I hope everyone else stared at the screen for ages thinking what to write too.
My PTSD was an accumulation of a few traumas that happened pretty much from childhood until I was 27 (I'm 44 now). I was constantly physically abused by an alcoholic father until I was 16 & left home. But I was young, so it gets pushed to back of your mind, and I was embarking on a new life in Brisbane.
Then when I was about 22yr I had a man who had followed me home from a pub, and stalked me for months. They didnt have very tough laws on stalking then, so even him entering my home when I wasnt there couldnt put him away. One night he tried to take it further & tried to assault me while I slept, but somehow I managed to kick him in the groin & jump out the window to escape. I was found running along a main road in skimpy pj's, and ended up be psycho assessed & kept in hospital for a couple of weeks, because they didnt find any evidence of anyone being in the house. When I got out I moved back to Perth.
I got tired of the drugs they put me on, so I went off them & just tried to live with my demons. It all flared up again though a couple of years later when a man tried to carjack me in a carpark. It was then I started using speed, until a friend died of an overdose, which helped me kick that habit real quick. I threw myself into my work (as a journo), but still drank too much. When I was 30 I came home one day to find my house had been robbed & trashed.
Which was probably a turning point in my life, because at that time I got tired of being the victem. I'd always lived in "nice" areas, but I still couldnt avoid these things happening. One day at the office I saw something about dolphins coming into the beach down south, so took a visit down there (I had read about dolphin therapy for depression). I was so hooked I quit my job & moved down there to work with them, which I did for 10yrs. We had a lot of help groups come down to swim with them, so in all, it was the best therapy I could have got at a very bad time.
I even built up the courage to travel the globe twice by myself, and thru some pretty dangerous areas. Though there was the one bad time when I was crossing the border from Belize to Guatamala (visiting temples) just as they started a drug war, and there was gunfire flying around. All I could think of was 'if your going to shoot me, please let it be in the head'. I kept having all these visions of being held captive by one of the sides.
So while I will still recoil when a man starts any agressive behaviour around me, for the most part I function not too bad. And then 9/11 and all the other terrorist events that followed it (where I had family & friends involved), and I found I started to suffer a bit of agrophobia. I am at my happiest working from my office at home.
So there's my story, and I must say, nice to be in the company of you all!
My PTSD was an accumulation of a few traumas that happened pretty much from childhood until I was 27 (I'm 44 now). I was constantly physically abused by an alcoholic father until I was 16 & left home. But I was young, so it gets pushed to back of your mind, and I was embarking on a new life in Brisbane.
Then when I was about 22yr I had a man who had followed me home from a pub, and stalked me for months. They didnt have very tough laws on stalking then, so even him entering my home when I wasnt there couldnt put him away. One night he tried to take it further & tried to assault me while I slept, but somehow I managed to kick him in the groin & jump out the window to escape. I was found running along a main road in skimpy pj's, and ended up be psycho assessed & kept in hospital for a couple of weeks, because they didnt find any evidence of anyone being in the house. When I got out I moved back to Perth.
I got tired of the drugs they put me on, so I went off them & just tried to live with my demons. It all flared up again though a couple of years later when a man tried to carjack me in a carpark. It was then I started using speed, until a friend died of an overdose, which helped me kick that habit real quick. I threw myself into my work (as a journo), but still drank too much. When I was 30 I came home one day to find my house had been robbed & trashed.
Which was probably a turning point in my life, because at that time I got tired of being the victem. I'd always lived in "nice" areas, but I still couldnt avoid these things happening. One day at the office I saw something about dolphins coming into the beach down south, so took a visit down there (I had read about dolphin therapy for depression). I was so hooked I quit my job & moved down there to work with them, which I did for 10yrs. We had a lot of help groups come down to swim with them, so in all, it was the best therapy I could have got at a very bad time.
I even built up the courage to travel the globe twice by myself, and thru some pretty dangerous areas. Though there was the one bad time when I was crossing the border from Belize to Guatamala (visiting temples) just as they started a drug war, and there was gunfire flying around. All I could think of was 'if your going to shoot me, please let it be in the head'. I kept having all these visions of being held captive by one of the sides.
So while I will still recoil when a man starts any agressive behaviour around me, for the most part I function not too bad. And then 9/11 and all the other terrorist events that followed it (where I had family & friends involved), and I found I started to suffer a bit of agrophobia. I am at my happiest working from my office at home.
So there's my story, and I must say, nice to be in the company of you all!