I started going to therapy again at the recommendation of my primary care doctor. I’ve only had two sessions so far, with both sessions being intake and answering foundational questions.

Although it’s early to say, my therapist appears to be a good fit for me. I guess we’ll see once the actual therapy starts.

Going back into therapy now, I forgot how much emotional work therapy is. Even just answering the foundational questions felt heavy and I cried during the first intake session. I briefly shared my history of sexual assault trauma – the timing of it and the timing of the other stressors in my life recently and it made me realize that a lot of things happened in November 2025. I was first raped on my 19th birthday, so every birthday is a reminder of my trauma, and my birthday is in November. I started dating my current partner in November. I started getting burned out at my last job in November. I got a bad flu in November that took me almost a full month to recover from. I’ve known that life had been really busy but I didn’t realize how stressful/traumatic it had also been.

At the end of the first intake session, my therapist asked me how I felt. I was crying a bit and just shared about my sexual assault. It didn’t feel particularly activating or retraumatizing, but I felt heavy and I couldn’t pinpoint with words how exactly I was feeling. I felt okay aside from feeling heavy, but it did take me a few hours after the session to kind of regulate myself again and be open to socialize.

Before my second intake session, I felt a kind of reluctance and a bit of dread because of how heavy the first intake session felt. But at least I didn’t cry during the second intake session and I left the second session feeling lighter.

I’m kind of glad the intake sessions are done now and I’m looking forward to being able to focus on current stressors and hopefully be able to break any cycles from past traumas. I want to be able to actually rewire and rebuild my brain and move forward – things I felt like I never accomplished in previous therapy.

This was one of the things I discussed with my new therapist – what I felt like worked and didn’t work in past therapy. Although I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what worked and didn’t, I could at least say that I remembered not being satisfied with previous therapy because it felt like I didn’t build anything to move forward with. We were able to connect current situations and behaviors to past trauma and relationships, but I wasn’t given any tools to break those patterns and actually make any changes. Sometimes just the awareness of why things are happening and being able to label how I’m feeling is enough to get me through a conflict, but it doesn’t help prevent recurrent patterns and move forward. Being able to identify a problem is one thing, actually having a solution is another.

One of the things I hoped for on my 29th birthday was to finally move forward from my past, as it marked the 10th anniversary of my trauma. I think that I have come a long way, but I still found myself in moments where my trauma may have been subconsciously affecting me and my romantic relationships. Even now, I still harbor a lot of distrust in my romantic partner and I think that stems from my trauma rather than my actual partner. I tend to focus a lot on previous conflicts and my mind can make a small conflict into a foundational issue of trust and safety, which threatens the stability of the relationship. I also tend to escalate things into contention and feel as though my partner is the enemy/the assaulter and in the moment, in order to be safe again, I desperately need to get away from him, and I think that pattern is heavily based in my trauma. I also have the thought process that I need to hurt the men that hurt me as much as possible, which is truly destructive and counterintuitive to wanting to have a happy, healthy, and stable relationship. And the only reason I can think of why is my trauma.

Those are just a few of the examples of how harmful PTSD can be, 11 years later. Yay! (sarcasm)

Here’s to hoping therapy is helpful this time around.