This post is about CSA. Please be careful.

Last year, I disclosed CSA to my T by email. We talked about it in the session in a very careful, very general way. My T said: "You're talking about one of the most destructive things someone can do to a human being." I said I felt like I'd been going around for years with a knife sticking out of my head. We didn't discuss specifics or use real words. Later that day, I developed a sore throat and couldn't speak for several hours.

Some time after that, I disclosed to my husband because he found me crying hysterically. I kept saying I couldn't tell him what was wrong and he said I could. So eventually I managed to say something that helped him work it out without me saying it. And again, I developed a sore throat and had trouble speaking.

Those were quite dramatic bodily reactions and I hadn't even said anything really. Ever since then I've been very aware of my inability to actually speak about it, or to tolerate anyone else saying anything too direct. Once my T mentioned my father and I put my hands over my ears and started screaming at him to shut up. Once I rang a helpline and explained it in quite a roundabout way, and the woman repeated it back to me very bluntly: "You mean your father __________"? and I freaked out and hung up the phone.

So I'm afraid of the words. Now I've started to say them inside my head. I can't say them out loud, but I feel like I want to. For a couple of days now, I've been thinking about ringing a helpline, saying that sentence out loud, and then hanging up so I don't even have to hear their reaction. And I can't. It feels important, yet impossible. I feel like I simply cannot say it, even anonymously to a helpline.

But I feel like I need to say it, for some reason. Maybe because it's been unsaid for so long, and typing in an email isn't the same as actually saying the words. Maybe so I can see that the sky won't fall in if I say the words out loud. All I have to do is say it and hang up, but I can't. Does anyone know if it will even help? Have you managed to actually say this out loud, in a complete sentence, using real words?

I feel so overcome with shame even though I know, rationally, that I don't need to be. Maybe that's why I need to say it, and why I can't...