I am a 25 year old guy who has just finished his psychology degree. A
little older than the rest of my class, I took 5.5years to get through
the 3 year course due to a whole host of issues. Still have 4th year and
masters/PhD to go (complex pathways,...
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I am a 25 year old guy who has just finished his psychology degree. A
little older than the rest of my class, I took 5.5years to get through
the 3 year course due to a whole host of issues. Still have 4th year and
masters/PhD to go (complex pathways, but essentially minimum 3 years
left) At first I didnt really wanna be there, i wanted to be a rockstar
(lol.) Then the drummer in my band got murdered in 2015, and since then
things have just got worse and worse. I was an 'emo kid' in early
highschool, and got bullied up until the final two years when i carved
out a new identity as a guy who smoked at school and played music. I
never really felt comfortable in that identity though. Im certainly not
a 'bad boy' type. I also did really well in school until that point when
i stopped giving a shit. I feel as i write this that i am making a lot
of excuses for myself. About a year ago I started therapy, and it has
helped a lot. My therapist is toying with diagnoses of dysthymia/PDD and
believes that i may have been in 'double depression' in 2017/2018 before
i saw him, but we focus on talk therapy rather than meds. I have a lot
of issues coming from a family that had violence perpetrated by my
father (who i never managed to resent for it) against my mother and
sister, and my sister who has mild borderline personality disorder as a
result (and yet i do resent her, go figure. She use to threaten to kill
me, and would attempt physical harm on me and others. I tend to
subjugate myself, accommodate everyone else's needs and struggle to
assert myself. I become avoidant, and at worse i surrender. When i
surrender i can get really agitated and have suicidal thoughts. They're
almost impulses, and they scare me. This pattern has also kept me in a
3-year long-distance relationship with a very emotionally manipulative
woman who puts herself in hospital with 'burnout' or 'anxiety' when i
try to pull away. I have lost almost all of my peer support network save
for two friends I see about once a month so as not to burden them with
my issues.
PTSD for Medical and First Responders
