Hi, I'm 37 years old female, coming from the part of Europe, once called Yugoslavia. I was not affected by war, I suffer consequences of child and adolescent abuse.

The reason for my writing is my hope to be able to compare my experiences with others.

I'm not sure what proportion of my symptoms and condition is PTSD. My past is constantly hunting and torturing me, however I can find moments of peace and happiness in between. My life is chaos, but I don't feel depressed. I have occasional nightmares, but I don't wake up because of them. But I do wake up sometimes because of anxious dreams.

I do have occasional flashbacks, but almost always I can deal with them. And I have experiences with dissociation and allienation.

As I feel and understand my condition, it's a problem of integrating my traumatic past into my identity. I think this is the function of intrusive memories from the past.

One thing I am not sure about, are my destroyed personal boundaries. Is this somehow connected with PTSD or not? I am very vulnerable and exposed to further emotional abuses. This is the area where I feel most affected and where I work very hard to change things.

Probably everything I wrote, sounds very confusing, but this is me.

Best regards, M.