Hello

I'm hesitant to write about this, as I haven't shared this with anybody, ever. As I'm growing older I find it harder and harder to cope with my experiences whereas I thought the opposite would be true. After years of hurting I've come to the realization that I was bullied, very badly. As a middle schooler (6-8 grade), I had it quite rough, and when 8th grade rolled in I swore it would be different. My family chipped in and helped get me school clothes to help me impress the girls, and I was finally starting to make friends. I even had a short term relationship at one point. The day after a field trip early on in the year, I left class to go to lunch and as I entered the stairwell on the way to the cafeteria this kid that did not like me came up to me and asked me a question, and as soon as I opened my mouth to answer he snuck me. He had knocked me out and I had no recollection of anything after him coming up to me, but according to school rumors he stomped out my unconcious body for good measure. I couldn't close my jaw for a week straight. If that weren't bad enough, the guy in charge of running the lunch wave did not like me, and about a week before that, he singled me out for something and forced me to sit by myself for the rest of the year. So here I was alone at a table, having just been beat up with nobody to talk to. After that nobody would associate with me. People I thought were my friends abandoned me, nobody asked if I was ok, nothing. To make matters worse, not only was it the gossip of the year for students, the teachers also were in on it. Every teacher and even the nurses knew I had gotten beat up, and whenever a teacher was nice to me the kids were sure to remind me that they were only being nice because they felt bad I got beat up. The bullying continued throughout the year, often times on my way to class or lunch if I were to pass by the kid I would be pushed into a wall and have a fist pointed at my face questioning where I was going. Just to further torture me. I would get punched in the chest at random by this kid, and whenever someone disagreed with me the first thing they would say was "shut up or I'll get [bully] to beat your ass" I stopped talking that year. But nobody ever stopped talking about it. We moved before high school started after me begging my mother. When we moved however, things did not go so well and after a couple more moves we found ourselves homeless, something I've blamed myself for throughout the years. After roughly a year of living on the streets (a horrifying traumatic experience in iteself) my aunt offered to help us out. Over the years I've done a lot of bouncing back and forth between living with my aunt and living with my mother. While staying with my aunt about 2 years ago I went to a thanksgiving get together with her church group. Their children were all in my age range 20-24, so we would get together and hang out while the adults did whatever they did almost weekly. That day one of their cousins was there along with a kid I happened to be best friends with back in 6th grade. The first thing he did when he wasn't in the same room as me was tell everyone how much of a "bitch" I was. Nobody knew I heard anything, and I never felt comfortable around any of them after that. In that one moment of me getting beat up, my entire life changed, and since then not a single thing has gotten better. I was forced to drop out of school due to homelessness, and homeless due to that one event. While other people were learning important social lessons, I was learning to survive on the street and in a prison-esque setting. And while people were having their first girlfriends and losing their virginities I was surrounded by violence and drugs. I find myself reliving every moment that I've ever been hurt. I literally get so wrapped up in the thoughts and memories that I'll find myself losing touch with the environment around me and going into violent rages when I'm alone. What I hate even more is that, when people see me, they see me as intimadating, or stereotype me. All the while I walk around scared of everything. Awkwardly trying to interact with people, feeling like I missed out on instrumental social and life lessons. And as a man I feel weak for feeling this way, so I at all costs I hide it. I'm attractive, and I get a lot of attention from girls, but I feel like they always expect me to be someone else. I'd like to move on and stop being controlled by my past. Something that's hard still living in the same area, every time I walk out my door I face running into my tormentors, or new enemies I've made throughout the years. I don't feel like I fit in anywhere in this world, and I try my best only to fail in the worst ways. How do you get over traumatic events?

I'll look into relaxation techniques, or exercises, that could help. I've tried exercising myself to exhaustion, but for some reason no matter how exhausted I am, or how long I've been awake once it turns nighttime I feel 100% charged. I never thought to exercise my mind so to speak, I'll try it out. As for sleep study, I never heard about that until now. Lol, maybe when obamacare starts I'll be able to go back to the doctor and ask about it. From what I understand it sounds like I'm just going to be bored out of my mind in a doctor room for the whole night Thanks

Hi everyone, I've been battling a sleeping disorder my entire life, upon visiting doctors I basically got 5 different, "just turn off all the lights and tv and everything and you'll be fine." I find that no matter what time I wake up, and no matter how tired I feel during the day, the second the moon comes up there's not a drop of sleepiness left in me. I can feel energy pulsating through me like a strobe light, and it does not stop until the sun comes back up. As a baby, as far back as pre-school and even before then according to my mother, I never wanted to sleep. Back then she always figured I just didn't want to miss a moment of the action. But I never grew out of the habit. I would attribute a large factor being growing up with stress. My mother was physically abusive, most often when things weren't going well for her at work, I would find myself being screamed at and beaten day in and day out. The night time became my only peace from a controlling mother. When she was sleeping, I was free to be myself, with nobody to bother me. Throughout life, I've seeked the solitude the night offers me, solving and meditating on my deepest problems in the still of the night. As I've grown older, I find that I'm nearly incapable of maintaining a solid sleep schedule. I have a dependency on sleeping pills to make it to appointments, or to get a full nights sleep for work. I feel extremely unhealthy relying on pills to fall asleep. Often times I will have to nearly overdose myself on pills just to fall asleep, and other times even that isn't enough to tranquilize the energy I get when the night rolls in. I have found that smoking cannabis works miracles for me, however it's illegal and expensive. Everyone just thinks I'm lazy and unmotivated, and I always screw up when it comes to anything that requires me to be on a schedule. (school / work) I'm trying to get into college to better myself, and I'm scheduled to take the SAT's. I'm scared that I will put all my effort into getting to college only to fail because I couldn't get my sleeping under control.

I, like most everyone here, am here hoping to receive helpful information, advice, and encouragement to finally overcome the anxiety and depression I'm suffering from. I hope I can find what I'm looking for, and possibly help someone else find what they are. ~Elijah