I knew from my first day of kindergarten that I was different. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but as I sat there watching the other kids cling to the moms that were dropping them off and cry that they didn’t want them to leave, I had a very distinct feeling that something was extremely different for me.
When I was 18, having recently graduated from high school and started waitressing full time, (college was never really a topic of conversation when my parents were trying to make it through their chaos) I met another young woman who referred me to her counselor. As far as I had ever heard, counseling was for crazy people. Or rich people. She said that he did a sliding scale based on income, and she was clearly a little lower on the crazy scale than I.
So I started. I worked with him for a couple of years before I took a couple of years off for drinking. You know the old adage about the time and place for everything is college? Well between the ages of 19 and 24 I did all the things, I just skipped the college part. After getting engaged at 23 to an art student who wanted to photograph other women naked, I started having anxiety attacks and found another counselor.
The big question that I continually repeated was, “Why am I different?”
Most of the people that I met and talked to would relate to having struggled in childhood. Many had some form of abuse or neglect. What was the big freaking difference between me and them? I think differently. I feel things differently. I have trouble relating to people on a deeper level. I struggle in my head on a daily basis. Why?
The counselors consistently explained to me that I had PTSD, and as I’ve written about in previous entries, I just couldn’t accept it. It didn’t add up to me. My life wasn’t really that bad. My abuse wasn’t really that severe. How is it that so many others with similar experience could move somewhat smoothly into adulthood and I would continually struggle with having emotional breakdowns at work, keeping up on bills, maintaining relationships, depression and general everyday self-care? Why?
Over the years, I have identified a few factors that made my experience growing up different from others. The building blocks of my PTSD.
- Mentally Ill Parents
- Lack of backup
- Lack of other kids
- School
- Poverty
I won’t be able to cover it all in one post, but I am finding the exploration of these things, the building blocks of my mental struggles, to be comforting and empowering. To finally acknowledge that I am not inherently a failure, but that there is valid cause for my struggles. Stay tuned…
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