my story (trigger warning)
A little over two years ago, I was raped. I developed debilitating PTSD and soon stsrted seeing a therapist.
The first therapist I had just wasn't for me.
I soon found a therapist that I really liked and underwent EMDR therapy for my PTSD. (10/10 recomment btw, it really helped me)
I made leaps and bounda and Im doing pretty well now. But I still gat flashbacks and panic attacks frequently.
I joined this community to seek people that would support me. :)
@weareall1 Welcome to the Trauma community, and thank you for sharing your story with us. Im glad that the emdr therapy worked for you and was beneficial. How long did you receive the emdr for?
@dancingRainbow45 I went to overall therapy for about 15 weeeks or so, once a week, for an hour. I reveived EMDR for about 5 sessions.
@weareall1 Am glad to hear that you were able to manage to secure some therapy for yourself. Has therapy now ended or are you continuing with this? I ask, as I was interested to know if you had felt the 15 sessions (5 of which was emdr) was enough for you to work through your experience?
@dancingRainbow45
My therapy has now ended. I feel like 15 was a good starter amount. Of course I still struggle with symptoms from time to time, but they are no where as severe and several of my triggers are gone. (meaning they used to send me into panic attacks and flashbacks, but no longer affect me whatsoever)
Since my assualt was from when I was just a young teen (not giving out my actual age for privacy reasons) I am still working through many things. I might go back in a year or two ater I graduate High school so I can fully work through everything. Because some things were left un-finished.
@weareall1
@dancingRainbow45
Also, after my experience with my first counselor I was extremely apprehensive about my second one. So the first 3 weeks were really about me being able to trust and open up.
@weareall1 It sounds like you have made a good start to getting yourself some therapy and support which is really good to hear. I think often the beginning of any support relationship is about building up of trust and feeling safe enough to trust the therapist your with. Sometimes survivors may find the therapist they first go to, may not be the right one for them and often try someone else until they come across someone they feel comfortable with. I think its also quite common for survivors to begin counselling and therapy, get so far, take a break and they can often re enter a therapeutic relationship further down the line. The important thing is to do what feels right for you at that given moment and to work with the person you feel safe to do so with. Its all steps in the right direction :)
