sorry about your situation.

First thing you have a counselor and if you trust them advice from a professional in person is best. Anyone on here is not qualified and trying to do this on line can be confusing.

There are many different ways to approach healing. All of us land under the big umbrella of anxiety disorders. Trauma is stored in the amygdala part of the brain. It is not accessible consciously and does not respond to logic or conscious thought. It over rides our normal flow of thoughts and can stream unwanted and fearful thoughts labelled intrusive thoughts. These can be overwhelming at times.

This disorder can grow and your thoughts and triggers become omnipotent in your mind.

You must find a way to deal with your thoughts.

Conventional therapy deals with your trauma with your counselor in sessions. You can relive them and try to decipher and understand them. Like cognitive therapy will teach you to distract yourself from your thoughts or triggers. You can compartmentalize them.

The other way is totally different. In acceptance therapy you accept the thoughts and use a form of mindful meditation.. This is a much faster method in my opinion and you do not have to distract yourself or worry about your thoughts when you heal using this method.

basically you sit quietly and focus on your breath or inward hearing and you leave the thoughts alone. This is scientifically proven now by scientist and is an ancient Chinese science of the mind perfected over the last 2500 years.

It is a path less traveled because of how hard people think it is. It is mundane and not exciting at first.

It can calm you and bring you peace of mind. It has taken my symptoms away and my days are calm and enjoyable. You change nothing externally, healing comes from within.. you just clear all the attachments and judgments and thoughts away and heal your nervous system.

I believe healing is very simple very very simple to know. It takes thousands of repetitions to perfect the form as you heal slowly.

good luck on whatever path fits your personality

The book "Happy at Last" by Richard O'Connor (I think that's the author) talks quite a bit about anxiety stemming from PTSD and what happpens to the brain and body during an anxiety attack.
Also, not eating can add to the despondency you're feeling. This is a time when you have to force yourself to eat hon. It's hard to swallow past the lump in your throat, I know. Big hugs and we;re all here for you.

Thanks so much for the replies so far. I have an appointment with my counselor in a couple of days and I am going to talk with him more about this. Meanwhile, I will be here looking for help and I am going to do as much research on the subject as I can. The acceptance therapy seems very interesting. I would like to be calm and more at peace. :)

Acceptance therapy is hard to do but well worth it.

Conventional therapy can be expensive and unreliable. I use both, myself, but only because I have access to conventional.

here is the book I have

http://www.amazon.com/Acceptance-Commitment-Therapy-Anxiety-Disorders/dp/1572244275/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290963695&sr=1-12

here is another on mindfulness and how it works scientifically.

http://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Brain-Reflection-Attunement-Cultivation/dp/039370470X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290963739&sr=1-1

I find it best to tell you what i do you are in the right place if you are not feeling safe in the world come here. bring your common sense and remember your pain is understood be safe richard