Wow. This thread is....amusing to say the least.
Now for my bit. I grew up in a very awful location. The kind of location where when someone casually mentioned they found another body by the river, everyone shrugged and nothing else was mentioned. It was just normal. Someone's home was shot up? Alrighty then. Guy down the street got knifed? Oh okay. They can't find Mandy? Probably got "picked up". Likely won't see her again. Shootout when? Typical. This is was all a matter or normalcy for me. Luckily I moved away into a more rural area, but even now I suffer from the effects of that upbringing. I CANNOT stand silence. Not that I'll get chatty, because I instinctively find chatty people suspicious, once again due to my upbringing. But I WILL find SOMETHING that makes noise and have it running or doing something at all times of the day.
Any time my neighborhood was silent growing up, it was just because all hell was about to break loose. It always did. I also refused to sit near windows or open doors. Caused a little confusion during my community college days. Got into a nasty fist fight because I couldn't get a chair in the corner of the classroom against the wall away from windows and door and people kept trying to sit me near windows. I made a scene, and then naturally I was expelled.
Most of my childhood friends growing up, and there were many since we all kind of congregated together for security, well they are dead, quite a few died between the ages of 13-18. Some are in prison for life or lengthy bids. Two of them actually tried and failed to kill me for various reasons. One is actually more or less in a vegetative state and his family is currently debating whether the plug should be pulled. Someone put a makeshift explosive in his trunk and it went off when he went to pull something out of it.
This is just one of hundreds of little stories I could tell. Gas stations, corner stores, all of that, windows were barred, though it was fairly typical for these to have been sawed through overnight and the places STILL robbed. The local pharmacies had to have electric fences installed around them because well....(imagine why, shouldn't be too hard to figure this out). You did not ask questions in conversations unless it directly involved you or a close loved one, because knowing ANYTHING more than necessary could wind up getting you killed for knowing too much. You couldn't always know which bit of information proved fatal. So curiosity was a little stunted by nature. You never told your name, not even a last name, unless you knew the person personally. If they seemed even slightly hard to recognize, you made a fake name up. I was known in my neighborhood by 4 different aliases, and I had to keep up with all 4 so when someone called me by one of the 4, only 1 of the 4 being my real name, I'd know how to interact with this person depending on the alias they knew. Just so many little things, day to day things, that I remember were normal for me, but absurd to others in my countryside home now who I've divulged a very small amount of information too.
One woman told me it reminded her of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Never been there. Cannot confirm. I still hate silence, I still hate being near windows or open doors. I dislike having too many lights on in my house at night, and it has nothing to do with the electricity bill. I keep animals nearby that make a lot of noise if anyone comes near. I even train them to do so. I'm a very quiet person by nature and I speak typically only when spoken too when conversing in person. I have few friends, but am willing to do terrible, evil things for those few because this is how I was raised to be with true friends because true friends are almost non-existent in real life. Most friends, are not true friends, and you NEVER know which is which until something truly dreadful happens. Remember, I've had two "friends" try to murder me. One I actually thought was a true friend used a copy of my apartment keys to get into my house and shoot me while I was asleep in bed around 4 AM. Obviously it didn't succeed, but case in point.
I won't even touch former romances topic because THAT is an entire thread on its own. Oh, and a last little bit of intriguing information I've noticed people here in the country just balk at, and I don't get why. When walking on the street, I avoid walking under or in the light radius of street lights. I'll actively avoid getting under or in the lights at night. Seen quite a few people here in the countryside just get the strangest look when I tell them this.
I've been diagnosed with PTSD, though I'm far better than I was a few years previous. I'm no longer prone to instantaneous violence. I've even mellowed enough to date and by all accounts, I'm quite the charmer, so I've been told by my few exes. Point being, I still have those previously stated problems. I haven't gotten over them. I have nightmares. I sleep very poorly quite often. You don't just "fix" that. You survive it until it's gets manageable. Scribbler doesn't have a clue on what he's talking about.