To start this off i am not really having the biggest issues there are more people out there that need to be helped more than i do and i in no way plan on down playing anyone or anything in this post. Please keep that in mind when reading.
So i am a young guy in my early 20s, for the most part im your average joe, i go out wih friends, girlfriend, spend time with family and work. I'm a volunteer firefighter and have been getting my adult life off to a good start so far in my opinion.
I knew early on that i had some symptoms of PTSD but i never thought much of it. My life growing up was good, i had a great family life and i was very active in sports as a child. I believe my troubles started when we moved to a quieter nicer neighborhood in the city that turned out to have been starting to become just like most neighborhoods in the city. At 9 i saw a guy get shot in he back at the park while with my after school program. When i was in 3rd grade during school a kid was shot in the yard by a stray bullet (i persoanlly did not see it but i did catch the aftermath). School for the most part was good other than that until i got to middle school. There was a prominent school making its way in the headlines locally for being one of the best charter schools in the area although the issue was that it was in the same neighborhood we moved out of when i was 7. At first it was fine but halfway through my first year there i was exposed to somethings that maybe a child shouldn't have been. The school was large and was blended with high school and middle school. High schoolers would come into our bathrooms to hide and have sex or smoke and would usually get walked in on. Everybody started bringing knives and splitting up into the normal cliques but most of them became violent. I was one of those kids that ended up being part of a clique and we ended up fighting other small groups in the school that turned to fighting other groups from other schools. One of the kids in out group lived on the same block as an older member of the Valentine Bloods (thinking back that is absolutely one of the dumbest f*cking names for a gang). Him and his friends started coming to our let out after school and meeting up with us and talking to us and eventually recruiting us.
To be honest with you being a blood or a gang member in any way at least in my city means absolutely shit, nothing. It simply adds numbers. Blah blah blah fast forward we started splitting up after middle school and the older dudes that recruited us ended up disappearing one by one i simply didn't care enough to ask where they were. We get into high school and this is where the real fun begins, selling weed and pills and being able to buy an old revolver (that somehow had a shell stuck in the cylinder so there were only 5 available) and getting into shoot outs and starting to see people die. I personally have never shot anyone to my knowledge and i am eternally grateful.
I lost 4 friends in the same night at 16 in a fight turned ambush where they ended up getting shot at. Next we have a high school friend that was short but had a temper but nobody thought he was a real threat getting arrested for robbing a store and chasinng and gunning down a bystander that tried to wrestle the gun away. 2 cousins getting killed, losing another to cancer. Having a middle school friend killed by her ex boyfriend, having s kid i always smoked weed with end up also getting arrested for shooting his own friend and setting him on fire and landing myself in jail on my 17th birthday. Thankfully because of my age i had a judge that was caring and even took time to speak to me privately in her office after i was finally done with my probation and community service which resulted in my record being expunged.
After a ton of fights and scars it took one person to sit down and ask me whats wrong for me to realize i need to get my shit together and thats exactly what i did on my 18th birthday.
That said after that i only dealt with one more death of a friend which was 2 years ago and he was murdered while sitting in his car. This is when i had my first ever flashback episode. It wasn't anything major and i was able to get over it after an hour or two since then i was fine and i function just like anybody else would. My life is on track the way it should be, im a volunteer firefighter i work in a hospital and me and my girlfriend even have a cute little dog we treat as our child.
But last night, good f*cking god lat night. I'm not sure what triggered whatever happened to me but it was bad. I had cold sweats, jaw was getting tight and just spaced out and everything that ever happened started playing in my head and i couldnt help it i couldnt even get to sleep last night.
This was something i could never have imagined going through and i genuinely feel for anybody that goes through that on a regular. Like most people in my situation i dont enjoy people standing behind me if i can help it and dont like being surprised from a blind spot but other than that i have no real triggers and im just desperately trying to figure out what caused it.
So i am a young guy in my early 20s, for the most part im your average joe, i go out wih friends, girlfriend, spend time with family and work. I'm a volunteer firefighter and have been getting my adult life off to a good start so far in my opinion.
I knew early on that i had some symptoms of PTSD but i never thought much of it. My life growing up was good, i had a great family life and i was very active in sports as a child. I believe my troubles started when we moved to a quieter nicer neighborhood in the city that turned out to have been starting to become just like most neighborhoods in the city. At 9 i saw a guy get shot in he back at the park while with my after school program. When i was in 3rd grade during school a kid was shot in the yard by a stray bullet (i persoanlly did not see it but i did catch the aftermath). School for the most part was good other than that until i got to middle school. There was a prominent school making its way in the headlines locally for being one of the best charter schools in the area although the issue was that it was in the same neighborhood we moved out of when i was 7. At first it was fine but halfway through my first year there i was exposed to somethings that maybe a child shouldn't have been. The school was large and was blended with high school and middle school. High schoolers would come into our bathrooms to hide and have sex or smoke and would usually get walked in on. Everybody started bringing knives and splitting up into the normal cliques but most of them became violent. I was one of those kids that ended up being part of a clique and we ended up fighting other small groups in the school that turned to fighting other groups from other schools. One of the kids in out group lived on the same block as an older member of the Valentine Bloods (thinking back that is absolutely one of the dumbest f*cking names for a gang). Him and his friends started coming to our let out after school and meeting up with us and talking to us and eventually recruiting us.
To be honest with you being a blood or a gang member in any way at least in my city means absolutely shit, nothing. It simply adds numbers. Blah blah blah fast forward we started splitting up after middle school and the older dudes that recruited us ended up disappearing one by one i simply didn't care enough to ask where they were. We get into high school and this is where the real fun begins, selling weed and pills and being able to buy an old revolver (that somehow had a shell stuck in the cylinder so there were only 5 available) and getting into shoot outs and starting to see people die. I personally have never shot anyone to my knowledge and i am eternally grateful.
I lost 4 friends in the same night at 16 in a fight turned ambush where they ended up getting shot at. Next we have a high school friend that was short but had a temper but nobody thought he was a real threat getting arrested for robbing a store and chasinng and gunning down a bystander that tried to wrestle the gun away. 2 cousins getting killed, losing another to cancer. Having a middle school friend killed by her ex boyfriend, having s kid i always smoked weed with end up also getting arrested for shooting his own friend and setting him on fire and landing myself in jail on my 17th birthday. Thankfully because of my age i had a judge that was caring and even took time to speak to me privately in her office after i was finally done with my probation and community service which resulted in my record being expunged.
After a ton of fights and scars it took one person to sit down and ask me whats wrong for me to realize i need to get my shit together and thats exactly what i did on my 18th birthday.
That said after that i only dealt with one more death of a friend which was 2 years ago and he was murdered while sitting in his car. This is when i had my first ever flashback episode. It wasn't anything major and i was able to get over it after an hour or two since then i was fine and i function just like anybody else would. My life is on track the way it should be, im a volunteer firefighter i work in a hospital and me and my girlfriend even have a cute little dog we treat as our child.
But last night, good f*cking god lat night. I'm not sure what triggered whatever happened to me but it was bad. I had cold sweats, jaw was getting tight and just spaced out and everything that ever happened started playing in my head and i couldnt help it i couldnt even get to sleep last night.
This was something i could never have imagined going through and i genuinely feel for anybody that goes through that on a regular. Like most people in my situation i dont enjoy people standing behind me if i can help it and dont like being surprised from a blind spot but other than that i have no real triggers and im just desperately trying to figure out what caused it.
