New Yorkers who were children under the age of 18 during the September 11, 2001, attacks are speaking out about the post-traumatic stress and anxiety they continue to experience decades after witnessing the tragedy.

Alexandra Minaya, who was 10 years old and playing on the playground at P.S. 19 in Lower Manhattan when the attacks occurred, recalled the terror of seeing a cloud of white smoke approach. "It was terrifying," Minaya, now 35, told The Post. "We all ran screaming into the school building." She remembers being covered in white ash and the air smelling of burning chemicals. Despite never being formally diagnosed with a post-9/11 health condition, the event continues to haunt her.

"You know, as a kid, you look to the adults for support in times of chaos," Minaya explained. "But the adults surrounding me were crying and just as confused as us kids." Unable to contact her mother and with landline service down, she felt helpless.

Diana Bejasa, then a senior at Stuyvesant High School, located blocks from the World Trade Center, described the ground shaking and lights flickering as the first tower fell. "It was a full-body experience," she said. Administrators directed students to leave, telling them to walk towards the West Side Highway. "I remember looking around, seeing people covered in ash. As I was walking, I looked back and saw the second tower fall," Bejasa recalled. "And I had this sudden feeling of ‘Oh, f–k! What’s going on?’"

Bejasa, now 42, experienced dissociation and a complete shutdown during her hours-long walk home, unable to reach her parents by phone. She was later diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and depression, which contributed to career changes and exacerbated difficulties during a divorce. She also grappled with survivor's remorse, initially not identifying as a survivor due to others' worse experiences.

Vanessa Collazos was 10 years old and in middle school at I.S. 73 in Maspeth when she saw the towers engulfed in flames from her classroom window. Initially thinking it was fireworks, she realized the severity of the situation when her teacher's face turned pale and he left the room without a word. "We never saw him again," Collazos said.

Collazos sat in stunned silence until her great-grandmother arrived to pick her up. Her mother and uncle, who worked in Midtown, were delayed in returning home for hours. "I turned on the TV and watched repeated footage of those people jumping to their deaths all day. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t process it. I was in a state of shock," she recounted.

Now 35, Collazos experiences anxiety and hypervigilance, which she attributes to witnessing the horror as a child. She and her family briefly moved to Los Angeles after the disaster. "I walk around wondering, ‘Is everything going to be OK today? What can I control? Is that an abandoned bag in my subway car? Is it going to explode?’" she confessed. "I didn’t have airplane anxiety before 9/11, but I do now."

NYC psychotherapist Lesley Koeppel stated that it is common for young people with eyewitness accounts of 9/11 to develop mental health issues later in life. "When something catastrophic happens, especially without warning, a child or adolescent can learn that the world is not predictable or safe. That’s destabilizing," Koeppel said. "Years later, that can show up as anxiety, hypervigilance, a need for control, difficulty tolerating uncertainty or a more intense sensitivity to loss and danger."

Despite the lingering trauma, some of these millennials are dedicated to giving back. Bejasa, now a life coach in Hawaii, volunteers to help victims of natural disasters. Minaya, inspired by the first responders, pursued a 14-year career in emergency healthcare services. "I didn’t always want to be an emergency responder, but I just knew that I wanted to help others in the same way those men and women did during and after 9/11," she said. "It was an absolute tragedy that I’ll never forget, but it also united us as New Yorkers in a way I’ll never forget, too."