Have you had a creepy experience that the effects still lasted years later? I don't know if it would be considered PTSD.

[Warrior Sunflower]

This took place in middle school and I'm a young adult now. The effects are still here though. At the time, I was just walking to the restroom at school. I didn't even expect what was about to happen. So, now I'm in the restroom and there's two girls doing their makeup (one of them before this happened, She was my friend). Anyways, I was just staring and smiling at them. I was going to compliment them about their makeup skills when I was able to get a word in but instead of that, they insulted me but that wasn't what bugged me or messed with me. I just went into the stall to you know. Then, The one that was my friend... She tried to climb up the stall door to look at me luckily before that happened, I was able to get up and open the door while she was hanging by it. Is it bad that I kinda wished I knocked her out by opening the door instead of her jumping down just in the nick of time before it hit her? (Btw, the girl with her, I found out later was the "super sweet, can't do anything wrong" popular girl. She helped her climb up the stall door.) I think she also had that reputation with all the adults as well because when I tried to report it due to it scarring me, I showed the principal and my T/A exactly who it was and the principal asked if she should call my mom, I said yes however the catch is that the principle told me to "please, leave." I didn't question it until the moment I shut the door behind me. So, I listened in because one the walls were pretty thin and two I was like exactly next to the wall and all the principal told my mom was that I was being overdramatic about insults and said nothing about the attempted privacy invasion. So, that soured my mood for the rest of the day. I told my friend group about it but everyone that could hear me was like "I'm sorry, that's too hard to believe so I don't. She's way too nice to do anything like that." Everyone else except 1 person nodded along to that. That 1 single person assured me that She believed me and apologized for it even though she had nothing to do with it. Sadly, I later found out that she was a fake toxic friend as well. But Back to the situation, I told my parents about the whole situation and my mom rolled her eyes and said "Uh huh, sure. Stop being so overdramatic. That's not what happened." My Dad wasn't on the call so, he had to hear it from my mom. He didn't even acknowledge me and nodded along to what my mom was saying. They didn't even believe me until years later when I brought it up to them again due to the traumatic experience affecting my daily life. Now even to this day, these side effects are still affecting me. The side effects is that I'll try to never go to the bathroom in public bathrooms afraid that someone will actually be able to climb the entire stall and come into the bathroom stall before I'm done and sometimes I'm too afraid to use my own bathroom so, I'll hold it for as long as I can. I think they gave me a phobia of bathrooms. I'm looking for validation, support and maybe someway I can cope with this.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

When I was 9 I was dumped into a sadistic boarding school where we were constantly being kicked and hit by the staff. At one point me and another kid ran away and went to his father’s house. Of course he took us back to the school. Then we had to wear dresses and wigs for a week. At each recess we had to stand at opposite ends of the playground. A teacher was posted nearby and they would encourage the other kids to ridicule us. Fortunately for us it was so over the top that we nine year olds could clearly see it wasn’t us that were crazy. By the way I was dumped there to protect me from my mother. I have only recently begun to understand how traumatic that school was. I still have a tendency towards depression on Sundays as that was the day we returned if we were home for a weekend. And all these years I thought I was just fine.

 

[Movingforward10]

Hi Warrior Sunflower. I'm sorry that happened to you and then everyone didn't believe you.
I don't think this qualifies for one of the criteria for PTSD but it clearly has shaped how you see yourself and going into restrooms is a trigger.

There are lots of things to work on with triggers. Have you tried CBT type things?

Giving yourself counter messages. The unsafe restroom experience was once. And you have had many many safe restroom experiences since. So, it's waaaayyyy more likely the safe ones are going to happen again than the unsafe one. Particularly as the unsafe one was children being bullies and you are now an adult and adult bullies behave differently.

 

[arfie]

hello fellow warrior. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

i am not a psychoanalyst, nor have i ever wished to be, but from my just-a-patient understanding of ptsd, the disorder is not so much about the trauma itself as it is in how we process the trauma. at least i think that is what my qualified professionals have been telling me all these years. several of them believed i was catching on when i compared ^it^ to a glitch in my hard drive.

i am far from certain of all that, but i have found this place to be a safe place to ask the questions. hope it proves so for you, as well.

welcome aboard.

 

[rubyrosetaylor]

Trauma doesn’t have a timeline, and still struggling with it shows how deeply it impacted you. The fear around public bathrooms or your own space is something many people with PTSD experience—our brains can hold onto those fears, making them hard to escape. You’re really strong for acknowledging what you’ve been through, and you deserve support and understanding. You don’t have to face this alone, and it’s okay to keep reaching out for help when you need it.

 

[Friday]

I think they gave me a phobia of bathrooms.

Entirely possible.

Phobias are vastly different than PTSD.

As are the perspective shifts as we look back on normal-teenage-angsty-shit, like someone / mean girl nonsense / like peeking whilst we peed, being a big deal at the time, and nothing now.