I've read from various sources that the proper emotional support and therapy soon after the PTSD symptoms is extremely important and that if you don't have that you might have a lesser success rate of much improvement or coping. I mean I spent a good three years thinking it was my fault I couldn't handle what happened, I was ashamed of it and thought I had to keep it to myself or people would be disappointed in me for being effected that way.

I now see how stupid that was...but at the time I was quite convinced I had to somehow get rid of it or push it deep inside. I think part of it was with that girl getting killed at my school well she was more popular...I was kinda of friend with her in middle school and we didn't talk much in highschool but she was always nice to me. Thing is I was sort of the loser/out-cast people either picked on or paid no mind to. So after it happened and I was still at that school I was still the isolated outcast, people still wanted nothing to do with me.....some people where suprised it wasn't 'me' one girl said that during the lock down that she was suprised I wasn't the psycho with the gun...she apologized for that later. But point is I didn't have support from my peers, my parents where in the middle of a nasty freaking divorce so they didn't have much time to be supportive and it was just a tense environment....I tried mentioning my concerns to a school counselor who said not to worry about it, then I had my mom try and hook me up with more therapy but then it just didn't quite work out so I kinda just figured it was up to me to just deal with it. Also with how i was treated at school it almost felt like I wasn't allowed to join in the grieving because I wasn't part of the 'clique' so I had no right to be effected so much by the death of a girl who was more part of that.

I think that time between experiancing symptoms, and finally realizing there was no way in hell I could manage it by trying to ignore it or not be effected. For a while I even tried convincing myself I had 'minor PTSD' because my symptoms of it weren't quite so bad yet...after all I was still in college or damn well would figure something else out if that didn't work. But I learned the hard way it gets worse, or more flow blown the longer you try to push it away and just get on with things. Even now I sometimes feel the guilt about being effected how I was due to peoples ignorant comments like my moms boyfriend saying 'but you weren't even in the room.' when I tried telling him to be more careful about closing the kitchen cabnits because sudden loud noises and PTSD don't mix well. Then my grandmas bright idea a few months ago that I might just be dwelling on it, I mean its not like I don't already feel terrible enough for getting PTSD from a shooting I didn't exactly see and all the bullying and ostracizm as a child when some people have gotten it after much, much worse tramas.

I thought if it wasn't worse then it couldn't get worse......but no such luck. So while I feel maybe I will be able to gain somewhat better functioning or at least be less bombarded by symptoms I am not expecting a huge improvement. I've talked to my mom about some things I might like to do like jobs I may attempt someday or volunteering for things for something to do...but my immediate plan is to hopefully get on SSI and then not jump into any obligations too quickly I think I will need to take things slow and I certainly am not going to promptly start working on getting off of it either first I need to be able to manage the symptoms a bit better before I can even attempt to work. I question my brains ability to heal when I wasn't even able to 'heal' from my depression before getting hit with PTSD as well. Kind of like if someone broke their leg and it had just got done healing and then they end up paralyzed or something.