Oh yes! I get that feeling
I don't think it needs to be depression, I think it's a central part of the response to past trauma.
I think we're simply trying to keep ourselves out of the way of other people, and feeling like we're not liked, is a very good way of doing that (feelings are how our bodies have evolved to get us to do things - sweet and fatty foods that are high in energy, taste good, just the right temperature feels nice - too hot or two cold for our bodies, feels bad ).
From what you've written, it looks like you are beginning the feedback loop of feeling bad - making a few normal mistakes, feeling even worse because of them, and as a result becoming more and more down and making more and more (perfectly normal, understandable and forgivable) mistakes, and feeling even worse.
The increased tiredness and sleep can also be a way of escaping - especially for people who experience the "freeze" response to stress.
A friend recently sent me a link to an audiobook on youtube, if you search for the audiobook the mindful way through depression by j. mark g. Williams you should get it (the site settings here won't let me post the link).
It was developed for use with depression (clinical trials show it at least as good as any medication for treating depression) but, as it teaches mindfulness and CBT, it's pretty good all around, even just listening to the first hour gets you some good tools for gently stepping out of that downward spiral.
I've also been using the techniques on pete walker's site, for dealing with emotional flashbacks.
I had a long drive yesterday, to attend the funeral of a friend, and (due to a whole load of circumstances) borrowed my brother's car to go in.
Unexpectedly, a "friend" of my brothers was there when I went to get the car. Over the past three years this character has become more and more threatening and abusive towards me. Always in secret, always deniable. My brother, his "friend" and the "friend's" latest girlfriend walked past me in a single file (he always has a different, good looking girlfriend with him - he's in his forties, they're usually late teens or early twenties. I don't think it takes them long to realize that he's an abusive narcissist, that it's all about "him", and for them to get the hell away from him).
anyway, unseen by the other two, this "friend" leered and snarled at me as though he was about to physically attack me, as he walked past.
I spent a lot of the crappy four hour drive (the roads all had speed restrictions and average speed cameras on them) to the funeral, nearly in tears, soothing myself by reminding myself that I have good friends, who do care for me, look out for me and help me, and I would be meeting some of them at the funeral. A lot of hugs and a lot of tears later, and I got through. I also kept reminding myself that I now know what the feelings are, that I'm no longer a child who has to take these things (I'm in my late forties....) and that I can take measures to protect myself. Today's job is to visit a neighbour whom my family have great respect for - and whom I gather has also seen through the narcissist, to see if we can find ways to alert my other family members to the risks that the creep presents to them.
What I'm working to do, is to shift the "locus of control" away from external events and other individuals, and into myself, in a positive way.
You've already done a huge ammount of that yourself.
You've got yourself into a physically and emotionally safe environment. You're planning and working towards the future with the college course, you have professional help to call upon for guidance, and you have the collective "us" here for you 24/7/365.
Do not throw yourself on the mercy of any of those expecting to be saved - if the experiences of the hundreds who post here are anything to go by, that results in disappointment and disillusionment. Instead, try to see therapists, books, videos, friends, posters here and medications (tea and dark chocolate are my choice) as helpers and tools to be called upon to help you to make sense of what is going on, to accept the feelings without them causing you distress and to succeed despite having them.
I've only accepted in the past couple of months that I've been experiencing PTS responses all of my conscious life. In that respect you have a 30+ years head start on me, to train yourself to spot the feelings when they're appearing, and to accept that they are feelings, that you have all sorts of rational, physical - and if you need them - chemical, ways to handle those feelings, and to manage the physical world around you.
The ability for human brains to adapt to new circumstances is absolutely amazing. I have a friend in his mid fifties, who has MS. five years ago he was ready for a wheelchair. He has continued to practice his martial arts and, though far from being where he would have been without MS, he's more physically and mentally able than most males his age. He amazes his neurologist, who has the images from brain scans showing the extent of plaques (areas where the brain tissue has died) in his brain and spinal column, and who knows the extent that he has re-trained his brain; he has many other patients with simillar extent of plaques, who have not retrained their brains and who are now confined to wheelchairs.
That Neuro-plasticity never goes, but it is far greater in young people. your brain, and particularly the frontal and pre frontal cortex - the thinking, rational parts of your brain, will probably still be developing and growing until you are in your mid twenties. The process is never easy, nor fast nor easy to recognize.
I'm told that the process of learning to live with PTS responses is like taking two steps forward, one and three quarters steps back, that sometimes it can be difficult to believe that we are making any progress at all.
Perhaps day to day, week to week is the wrong way to be looking at it - perhaps we should be looking back over a month, or over a whole season to see what we have achieved with our day to day ups and downs. And when we are looking forward, to look only at the next little baby step, or the next little bite, that way we don't get daunted by the size of the task. It's one of the cliches form management training in the 1980s: Question, how would you eat a whole elephant?, answer: one little bite at a time.
While I've been typing, I've been thinking about a documentary which you might like, it's about a female martial artist whom my friend shares notes with over social media, it's hugely inspirational, but I need a good supply of tissues beside me (hand towels and dish towels get grabbed and used too) there are a lot of tears, it's up on youtube in several places: Moment by Moment, the healing journey of Molly Hale.
huge hug, and keep us up to date.
