Thanks for your responses. On an intellectual level, I understand what I'm going through, I konw that my reactions are normal, etc etc. But on an emotional level I'm really messed up.

I have a very hard time accepting the fact that I was abused. It's such a horrible word... but that's what it was.

Part of my problem is that I don't know how to talk about it without just totally falling apart and crying and getting totally overwhelmed with it all. And I feel a very strong need to keep myself together & not fall apart... I've been depressed before and I don't want to go through that again.

My therapist has been pretty good so far... we alternate really emotional sessions about my family in general and stuff like that with sessions about how to have good self esteem & think positively ... and less emotionally charged stuff like pursuing a new career. Part of me does want to just dive into the really hard stuff from my childhood... you know rip it off quick like a bandaid. But the other parts of me - like I said above - don't want to get into it because I don't know how not to be totally overwhelmed by it. So I guess my therapist is trying to keep me from going off the deep end, but at the same time I feel like I"m not actually making any real progress. I haven't even told her any of the really crappy stuff.

So what to do?

I think part of the reason why it's so hard to talk about is that I have tried to talk about it before. The responses I got were mostly not good. The first therapist I had (when I was depressed before) pretty much dismissed it as 'kids playing around', even though I was bawling about it. Then she proceded to diagnose me as depressed & put me on Prozac - presto - all better! The other person I told was just kind of like "thanks for sharing"... which I guess is ok, but really didn't make me feel any better either.

So I guess I went back to stuffing it and not talking about it - but that's not helping either. I just want to heal, and be "normal" but I don't know how to do that.