I've just recently started therapy after years of struggling with depression and anxiety. I've known for a while that I needed help, but have been able to function fairly well for years -- I am well-educated, have a good job, am married to a great guy...life just seemed fine the way it was.

I started having panic attacks this past fall and spent a couple of months trying to decide if I wanted to see someone; I finally made the decision at the beginning of the year and have found a therapist I really like.

I made the decision this week to share with her an experience I had in college (I said no...you get the idea). I just kind of blurted it out in somewhat vague terms and provided some context. She received it really well, was very kind and understanding and asked fairly innocuous questions to further the conversation just a little bit.

She called me brave and thanked me for sharing it with her -- and I hated it. She also referred to it as a "traumatic experience" and the words just made me cringe, like someone else saying it out loud made it even more real than it already was.

When we were finishing up our session, she asked if it would be okay to bring this up at our next session. I nodded and said yes; I figured if I brought it up today, I could talk about it again, but now I am re-thinking all of that.

The truth is I thought I'd feel better after sharing it. Instead, I feel like the weight of holding onto something like that for so long has just been replaced with the new burden of now having to address it and deal with it.

How have others dealt with addressing trauma in therapy for the first time, even years later? Part of me feels somewhat silly for not being able to hold it together and just move on, and I successfully suppressed it for several years, but I just can't live like that now.

I want to be honest and I want to work through this, but it's scarier than anything I've ever done. I'm just not sure if I should continue down this path or take a break and try to figure things out on my own.