Rio,

I am glad that you are going forward in getting psychological help for yourself....it helps to have someone guide you to a good therapist, it can help you feel better about the first meeting.

The one thing I have realized about when we are children is that we are a sponge that soaks everything in. We don't even know what we are soaking up at the time. It isn't until later when we realize how we end up feeling about what we experienced. I know when I was young, there were many things I saw & experienced, but it wasn't until later in my life when I reacted to something that triggered my memory that I was able to look back with help & see a correlation to what I had seen or experienced as a child. When you actually go through a trauma even though you didn't realize what it was at the time, it can come back to you with something else similar. It brings back all the feelings & fears. With your older knowledge of what happened & has happened in many other similar school situations that brings out the upset feelings that you would have had if you had been older at the time.

PTSD does cause many other symptoms I am only finding out about since the trauma I went through was only 1 1/2 years ago.....without any closure......which I am trying to work on. My therapist has told me to go over & talk over everything & the more I can do that, the better the chance to be able to handle the flashbacks & other symptoms.

It is good that you have been able to talk about your feelings here. Then putting together the pieces of your feelings can help you deal with your upset feelings. From what I understand, the feelings don't go away, they just get easier to live with & the more we understand our thinking & feelings, the better we can feel.

I am still working on this, so can't say how well it works, but I hope that as you get good help for yourself, you will start feeling better......but triggers will always exist......& lessen with time.

Take care,
Debbie