Hi Seeker5,
So far what you have been doing by running away and thinking you can get away, you are expressing a symptom of PTSD.

People who have PTSD have a heightened sense of RUN and the important thing to understand if that you actually cannot really run. You have to stop running and face the past and events that brought on tramas were you experienced something or even many things that you had a lot of emotions about. And the experience that you have let out here is of a young 13 year old that experienced a normal curiosity that ended up experiencing a bad event. So, you never really dealt with that and part of you feels responsible. But the reality is that you were engaging in normal curiosity and you were not prepared for what that curiosity lead to that truely presented something bad and because of that you suffered a consequence you were never prepared to experience.

When people have PTSD they can very easily appear to have symptoms that also look like Bipolar disorder. And because someone who has experienced something bad can present a strong desire to strive for perfection and unreasonable expectations and can also feel exhausted and often depressed, well, those are also symptoms of Bipolar disorder, however in Bipolar no real trauma has taken place. And it is very tricky because in Bipolar disorder a person experiences long periods of high function and motivation that almost seem like super qualities and then for some reason they go into a period of very lows where they feel very depressed and can bearly function.
And with PTSD, there is a similar pattern where a person can function highly as they try to push aside the emotions and confusion that accompany a trama or even many tramas, and then something can happen to trigger that person where they get really anxious and then fall into a depressive state of mind.

And your not alone in being possibly wrongly diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and that came across my own efforts to find help in therapy. And what that did was make it worse for me and just prolong getting the correct diagnosis. And in reality, PTSD is still being studied and therapies for it are still being explored to see what can be done to irradicate the circle of emotions that disturb victims and confuse them and even lead to feeling very depressed at times.

In many ways your lucky because PTSD is being more recognized and studied and there is now an offer available that acknowledges PTSD and REAL efforts are being made to help probably thousands of people that struggle with PTSD for different reasons. And as I look back in my life and how I tried to get help and clearly express all the red flags that would lead to that diagnosis, I was never given that diagnosis that I so needed and I was left to wonder and struggle for many years. I was even exposed to sitting in a therapy session with my husband and daughter and everything that was wrong was directed towards me as being my fault somehow. And I had sat with that therapist and talked about all the experiences that should have told that therapist how I was REALLY STRUGGLING WITH A BAD CASE OF PTSD. And there I was a victim of clearly several abuses from as far back as early childhood and also dealing with a husband that was a binge alcoholic and also committing adultery and resenting me because of his guilt, and I was punished in that family meeting. I will never forget that event now that I know how really hard I was trying to get help and was again misunderstood and even victimized, even with a therapist present. And when I think about all the times I really tried to get help and tryed therapy, I was not successful and misunderstood and I have every reason to be leary of seeking the help of a therapist believe me.

But thankfully, the field of psychology has caught up with REALITY and there finally is a REAL DIAGNOSIS AND EFFORTS FOR DEALING WITH THIS DIAGNOSIS. But I have to admit that I do have a deep sense of anger that it wasn't there WHEN I NEEDED IT. So the very bottom line for you that can be truely grateful is there is help out there for you. But you do need to make sure that you seek the help of a therapist that is truely up to speed with this diagnosis and can utilize the gaining knowledge of how to help a patient deal with it and find ways to resolve it somehow with ongoing support, because it is very hard for a patient to understand the demensions of it.

The good part of you coming here and getting support here at PC is that your going to learn that your not alone, and your not crazy and you are dealing with a diagnosable condition that you can learn to understand and begin to make efforts to heal. But it is a journey and it isn't easy Seeker5, but you can't run away from it.
And all that your talking about here is actually part of the struggle every person that has PTSD faces. Every single concern including the desire to be active in society and some inablility to do so. You have to stop and work on YOU and put that aside for now and recognize that in order to get to that place where you feel more comfortable with functioning in society, you have to FIX WHAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK AND EVEN MAKING YOU FEEL LONELY AND CONFUSED.

So take a deep breath and begin your journey, time out, you have to stop and learn how to recover from whatever it was that hurt you. And there is support here, but you do need to find a good therapist that can help you as well and be there for you on your journey and hold your hand and really help you along, because it is a journey, and you just cant do it alone.

Are there some people that have PTSD and are also Bipolar? Yes, by shear numbers that are inflicted that is a possibility, but not always true. So it is important to learn and pay attention to your psychological struggles because there really is a similarity of symptoms. What has helped me by coming to PC is that I was exposed to others that have PTSD and are also in therapy and I was able to learn how these other people were being dealt with in therapy and what they learned about what PTSD means. And I also was able to see that I wasn't alone too, that there are many others that stuggle with PTSD as well. And that support and exposure to others is so important, I can't even express how much that comforted me, because I can see how someone could begin to believe they are crazy. And how others that around them truely cannot understand what it means to have PTSD. And for me? I am forever trying to explain how difficult it is to others around me, and I am constantly looking for words to express this struggle that is very hard to understand, PTSD.

Open Eyes