She (I was seeing a man, but he's on vacation over the summer, this is another T at the campus counseling center) asked me if anyone had talked to me about it before after I told her about how I first became suicidal. People have asked me repeatedly whether I'd been abused or suffered trauma because I have symptoms of PTSD. My response was always "no, not really" because I feel like the thing that would have been the cause shouldn't be. I'm afraid of peoples' reaction being that it's a pathetic cause, and looking down on me for it. That was my mom's reaction at the time, and it's the reaction I've gotten from some people online, or what I feel like others are thinking if they don't react.

(I entered 6th grade from home school because I was so lonely and it was the school most of the kids from church went to. I hadn't had any luck with friendships just seeing people for an hour on Sundays, so I wanted to try it. I wasn't in a class with any of them, but the group of girls in my class accepted me right away. But the week I came in another girl was out sick. She had obviously been the odd-one-out of the group, and I'd been assigned to her locker. I got the impression she was new at the beginning of that year, and she was very insecure. (I entered the beginning of December.) If she was smart she would have realized she wasn't the extra person anymore, but she saw me as a threat instead and started trying to manipulate me into getting in trouble with the other girls, but I wouldn't bite and just avoided her. Then we were assigned together to work on a project. I was trying really hard to work with her, but she wouldn't do anything but offer suggestions that were outside of the project guidelines. I'm not sure if she was just that stupid, trying to be difficult, or both. (My guess is both. Aside from her manipulative abilities she did seem pretty dumb.) But I didn't say anything, just reminded her of the guidelines and went to get the supplies. When I'd left the table she went to the other girls and told them I'd called her and her ideas stupid, and when I went and found her there they demanded I not be a jerk and apologize. I wouldn't admit to it, they called me a liar, I stuck with my stance and they shunned me for that class. But afterward they rounded up some friends from other classes and started coming after me in the hallways, lunch room, and outside. They'd surround me and call me all kinds of things, mostly about my weight (I was 12 and 200lbs, hadn't found out I had pre-diabetes yet), and sometimes push me around. I took to avoiding being in the hallways, hid in the bathroom during lunch, and tried to stick near the door where there was a monitor when we had to be outside (though that didn't help because the monitor didn't pay enough attention and/or care). I told my mom no one liked me and she told me I needed to be nicer to people, and didn't believe me when I told her I had been nice (I was really nice to them. She was telling me I should be nicer to people so I could make friends all the time, because she thought I was treating them the same way I'd boss around my younger brother. She apparently didn't get the difference between how I'd treat girls I wanted to be friends with compared to my then-annoying brother). I tried to learn to purge, but couldn't manage it (I can hardly puke even when I'm really sick). So I avoided eating, started hurting myself, and became suicidal. I wanted to make a homemade bomb and set it off in my class on me and them, and tried finding info online. I had ruled out the possibility of obtaining a gun... there was no way I could get one of my grandfather's rifles from his locked case to my classroom. At the same time I was getting sent to the principal's office because they'd lie about me to the monitors and teachers to get me in trouble, so with me getting in trouble and asking not to go anymore my parents homeschooled me again.)

But PTSD? Doesn't seem like that should cause it. I don't know. I still feel like I don't have the right to get so distressed over childhood bullying.