No, there was not very good treatment for PTSD back then. If your only friend was a narcissist, then my guess is he was not interested in the "depth of you" which you desperately needed.

You say you felt good when riding, did you ride horses at college? Or, do you mean you liked writing? I know you type with your thumbs, and if you are recalling and getting pictures, often words get skipped, I used to do that constantly when I first joined PC, skip words and type fast like I was a speeding train.

My daughter had a room mate that was all messed up, she had a full scholarship and only wanted to sleep it away. My daughter actually managed to get her going and even studying, she found herself parenting a lot of other students who never really learned how to study.

I remember when I went to orientation at my daughter's college, they had a special meeting for the parents, told them how the freshman would struggle, want to come home, and whine and told the parents, "don't let them come home, they will settle in and get used to it".

My daughter once told me there were things that happened in college that were bad, she did not want to talk about it and I didn't press, I could tell she meant it.

I am sorry that your teachers were not kind to you, unfortunately that happened a lot back then, you are younger than I am, but I doubt things changed all that much in those few years behind me where you were in the system.

For myself, I always felt behind, I had always felt that something in the beginning part was missing and what I was learning was missing the first part always. I had only been passing in Geometry in High School, so I decided to take the book and teach it to myself from the beginning, I just decided I was going to learn it and then I went in and took an exam. Well, the next day the teacher stood in front of the class and said most of the class did horrible on the exam and she felt that was wrong. I thought maybe I just failed and teaching myself was not good enough. Then she said to the class, "And guess who got the highest grade, and if this student can do it then everyone should have gotten a 100 on the test, then she called my name and everyone turned and looked at me, it was a total embarrassment the way this teacher made fun of me for getting the highest grade, a 98 when most of the class failed. I could not wait to get out of that class and get in my car and run home I was so mortified.

Some teachers suuck Teacake, they really do, especially back in the day. My father never let me finish a sentence while I was growing up, he always had to stop me and correct me or try to get me to use bigger words. I got so I could not talk, especially not to adults. I taught myself to talk by getting books from the library and reading them aloud in my room, or reading aloud to the children I babysat for, children didn't care about how I talked, just that I talked to them was enough. That is why I didn't stand up and talk back to that teacher in that classroom. That is why when I am told I am gifted, I get upset or angry too. I was gifted in writing too, but I didn't dare show what I wrote to my snotty stuck up English teacher. I had a teacher in history that was a nun in high school. Every time I wrote a paper or took a test she messed up my entire paper with red marks correcting my cursive, even though I actually had good penmanship. I didn't know what was right or wrong I had so much red on my papers when I got them back.

I often took things others considered throw away's and made nice things out of them, then people wanted whatever it was or broke it or stole it. I didn't have PTSD, I lived through a lot of crap, I know what it is like to look back and regret, if only people would respect me or just let me create and have whatever I create. When I saw everything I made and loved destroyed, that was it, too much invaded and that is when the PTSD came. Only, to see living things that trusted me in so much pain, if I was so smart, so gifted why did I not pick up on it earlier, I blamed myself so badly, surely someone who is
supposedly so gifted would have prevented what had happened I thought.

Did you ever blame yourself for not being strong enough somehow?

I was handed a lot of lemons and I made a lot of lemonaide, but, yes I would have liked to have been able to get the education I wanted.

Did you think way back when that you were gifted? Or is that something you have been seeing just the past few years? Just curious

I am sorry that you had those horrible experiences and there was no one there to be a true witness and hear you the way you needed them to.

I will say though, a lot of children get an idea of what a real family/parent/caring nurturer is supposed to be from watching movies or reading books. Unfortunately, there are a lot of mothers out there that are not nurturing/caring/loving mothers.

I did understand what you meant when you talked about gifted people are often oppressed.

I don't like the term "gifted" tbh though. I think a lot of people are gifted and misunderstood too, or overlooked somehow.

((Gentle Hugs)))
OE