I figure I should share a version of my story in case it helps give someone any perspective on their experiences.

Not everyone gets PTSD in a war or a concentration camp. When I was 4-5 (memory loss means I can't tell you when exactly), I was in a bad accident. I was lucky enough to have my head above water; I treaded water for anywhere between five minutes and several hours, and spent the next year or so re-learning how to use the hand I nearly lost. The negligence that caused the accident meant I went to college at least in part, possibly fully, on a legal settlement from the accident.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of my experiences being (or feeling) stuck, trapped, and treading water, and as a result I have CPTSD, which comes from much more extended stuff but which has similar symptoms.

I went to public schools which put lots of emphasis on rote memorization, team sports which were never adequately explained, punishment, favoritism. Not fitting in, and swapping schools so I needed to rebuild a social network from scratch a couple of times, got me bullied in all kinds of ways. My folks were really emotionally invested in raising a little math and science genius (I'm nowhere near close), so there were some really lousy experiences there, too. Finally in high school, they forbid me to get a job lest that negatively impact my grades, would not let me learn to drive lest that increase their insurance rates, and I effectively spent high school under house arrest. No pets, no siblings, no internet. I was high functioning enough that nobody noticed the straight A student spent days and weeks depressed and didn't really have a personality anymore.

All of this stuff affected my life after I got out. So I never get full on flashbacks where I'm sure I'm back there, then, but I do wind up having dissociative fugues, I have memory loss, and I do get flashes of memory sometimes - some of which have been missing for years. I dissociate if I'm in really bad situations. But those are big dramatic things and pretty rare - what happens way more often is hypervigilance, crappy self worth, occasional s**cidal ideation, or irritability.

Please do feel free to ask me questions if there's any information I can offer from my experiences which might help you.