Hi LilMercy, I am glad you found the PTSD forum, welcome. What you are talking about, the challenge of talking about your past, is "very common". Pretty much everyone that has suffered sexual abuse, doesnt know how to talk about it, or if they can talk about it either.

Another forum you can visit as well is the Abuse forum too. There are people who will understand how challenging it is for you to talk about it.

I first want to say that you may want to read some books about it too.

A book that I have been told is "good" is "Trama and Recovery" by Judith Herman and
"The courage to heal" by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.

I think you should first start with Trama and Recovery though, which can help you to understand the stages of "recovery" that take place so you will know what to expect on your own journey to recovery.

What helped me to slowly "talk about my childhood sexual abuse" was to just talk about the subject overall with my therapist. I got to hear my therapist talk about "his" opinions and knowledge about it, and I was slowly able to say, "me too" without getting too into "my details".

A good therapist, wants "you" to feel safe and they are not going to push you into talking about too much that can push you into re-experiencing the trama. The idea is to concentrate on your symptoms and challenging areas and to get you to a point where you can talk about things slowly without getting yourself all stressed out and retramatized.

Each person is a little different and what often happens is after the person slowly starts to reveal a little bit, they often want to reveal more and more, because they begin to feel a release of not having to keep holding it in. And that begins the slow healing journey and putting our history of abuse into language and slowly working through it step by step. And as they feel safe in finally opening up, they want to open up more and finally make the effort to address with the help and guidance of the therapist.

So, I think that "reading" some things about it first is good, because you can talk about and ask questions about what you read with the therapist. It will, as I mentioned, help you find your way to feeling more comfortable with the therapist and be more willing to open up, knowing that the therapist understands this problem, has experience treating it, and you wont be somehow judged, but instead "helped and understood" and more importantly, be "validated".

(((Hugs and welcome again))))
Open Eyes