Hi all, long time no see... I left therapy a year and a half ago because I graduated college. After six months off from school, I applied to graduate school and have just finished my first year of it. I was doing fine, but for some reason unknown to me, my PTSD decided to ramp up and rear it's ugly head again over the holidays and it has left me quite miserable. It's refusing to pass and it's making it very difficult to sleep and find the motivation everyday to do everything I need to do (full time student plus work 20 hours a week). So I dragged myself to my new school's counseling center and have my first appointment with a new T tomorrow. I'm really nervous about it. Not because it's somebody new (well a little bit because of that), but because the counseling system is different here compared to my old school...

Here it's supposed to be short term and they only see someone every other week. At my old school, it was described as short term but I think I was a bit of an exception because my T saw me for 2 years, every week (with the appropriate month to three month breaks over summer and winter). If I really needed it, my T would see me twice in a week (this only happened twice), and during a time of crisis, we put my appointment at the end of the day so I could have a 90 minute slot instead of 60. My T there was the director of the counseling center though so I think she could do what she wanted as she saw fit, hence why I think she might have made an exception (aside from the fact that short-term counseling wasn't going to help me at all). I know I can't ask for that here, this school is about four times the size of my old one and the person I'm seeing definitely won't have that kind of flexibility (or authority probably).

The problem is just that I know me, and I know how I work when we start digging in to real "stuff" in therapy. Things get wayyyy worse before they get better and I'm worried that if I start unearthing things, I'll fall apart because I won't have proper support. And my issues aren't going to be able to be solved over 7 or 8 sessions. I just wonder if this is worth it at all. It's my only option though because I can't afford to go see someone outside of school. School is free...that's all I have. I just feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, what do you do when you need help but can't be provided proper help?