I've been in therapy for the better part of four months and my therapist has talked around me having PTSD, instead we've been talking about my symptoms and how to help me cope. For the first time in our therapy sessions, she came out and told me I had PTSD which is terrifying to me. This is the second time I've received this diagnosis which has forced me to try to re-evaluate why I was so quick to reject this diagnosis the first time I was given this diagnosis.

The first time I was diagnosised I quit going to counseling because I refused to accept that was what was wrong inside my head. I guess my refusal to believe in it is because I refuse to admit what happen to me has affect my life to the degree of where I have PTSD. But I feel like I have no choice but to go to counseling because I can no longer cope on my own. To be honest I probably never really coped really well. I feel better as long as I am in counseling but I'm overwhelmed after. Super emotional and it takes me a few days to get my bearings again before I'm okay. I still have triggers after I'm okay but I guess counseling just makes me fee more vulnerable. And I hate feeling vulnerable.

I was raped and sexually abused over the course of several years by a family member. My earliest childhood memory is of the abuse and it stopped when I was old enough to fight back right after I turned 12. I have no pre-PTSD life to compare my life to. What my therapist calls symptoms, I've long come to accept as different aspects of my personality. While the sexual aspect stopped, there was still a power struggle. I lived in fear of what would happen. The person who abused me soon fell into drugs and hopped from house to house, sometimes sharing a roof with my parents and I, sometimes not. I felt alone, like I would never be safe. But I learned not to show fear or emotion when I was stressed or worried.

I so badly want to quit going to therapy but I've come to accept that this isn't something I can do on my own. That I need to stop being stubborn and ask for help. Its not weakness but strength to realize what I've been doing to cope isn't working and that its time to try something new. So here I am. I'm hoping that maybe posting here will help me work things out in my head, motivate me when I want to give up, and help me accept some hard truths. I'm struggling hoping things will get better.