt like a kick against the head, but when I looked at him he was white with shock, and I realised it was the same weird impulse as giggling in church, or using the word 'fat' in the wrong company - it becomes a compulsion by trying to avoid it. It is like the game you play with people: 'Don't think of a purple rhinoceros, think of anything, but NOT a purple rhinoceros.' The point of the game is that it is becomes impossible not to think of a purple rhinoceros.
And, perhaps I'm wrong, but I think this person could have been motivated by almost anything, and not necessarily something negative.
