Possible trigger**

Hi there. I haven’t posted on this forum in like 10 years, but I need some feedback and some reality testing.

I recently started therapy again after a few year hiatus. I had been doing “well enough” with my PTSD from multiple past abuse: 5 years of DV in my late teens and early 20s (I’m 34 now), about 3 years of CSA from a relative, and one sexual assault in college (with other “smaller traumas”but those don’t impact as much). I initially started therapy to cope with a medical diagnosis which was uncovering some communication problems with my husband. I then realized that the communication issues (my role in them) were in part reactions to past trauma, particular the 5 year DV relationship, so we’ve shifted our focus to trauma therapy in the past couple weeks.

So in session today I was describing some of the more intense incidents of abuse from my ex (hard to recall everything bc 5 years is a long time and also because of dissociation during some of these events). When we had about 10 min left in session, my T asked me what led to me stay for so long. I gave answers such as fear (he had blackmailed me and threatened me with social sabotage), social isolation, shame/embarrassment, questioning if the abuse was real bc gaslighting, him threatening suicide so I felt guilty, not wanting to leave my animals, etc. You know, a lot of the regular abuse dynamics that keep people trapped in those situations. But she wanted me to go deeper than that, like she wanted me to identify aspects of my personality that made me keep going back. To me, it felt a little like victim blaming, but I don’t know if I was being overly sensitive, so I said I couldn’t really come up with an answer other than what I what already said. She wants me to reflect on it further.

Does this sound like victim blaming in a way, or does it sound it could be something else?

TIA. ❤️, Sam