As a CBC journalist who often covers tragedies abroad, Curt Petrovich goes through Vancouver International Airport on a routine basis. Each time he does, he passes through the area where Robert Dziekański died after being tasered by RCMP officers in October 2007.

Later, Petrovich—who was one of the only journalists to attend every day of the officers’ trial—learned he shared something in common with those men: his own diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is the subject of a new CBC documentary called "Lost on Arrival: Me, the Mounties & PTSD".

"It was my psychologist who first suggested it, and I didn't accept it," Petrovich said in a telephone interview. "I've been a journalist for 30 years and over that time, I've actually interviewed people with PTSD, and always thought I understood what it was and understood that it's not something that I'd ever succumb to. It had never occurred to me that I might have PTSD because I'd not been involved—at least I thought I had not been involved—in the kind of event or incident that people who normally get PTSD are involved in. I'm not a first responder, I'm not a police officer, I'm not a soldier."

The film notes that journalists working in conflict zones have a 28.6 percent chance of encountering PTSD over a lifetime, a rate 3.5 times that of the general population.

After a 2011 trip to Japan to cover the earthquake and tsunami that struck that year, Petrovich's wife, Yvette Brend, noticed that Petrovich was beginning to change. He would become agitated over minor events that had never bothered him in the past—a nearby car rolling through a stop sign, for example.

His 2012 stint covering Somali refugee camps in Kenya seemed to exacerbate his deteriorating mental state. Then came Typhoon Haiyan, a 2013 tropical storm that devastated much of the Philippines.

In the film, Brend recounts how she could feel Petrovich slipping away from his family.

"He was struggling," she says. "The few times he was able to get a phone call out, he could not stop sobbing. And at that point—my skin prickles now thinking about it—I knew he was in trouble. Because that was not Curt."

Petrovich notes how symptoms could manifest physically, causing him to lose weight and grow a beard. As his mind changed, he allowed his appearance to transform in ways he never had before, Petrovich explains. He likens aspects of his PTSD to slipping away to another place.

"There are parts of the last two or three years that I just can't remember," Petrovich explains. "I just don't have any memory from them. And that's because I wasn't here. I was somewhere else, or I don't know."

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Treatment does begin to produce results. In addition to therapy, the film documents his positive experiences with unconventional treatments, including using drugs such as MDMA and ketamine (in a clinical setting). But he said that although his condition has improved significantly, there remains a lot to repair.

"I get angry about what happened to me. I lost several years of my life. I lost several years of relationships with my children, which I am trying to rebuild and reconnect. I still carry around a great deal of guilt for having brought all of this into my household. I carry around a lot of guilt for having been yelled and been angry at my children for nothing that they did, but for something that I was going through. And so every day, I try to fix it a little bit."

The documentary ends on a note that makes clear Petrovich's journey with PTSD is not over.

"I can only hope that someday, I'll come home from the Philippines," he says.

Petrovich acknowledges his recovery very much remains a work in progress.

"I'm still working through it," he said. "Everything is not back to normal. I don't even know what normal is anymore. It sounds a bit trite, but I'm left trying to figure out who I am now."

"Lost on Arrival: Me, the Mounties & PTSD" airs on CBC on Thursday (February 9) at 9 p.m.