specializing in dealing with trauma. Someone who can help you develop coping mechanisms for the inevitable flashbacks and subsequent symptoms. You're at a place where you can do little to avoid triggers other than identify them. But your life is filled with triggers that are less obvious and less intrusive, and cannot be avoided. Sounds, smells, music, unobtrusive visual images that remind you of what was going on in any sense when you were abused even things that were not abusive, but carry you back in a sense to when it was done to you.

It's vital to find someone to work with one on one who knows the effects of trauma and PTSD and can work with you to develop a means of dealing with this. Both my original therapist and my present therapist have reminded me of a few things.

First - you cannot avoid memories that arise. You shouldn't seek them out, so to speak, by neither should you or even can you prevent them from coming to mind.

Second - the emotions you feel are valuable in that they help you express yourself for what was done. While much of what you feel is painful and difficult, they are not wrong. It's completely normal to feel sadness and anger and fear, and you will feel them, whether or not you express them.

Third - this is a process. Too often we fall into self-condemnation, believing after all these years, we should be 'over' this. But the brain did what it needed to do, and that means what could not be handled as a child is now being handled as an adult. And it's a marathon, but....

Fourth - the marathon will come to an end. This isn't forever. We cannot hurry the process, but we can't slow down the process. I hope you find someone who can come along side with this. Having group therapy is vital, since you have others who have been where you are as well as those who are where you used to be. But it's important to get one-to-one help. God bless!