(((Newfie girl))),

Well, you have been struggling enough to reach out for help. I think the question is, how are you struggling? You have "depression" as one of your diagnoses, but if you "are' in fact struggling with PTSD, the PTSD will not go away unless you make a decision to finally "work through it".

I had childhood trauma myself and I always felt that "I better just keep it to myself" and I also felt that "if I had survived it, then just keep going forward and do my best to "forget about it". What I honestly didn't realize is that it never did really go away, what I ended up doing is just developing "coping methods" that helped me "feel a sense of control" somehow.

When a child is "traumatized" it affects that person the rest of their lives. People tend to believe that "they must never tell" because "no one is really going to understand it anyway". Also some people just begin to believe, well it's over, I will just keep going and forget that part of my life, I seem to be "ok" now anyway, I think I have found a way to make peace with it, so why bother talking about it, anyway, who wants to even think about it anyway, it's just too uncomfortable.

I remember being in therapy because I developed PTSD and I needed to figure out how to manage it better. When my T asked me about my childhood, I would not talk about it because I felt it had nothing to do with my current challenges. Well, finally I touched on it just by asking about CSA and a member I read about in PC. My therapist then talked about how "common" it was and how some people develop coping methods. When I realized how much he knew, it was the first time I was able to say "me too" without going into "depth" with him. I began to have flashbacks out of the blue and then I finally began to "talk about it".

I do remember that strong sense of "I better not talk about it" though. It is a very hard thing to open up and talk about. However, once you can take that plunge, so many things begin to make sense.

OE