I had fleas for almost 3 years straight when I was a teenager

It’s been about 10 years since this happened, and no one knows except for my immediate family. I haven’t even told my husband. When I was 14, my friend’s dog had fleas. And I caught them. She told me she had “lice” and used lice shampoo and that was the end of it for her. I know she had fleas, not lice. We used lice shampoo. Went to a professional after several washes and cleaning my entire room multiple times. We were told I had fleas and not lice. We used flea shampoo, bombed the entire house for a week straight. It just didn’t get better. I had very long very thick hair, and I was a girl so we didn’t just cut it off. Fleas are smaller than lice, so they are harder to get rid of. I would sit on the floor in front of my mom every single day, 3 times a day, for over 2 years, while she picked fleas out of my hair with tweezers. Fresh clean bedding every single day. Thinning my hair once a month. Cut my hair to the shoulders. No improvement. Bleached my hair. Washed with flea shampoo daily. No improvement. Shaved half my head, no improvement. We tried everything, and tried HARD. It lasted 2.5 years. I cried every day and was terrified people would find out or someone at school would see them in my hair. Sometimes they even fell out on my desk. We really thought we were going to have to shave my entire head. My mom told me we has one more week to get rid of them or we would have to shave my head. Then the fleas just went away. I don’t even remember exactly what we had been doing to my hair at the time but they were gone. It’s now been 10 years and I guess I have a sort of PTSD from it. Any time fleas or lice is mentioned I swear things are crawling on me, I completely flip out. I keep flea shampoo handy. Whenever I feel that way I HAVE to wash my hair with flea shampoo for days and I bomb my house. I am absolutely terrified to get fleas again.