Hi Erinbear,

I think there's no getting around it...if you want and need to talk then you must choose to do it. It can bring feelings of shame, guilt, self-loathing, fear of your therapist rejecting you forever, but from what I can tell, from what I've seen from others and from my own experience, the words must come from ourselves.

I think the difficulty, at least for me in the beginning, was that in talking or trying to talk I was also dealing with some of the same issues from the the abuse. After all, one is not allowed to express how we feel when we're being assaulted. One does not expect the perp (no matter how much we may wish) to stop, hear us and let us go.

So, while the feelings may be on high alert for expression now, the same self-defense/protection is coming up too...I think.

I would suggest that you do whatever you can in your session to feel safe and take the risk of talking and the feelings it will bring up. Even if it's only one or two words, even if it's only to say, "I want to talk about this now but I can't because ________________", it would be a tremendous start. You might not come back to the discussion for who knows how long or it may be the very thing that frees you to talk a bit more each time you go to therapy.

You experienced some horrendous stuff and I can see why you wouldn't want to begin a dialogue that starts to explore and heal it. So I wish for you that maybe one word or all the words you want to express might be doable at your next session. Mostly, I wish for you that you don't give up on yourself. Oh yeah, I suggest you get a verbal agreement with your therapist that you get to handle this on your terms and that may include your allowing her to help you when you get stuck, but for her to hear clearly that you want her not to push at a certain point.

River...knowing it's all easier said then done