Hello, Anna5;

I was diagnosed with PTSD long after I'd left college, though, looking back, I'd say I started manifesting the symptoms and behaviors at the age of 11 when I first became "depressed". My old sister tells me that my personality changed seemingly overnight.

Anyway, I went into college right after high school and I suppose I had a normal enough existence -- on the surface. I wasn't ready to deal with my childhood and adolescent traumas at the time so I spent a good deal of time "going out", experimenting with sex and alcohol, and when I wasn't doing that, I was studying.

My father has End-Stage Renal Disease, so I came home during my sophomore year (1997) to help her care for him. I had my first nervous breakdown shortly after I came home, bacterial meningitis that summer and into fall, and my mother died that October, as I started my junior year. I had to take on my father's care by myself, so whatever I was going through had to be sublimated so I could take care of him. I worked full-time, attended school full-time, what time I had left was caring for Dad, and going out when I could. I finally turned his care over to a half-brother (who stuck him in a nursing home, the bastard) and moved out on my own.

Tried to go back to school and work, and by this time, the nightmares and flashbacks started. I knocked it back with drink.

I have always been extemely private and a loner, so I hated living in student housing (like they make you do when you're a freshman). I couldn't wait to move out of the dorms. Too much noise, too much commotion, and not knowing how safe you really are (not very).

I completed my schoolwork admirably enough, but I remember dissociating when I had to do anything public or whenever I was put on the spot. I remember having OBEs while doing speeches for Oral Communication! If I stayed in my body, I would have fainted. My self-esteem was in the crapper, which is why I drank and indulged in more "sensual encounters" than I would have had I any more self respect.