[Typo]

I've been in and out of therapy for a little over two years now, and for the past almost year I've been strudy in going reguraly and discussing issues I have realted to the childhood sexual abuse. But I can't get myself to discuss the actual event of CSA, or other traumas I've been through, when I first got into therapy I discussed the tramua of the car accident, and I dealt with a lot of the anger I felt towards my family, but I've yet to discuss the elephant in the room(aka CSA) I've said a few things, such as name calling, and the fear abuser struck in me, and I even brough in a drawing I did that related to the topic.

I"m getting a bit tired of discussing how the CSA and the broken trust it resulted in and how that affects my current romantic relationship and realtionships with others.

I'm very ready to tackle this, and I really want to lay the ground work for it in my next session (this upcoming monday) apart of me is hesitant to because it may severly throw me for a loop. something I can't afford with finals just in two weeks, but a part of me wonders if that is just another excuse I'm making to avoid laying down the ground work.

How do I take this step? How do I tell T I"m ready to say what happend? and how do I say it? I can't even say abuser's name without freezing and tensing up, how can I ever speak the acts that were done to me? If anyone can, how did you tell T?

[perpetuallysad]

I wish you good luck with all of this, whatever you decide. I would caution against going into anything too heavy right before finals. If its something you want to only do in one visit and then move to something else...well, I guess that would not interfere with school too much, but trauma work of this degree will probably trickle out into your daily life. I hope everything goes ok for you.

[Perna]

I would write it out first, somewhere "safe" and comfortable and keeping in mind that it's just written words, not the event itself. I would write it in a kind of outline form, just the facts in order, no emotions, as if it had happened to someone else. I would put in names and dates and time periods, etc. Pretend it's a case file or something like that. I would reread it and see if there is any part that is less stressful to read and I would think about that part and how I might discuss it in a session, what sort of thing I would say, etc.

I wouldn't worry about getting it all out at once, in one session. I would make it like a modular unit and break it apart to tackle in some sort of logical piece fashion.

You could do pieces by person (self, immediate family, abuser, others who know/have learned/whom you suspect know), or time (lead-up, event(s), aftermath) or other time periods (how the events affect you now, what you felt during the actual event(s), what you thought/knew before the event(s).

I would start with something unpleasant but pretty innocuous, like what life was like in your family before the event(s). How your family interacted, how you felt about each parent and felt that each parent felt about you, sibling interactions, friends and other relatives like cousins/aunts/uncles/grandparents, etc. Just get comfortable saying things like "before my sexual assault" and "after the sexual assault" with no other information connected/implied. It might take a session or three to get comfortable with the general territory, nevermind the actual events.

(trigger for some detail about CSA)

(((((((((Typo))))))))))

When I first started talking about the CSA, I had to do it in tiny bits and pieces. I started by telling T what sorts of things the abuser did before the CSA started (tickling, touching, sharing secrets, etc). Even that was really hard to get through. After I had sort of got through that (which took more than one session), I talked about how I felt when I went to bed at night, the sounds I would hear in the hall, etc. It took a long, long time to tell the whole story, but it sort of built up momentum, until I had finally told enough to be able to write down almost everything that happened and give it to T to read. And even then, I had to tell the parts of the story again and again and again. I'm probably not done, although it doesn't push at me in the same way at all anymore.

It took a long time to get through it. Months, for sure. I could only do it a little bit at a time, or it would have been too overwhelming.

I wonder if you could tell T, "I feel like it's time for me to talk about what happened"...and maybe the two of you can figure out together what that might look like. Will you need extra/longer sessions? Do you need to work on containment first? Should you wait until after finals? I know the feeling of needing to get it out, NOW, but I also know that making sure you can do it safely is a huge, huge deal.

This is so hard, typo, and you are being very brave.