# Anxiety Disorders > Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) >  >  What was your earliest trauma?

## Chantellabella

You know.............the one scary thing you remember as a very young child.


I think mine was my backyard on fire. I must have been around 2. I later in life found out that my brother set it and because we hadn't cut the grass, it blazed pretty big. I remember running in the house screaming when the flames got big.

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## Keddy

In elementary school, being physically bullied to the point that I was bruised and bleeding and my mother had to come pick me up from the nurse's office. I never, ever wanted to go back to school again after that but once I finally did I was socially weirder and more withdrawn than ever. I blame this for a lot of the social struggles and anxieties I still deal with now at the age of 20.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

My first day at a new school for 1st grade. I was too afraid to eat my lunch and just sorta sat there, frozen, surrounded in people I didn't know and way too far away from home. I feel about as ill prepared now as I did back then.

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## Total Eclipse

I was 5 years old and it was during gym we where all running around and I remember my heart racing faster for no real reason and the room spinning. There where a lot of big mats and some that where quite high (I was small, so they might not of been huge) but I remember going behind one of them and having what I believe now to be a panic attack. I hid there for several minutes.

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## Heelsbythebridge

The earliest years at school were pretty good. Made some friends, liked my teachers, liked learning. Even when I didn't have friends, I wasn't heartbroken or anything to just be on my own at recess and lunch. It felt lonely and awkward but wasn't traumatizing (it didn't start hurting till later on in life)... My teachers and supervision aides were kind to me.

Earliest trauma is probably just having my mom tell me from around age 5 that my dad doesn't love me, if I do this or that, he'll hate me, etc. To this day, even though my dad has been nothing but good to me (he's never even yelled at me- seriously, I remember _once_ in my life that he has), I don't fully trust my dad. Once when he told me he'd protect me with his life if we were ever in danger (I was like 12 then), I remember thinking, "No you wouldn't" and that he'd probably even plot something to hurt me. It was retarded, I was so brainwashed and couldn't think for myself beyond what Mom was telling me my entire life.

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## SmileyFace

Parents physically, verbally, and emotionally abused me when I was a child.

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## Chantellabella

Thank you guys for sharing these. I know it must be hard to share some of these stories. It's pretty scary how things like this can happen at such young ages.

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## Heelsbythebridge

I just remembered something an old friend told me. When he was around 5 or 6, he used to play with a little girl the same age. One day- I can't remember the details, maybe they were playing hide-and-seek?- but he was hiding somewhere and a man raped his friend. He was watching the entire time, ran away, and never would see her again. He's spent time in therapy and was still pretty unsettled when he told me about this a few years ago.

Yeah, that would [BEEP] someone up good. What I went through at 5 was nothing. He is one of the most strongest people I know though, with a heart of gold, and a beaming personality. The kind of guy everyone wants to be friends with.

And after getting to know him better, I realized that he also has the potential for some dark things. He had some pretty dark and morbid thoughts.

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## SmileyFace

> I just remembered something an old friend told me. When he was around 5 or 6, he used to play with a little girl the same age. One day- I can't remember the details, maybe they were playing hide-and-seek?- but he was hiding somewhere and a man raped his friend. He was watching the entire time, ran away, and never would see her again. He's spent time in therapy and was still pretty unsettled when he told me about this a few years ago.
> 
> Yeah, that would [BEEP] someone up good. What I went through at 5 was nothing. He is one of the most strongest people I know though, with a heart of gold, and a beaming personality. The kind of guy everyone wants to be friends with.
> 
> And after getting to know him better, I realized that he also has the potential for some dark things. He had some pretty dark and morbid thoughts.



omg  ::(:  Whatever happened to his friend though, if you don't mind me asking?

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## Heelsbythebridge

> omg  Whatever happened to his friend though, if you don't mind me asking?



Neither of us know. As I understand, she wasn't really a friend but just a neighbourhood child he came to spend time playing with. He told me this during a drinking session when we were 19, and to that day, he still didn't know what happened to her. I suggested he try searching for her to give himself some closure, but he said he didn't even remember her name. I think he may have had mild PTSD, but I didn't pry much further.

He's doing really well right now (we don't talk anymore but mutual friend does). I only hope that girl ended up okay. But this thread made me think about him.

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## Keddy

I know I've already posted in this thread... True, the thing I posted before was my earliest traumatic experience, but this is my _most_ traumatic experience and I think I'm ready to share it with you guys. I feel comfortable enough now, I never talked much about it before.
When I was in middle school, my social awkwardness was at its worst. I was just noticeably different from everyone else and no one could accept me for it. The only thing I had going for me was that I was intelligent. Physically, I was unattractive- I had greasy hair and a bad overbite and I was overweight. Socially, I was useless. Emotionally, I was a wreck. I had no friends, and no one reached out to me either. I was bullied physically, emotionally, verbally, and psychologically. I stopped raising my hand in class, because every question I asked or answered was somehow funny to everybody. I ate my lunch in the library so I would never have to see anybody. I stopped taking the bus to school and started walking instead because when I rode the bus I got beat up. For some reason, everything I did or said to anybody was something to make fun of and laugh at. I even dropped out of my dance class because I was so convinced that I was worthless, even though dancing has always been my first love. My social anxiety got so bad that it ruined everything for me, I couldn't even go to the grocery store with my mom because I thought people were making fun of me everywhere. I got called "retarded" so many times that I believed it. A boy at my school even said that his mother told him I was mentally retarded. Back then we thought I may have been autistic so I thought that "autistic" and "retarded" were synonymous.
It was the most miserable few years of my life. I felt so unwanted and hated by everyone. 
The last straw came at the end of sixth grade. In my history class, I asked a question that sounded stupid and childish and the entire class laughed at me. I didn't want to cry in front of the teacher because I thought she'd just think I was being a big baby, so I waited until class was over. As we were walking out of the room I burst into tears.
A girl in my class came up to me and said- and I remember the exact words, to this day, "You're a waste of space, Kendall. If you're so miserable all the time, why don't you just kill yourself?"
I stabbed myself that night.
My mom came home from work and found me bleeding on the floor holding the kitchen knife I'd used. I was unconscious. She called an ambulance, and I spent several days in the hospital and over two weeks in the psych ward.
Since then, I've had crippling social anxiety and just now recently have been able to allow myself to make friends. For years I was terrified of people and wouldn't speak to anyone for the fear of being literally bullied to death. This is why I hate bullying so much. The punishment for it should be a life sentence. I can't believe schools don't do more about it. It makes me so sick. No one deserves to feel like they shouldn't be alive because of what other people say to them. I wish no child ever had to go through what I went through. The sad reality of how many kids commit suicide because of bullying is just devastating. 
This story is why I've made it my biggest life goal never to bully, mistreat, or be mean to anyone, and to always stand up for people when they're being teased or harassed. Nobody deserves to feel the way I did that day. 
Keddy

