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.

[rainboots87]

I'm still working on that myself and for the same/similar trauma issue. I didn't even acknowledge it myself for a couple years, then told my T and talked about it at one session and just left it. A couple years later with a different T, I told her when it started bothering me again. Like before, pretty much one session and leaving it alone for a bit. I think with time, it will get easier to discuss and deal with/work through. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I can relate

[skeksi]

I also thought it would be a one-and-done and that I'd feel great after sharing! I felt awful. I was sharing my traumas years after the fact as well. I'd been white-knuckling it for all that time.

A lot of times I would follow up a disclosure with talking about it without talking about it--so I might talk about the effect sharing had on me, how it made me feel and what I wanted from T, but not actually address the content of the disclosure. That helped a lot.

I think everyone is different, so you have to feel it out and see what you need. I needed to talk about my traumas a LOT, over and over again for a really long time. Other people need to discuss it once or twice. Respect where you are; talking about it at this session doesn't mean you have to talk about it at the next one. It's up to you.

[SummerTime12]

I'm glad you were able to share with her and that she responded to you well. It's very normal when working on trauma to feel worse before you feel better. At least that's the experience I've had, I always feel terrible right after I share something for the first time, but then after working on it over time, it does get better. My therapist had a good analogy - when the trauma happens and you try to push it away and not think about it, it's like applying a pressure wrap to stop a bleeding wound. It's not really healed though, just a temporary fix to survive - so eventually you have to revisit the wound, take off the bandage, and get stitches. It's going to hurt a lot because you're messing with the wound again, but that's the only way it can heal. Hang in there!

[TishaBuv]

I think talking about it desensitizes us to it more, which is good. I think it's human nature to need to talk about our traumas and be heard, as many times as we need.

The question is are the panic attacks now related to that trauma?

Either way, healing from that trauma is good.

BTW- similar experience for me, too

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

I think talking about it desensitizes us to it more, which is good. I think it's human nature to need to talk about our traumas and be heard, as many times as we need.

The question is are the panic attacks now related to that trauma?

Either way, healing from that trauma is good.

BTW- similar experience for me, too

That's a really good question, I'm not entirely sure the panic attacks are related. Life has been pretty stressful outside of thinking about what happened years ago. I think that it's all just come together at the same time, but it certainly exacerbates it.

With this whole situation, I feel like I need therapy after therapy. You go into this safe space and talk for an hour about the most personal things, then you just get up and leave and are expected to go back into the world and resume life until next time. It's a lot harder than I thought and I have questioned whether cancelling next week's session would be best.

I get you on the going from a safe space to the outside world again .. are you able to have any contact with your T outside of session? Sometimes I text mine just to check in and make sure she is still there and that makes me feel safe again. I have only been seeing a T for a few months myself and some weeks between sessions are harder than others. I think trauma takes a long time to work through .. I have good days/weeks and bad ones too .. talking about it all for the first time is very painful and like opening up a can of worms and I imagine it's extremely painful for you right now but I do believe, from my own trauma, that talking about it does make it easier eventually, but along the way I am sure you will have times it feels harder to talk about than other. What didn't you like about your T saying she was proud of you? Just out of interest? When my T says that and thanks me for sharing it makes me feel a little bit conforted and like she understands how hard some things were to share.

Originally Posted by SS1971

I get you on the going from a safe space to the outside world again .. are you able to have any contact with your T outside of session? Sometimes I text mine just to check in and make sure she is still there and that makes me feel safe again. I have only been seeing a T for a few months myself and some weeks between sessions are harder than others. I think trauma takes a long time to work through .. I have good days/weeks and bad ones too .. talking about it all for the first time is very painful and like opening up a can of worms and I imagine it's extremely painful for you right now but I do believe, from my own trauma, that talking about it does make it easier eventually, but along the way I am sure you will have times it feels harder to talk about than other. What didn't you like about your T saying she was proud of you? Just out of interest? When my T says that and thanks me for sharing it makes me feel a little bit conforted and like she understands how hard some things were to share.

We haven't discussed communicating outside of therapy. I'm not sure I need to; I trust that she's going to be there when I see her the following week. It's just so hard going from discussing things that are so deeply personal to going back to the "real world" where you have to deal with realistic and logical things, like a meeting for work or what's for dinner that night. I also feel like I just haven't been able to stop thinking about what I shared all week, like it's playing on loop in my mind. I've been more upset this week than I have been in recent months and I just keep trying to hold it together. If this is what it's going to be like each week, I'm not sure I can handle it.

In session, she said that I was really brave to share what I did. I think part of me feels like she has to say that, not that she in any way sounded disingenuous, but it's her job, you know? I also didn't feel brave. I felt embarrassed that I had waited so long to say something, like I should have known better. If anything, it made me even more angry at myself for not handling this situation in a better, more responsible way. C'est la vie, right?