Is 18 Too Young to Have a Nervous Breakdown?

I just got done watching Silver Linings Playbook. What a great movie. Some movies about mental illness, while being spot on, can still be terribly depressing. This movie is such a feel good movie. I can't wait until it comes out on DVD. 

Anyway, I started this blog to basically start to tell my story, and after that how I cope day to day with depression and anxiety, or at least how I try to cope. I really don't know how to start. I guess I'll just jump right in. 

I have been depressed for as long as I can remember. When I was 5 years old I distinctly remember being in the basement of my parents' house, sobbing uncontrollably  and begging God to let me die. I'm not sure of the exact reason, but I can guess. 

I had always hated my father. When we were in public he acted like the perfect father. He had many friends who all thought he was such a great guy, a real man's man. He was Ward Cleaver's long lost cousin. But in the privacy of our home he was a dictator.  He treated us like we were his employees instead of his family. His word was law. If you didn't listen to him, his true self would show up. And his true self was ugly. 

I never really questioned why I hated my father. I always thought it was just because he was such an asshole. And yes, that's the right word for him. 

At 18 I went away to college. It was about 45 minutes away from my parent's house, so it was close enough to go home on the weekends but far enough away that I needed to stay on campus during the week. 

One day my college roommate jokingly jumped on my bed "attacking" me and tried to put me in a choke hold. It was in good fun, but in that instant, I remembered. I remembered the weight of a body on mine, the smell of stale cigarettes and sweat, a scratchy beard against my face. I freaked out and threw my roommate off of me. I didn't know what to do, I wasn't sure what was happening to me. I trashed our tiny dorm room, throwing my computer on the floor, breaking a window, tearing clothes. 

My poor roommate did her best to calm me down. God bless her she was so understanding. But I still didn't know what to do. How could I be suddenly remembering things that I never had any knowledge of before?