[Onward2wards]

I recall that after a bout of school bullying, several significant disruptions to my social life, family disagreements, school stress, and several other stressors that built up over several years, I had my first bona fide depressive crisis at 17. I would definitely call it "Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood". It didn't just pop out of nothing. I just sort of finally broke down. Looking back, I can see how the stressors at that age might get to anyone. Of course, at that age you just don't think in terms of stress slowly building up in you - you're young and invincible, right?

Possible trigger:

This included thoughts of ending myself, including planning for it. I came within maybe 30 seconds of a serious attempt, which very few people know about to this day.

Very few people knew about it all, I don't think anybody got the full story from me (embarrassment and fear of stigma took care of that), and nobody really seemed to know how to handle it. It was like the "800 pound elephant in the room" of my life for a while. The after effects - handled with basically nothing more than gritting my teeth and soldiering on - lingered for over a year, now that I think about it. Maybe even longer. Loneliness, self-doubt and social insecurity were a constant and unwelcome companion all the way through the next two years of college - I developed "triggers" about that which brought some of the old self-destructive feelings back quite easily. They still exist, those triggers, and now I'm 49. Those triggers put me in a psych ward (voluntary commitment) a few years ago. Potent stuff. When people laugh about "triggers" and "safe spaces", I have to restrain my urge to just scream at people. They just do NOT get it.

Is it possible that basically feeling that utterly worthless and desperate, feeling unsupported (even when some people did really try their best), and facing your own mortality at that age can leave a lasting mark for decades? If so, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with one - maybe more - adjustment disorders that eventually may have morphed into something worse that's life long? Meds don't seem to have ever significantly affected it, so no luck there.

There's a reason I'm asking. Lately I have been under a lot of stress, re-evaluating where I am in life (I am not happy!), and I feel like those awful days long ago happened yesterday. I have been having daily nightmares lately, and getting this creepy feeling like I just don't expect to be around very long. I seem to have slipped into a genuine psychological crisis again. This one is getting very difficult to handle.

Not sure what to do right now. I feel like I NEED to change almost everything about my life, like the walls are closing in and I can't live as I have been anymore. Do those kind of early crises leave you with a form of PTSD, existential dread, a chronic negative self-image, what? I don't know what's happening to me anymore.

I need help. Nowhere is safe anymore.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Onward2wards: OMG... I could write a book with regard to all of this! (Actually I'm not sure where I'd even begin though.) But I'll spare you that dubious experience... What I will say is that I'm now 68 years old. And the trauma of my young life still haunts me to this day. I know for a fact I will never escape it. For a variety of reasons, I believe, I somehow never understood the forces that were at work within me. And so, as you wrote, I also just kept gritting my teeth & soldiering on. And, in the process, I destroyed the lives of people who had the right to expect infinitely better from me. My shame knows no boundaries. (Oh, & I've been involuntarily committed twice following just-not-quite-successful suicide attempts.)

Looking back, I wish that somehow I could have been shaken into the realization that I needed to DO SOMETHING to stop the insanity. But if the signals were there, I never recognized them. Perhaps the stress, nightmares & creepy feelings you're currently experiencing are those kinds of signals? I'm not a mental health professional. But, based on my own experience, I will tell you that yes... early crises can leave a person with long-lasting PTSD, existential dread & a negative self image. I have them. I send you my best wishes with the hope that you will be able to find deep peace within.

[Onward2wards]

Not sure why I felt so "triggery" the day I posted. I feel a bit calmer today. The only thing that has changed is that I reached out and shared what's going on.