Am I experiencing PTSD? Please help...

Sorry for the long read!

When I was a teenager, I was sent into "treatment." I had been struggling with MAJOR clinical depression and school truancy, and after months of this, my parents hired a child escort service to have me woken up and transported to a wilderness program.

My wilderness therapy experience was both eye-opening yet disturbing. I felt so unbelievably alone and my contact with my parents limited to one letter every couple weeks, and I was not allowed to send letters that showed the program in bad light so to speak. I felt so trapped and made many plans to intentionally break my legs, give myself a concussion, etc. to end up in the hospital because I was even more deeply depressed. I became friends with a girl who was on "suicide watch" and had to be wrapped up every night in a tight plastic tarp designed to make loud noises if she tried to escape. One night she escaped and attempted to hang herself. The next morning, I watched her get physically dragged away by two adults while she sobbed and screamed at the top of her lungs. For weeks afterward I had disturbing nightmares about her screams and was afraid to go to sleep.

After two months I was transferred to a therapeutic boarding school Montana. Instantly I was scared out of my mind. Students were coerced into cuddling with each other in a giant pile on the floor. Students were encouraged if not required to scream at each other during group therapy, bringing up traumatic events of others (i.e. rape, abuse) without any licensed psychiatrist present in the room until the victim broke down. Phrases like "you f***ed up your whole family, you ruined this person's life forever, when are you gonna stop being such a f***up, you're gonna die alone" were frequently used.
Wearing mismatched socks or singing any pop culture songs would result in a meal being taken away and 7 and a half hours of physical labor outside in zero degree weather with no breaks, or being restricted from making eye contact with anyone for days at a time. About 4 students attempted suicide while I was there.

However, what disturbed me the most was the required "emotional growth workshops." Without going into too much detail.. physical, emotional, and sexual boundaries were broken. We were coerced into sharing every detail of our sexual encounters with students/adults we barely knew. In one workshop, we were asked to get down on all fours while 5 other students pushed down on our backs/head screaming emotionally abusive things in our face (which resulted in some serious neck injuries for me) until the pain was too much. All of these workshops ended with everyone cuddling in a pile, as the staff requested. The final workshop utilized sleep deprivation (3 hours a night) and food deprivation, as well as playing the same song 20 times in a row until a student "cracked." Students were threatened with being sent to a lockdown facility if they refused any of the activities. This was just the tip of the iceberg, since talking about all of the details is too hard and shameful for me.

Our contact with our parents was limited -- all incoming/outgoing mail was monitored and could be shredded if we mentioned anything we didn't like about the school. Phone calls were always three way calls with staff present.

After returning home, I went through a "honeymoon" phase where I was just happy to be back with my family and away from the abuse, plus done with high school. However, my transition into adulthood has been beyond painful and confusing. I fell right back into my depressive state, began using hard drugs and prescription pills to numb the pain, relapsed in terms of self harm, got involved in some seriously messed up relationships, dropped out of college after one semester, etc. While I take accountability for my mistakes, I have a feeling that these things are directly related to the trauma I experienced while I was away. Then the nightmares began. I turned 18 soon after, therefore making it illegal for my parents to send me anywhere else, yet I still had night terrors about being woken up by child escort services and thrown into a car. Then I started to hear the songs again -- the ones that had been played 10-20 times a row during therapy as a way to break us down. Even a few seconds of those songs would cause a panic attack and I would have to leave the room.

I developed a paranoia that people were constantly watching me and judging me just as they had been when I was in Montana. Sometimes I have to take anxiety medication even to run to the grocery store because I constantly feel as though I'm being watched. I also have some sort of Stockholm syndrome problem with the staff at that program -- on one hand, I hate them for the damage they caused to me, but on another hand, I find this disturbing force inside me pulling me back to the school and wanting to rejoin this "cult" as another staff member. I've tried my hardest to push these things out of my head but they still affect me to this very day. I feel fragile, I feel damaged, I feel easily triggered by arguably silly things like songs or photographs that relate to that experience. I am so lonely. Nobody understands except the other kids that made it out of that program, and they are all struggling in their own ways.

Please help. I'd like some opinions, some suggestions, support, anything. I don't know if what I'm experiencing is actually PTSD, or what I can do about it, but I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction. I can't live this way anymore.

Thank you so much,
Rose

That's absolutely horrible, what happened to you, Rose. I am not a therapist or professional of any kind so I can't say it's PTSD. But I can say it's completely understandable that you'd have problems now due to that abusive treatment. Whatever label anyone would put on them. And I know drugs and self-harm are "mistakes" but they are also valid ways to deal with pain. Of course it's better if there are other ways to handle it. But sometimes there really aren't. It seems like you did the best job of protecting yourself that you could.

For self help, you could look at post-traumatic-stress/topic35163.html and perhaps some of the info stickies in the anxiety/ forums. If you are able to get some outside help, that could also be very helpful. I would think it would take some time to build a trusting relationship with a therapist. And I wouldn't skimp on doing that. Because if you aren't comfortable or have doubt about them, you won't be able to open up safely. But you went through so much, it might be hard work to get to a "healthy" place by yourself. I think you deserve support and care to help tackle all this.