Hi everybody! Figured I would give a quick introduction before I dive right in.

My name's Alex, and I'm a 20 year old college student in Connecticut. In October, I left an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship that I had been pursuing for about a year and a half.

After I left that relationship, I took some time to heal and then began dating again. About a month ago I entered into a new relationship, and I'm incredibly happy about it. However, this is the closest I've gotten to somebody since I left the abusive relationship and I'm noticing that certain (unrelated) things are causing painful flashbacks to the abuse.

I want to reiterate that my partner is wonderful and has been nothing but supportive through all of this. Our communication is phenomenal. But certain things (most recently it was his use of the word 'fragile', in joking towards me) set off a trigger that's almost painful.

I took the sanity test when signing up, and though I got a 40 (relatively low, I think?) I had a much higher score for PTSD than any other category.

I want to stop feeling the aftershock of the bad things I went through last year. I just want to move on and in the right direction, and I feel like I'm stalling, or as if something is holding me back. I want to feel independent again.

Has anyone ever been through this after getting out of an abusive relationship? What do I do?