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## Kesky

everything was traumatic for me when i was little. i watched a lot of TV from a very early age...a lot of horror and Sci fi so going to bed was an adventure. I was up all night seeing  monsters in the hallway and ghouls floating on the walls but my parents were really disapproving of being afraid in the middle of the night.

when i was 4 or 5 there was this guy who used to ride around the neighborhood on a bicycle with a gorilla mask on. He didn't really scare me until one day he rode by and a friend i was playing with completely freaked out. the front door to her house was locked and she just screamed and pounded on it until her parents came out. I got freaked out from her being freaked out and was afraid of that guy from that day forward.

my parents used to smack me on the head and in the face. i was pretty angry about that (maybe traumatized too?) When they did it I would tell them I was going to chop their heads off but that was a bad idea.

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## Kirsebaer

Being regularly and repeatedly spanked by my father with his belt or shoe, which would leave marks all over my legs and butt. Also watching my siblings get spanked wasn't really nice either.

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## Chantellabella

Thank you guys for sharing. It sounds like you guys had a really tough time.  ::(:

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## nothing

Sexual molestation in the neighborhood tree where all the young kids played. I was 5 or 6 and she was probably about 15 or 16. I won't get too graphic here, but I showed up alone at the tree and she followed me in; some of the memories are hazy, like how she convinced me to do the things I did and allow the things done to me to be done, but there it is.

I can type it here, but I can't speak it aloud, even if I'm alone; I certainly haven't told any therapists or anyone else and I doubt I ever will.

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## QuietCalamity

My mom was giving me a bath - I must have been 3 or 4. My older brother was around, being his usual assy self, and something really upset me but I don't remember what. I started crying and my mom went ballistic. She started screaming at me that she was "done" with me. She grabbed me from the bath and stomped around screaming and she kicked big holes in our bedroom doors, while still holding me. Then she put me down and said, "Look what you made me do!" and next time "that will be you". I thought she was really going to hurt me.

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## nothing

> My mom was giving me a bath - I must have been 3 or 4. My older brother was around, being his usual assy self, and something really upset me but I don't remember what. I started crying and my mom went ballistic. She started screaming at me that she was "done" with me. She grabbed me from the bath and stomped around screaming and she kicked big holes in our bedroom doors, while still holding me. Then she put me down and said, "Look what you made me do!" and next time "that will be you". I thought she was really going to hurt me.



She doesn't deserve a Mother's Day card...

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## QuietCalamity

Now that I read it back I'm doubting she really said she would kick me like that next time. I think that was just something I inferred because I was scared. But yeah, thanks for validating that. I go back and forth about whether I'm being a total baby by being affected by that kind of stuff.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

> Now that I read it back I'm doubting she really said she would kick me like that next time. I think that was just something I inferred because I was scared. But yeah, thanks for validating that. *I go back and forth about whether I'm being a total baby by being affected by that kind of stuff.*



Certainly not! Mothers aren't supposed to behave that way.  ::\:

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## Koalafan

My most possible earliest memory was breaking my neighbor's birthday present and upsetting everyone at his party.

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## Inscrutable Banana

Mine was probably going to a horrible elementary school in New York in which I'm sure the vast majority of students ended up being gang members. The teachers spent more time yelling at students than actually teaching anything and I was bullied so badly there that I eventually started leaving school in the middle of the day. I remember one day I was getting bullied in the basketball court, ran off school grounds, ran across the street before even waiting for the walk signal, and walked home by myself. I think I also remember there being no one home when I finally arrived, and I had to wait outside for a while--during which time I had to use the bathroom and eventually ended up shitting my pants. After a while “Child Protective Services” started talking to my mother about me leaving school and threatening to make trouble if I didn’t stop doing it. They have the nerve to claim they’re protecting children when they’re just blindly enforcing the law, they don’t give a [BEEP] that they’re forcing children to stay in a harmful environment that’s just a breeding ground for future homicide suspects.

As a side note, around that same time I also had a very odd incident in the ball pit of a Burger King playground where a kid just straight up bit me on my back like some sort of rabid animal.

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## nemmm3

My earliest trauma would probable be when I was 5. I always wanted to go wherever my sister went so one day I went with her and her friend to one of their guy friends house. he was a bit of a dick and he ha a pool, but the water was all green. I have no idea what happened before this, but he grabbed me and pretended to throw me into the pool. as a kid and even til this day I'm not a great swimmer so I screamed and ran behind my sister. my sister was embarrassed by me and said 'you always ruin everything'.

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## Chantellabella

Guys, your stories break my heart. 

None of you deserved the hurt you received. I'm so sorry.  :group hug:

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