Probably within 6-9 months of my assault, I realized something was terribly wrong. I didn't know much about PTSD, of course-- not many of us do. But once night would fall, I had to wander the house and check each door and window to make sure they were locked. That's not so bad, right? The problem was, I had to do it every 15 minutes, even when 99% of the time there was no logical reason why those locks would have changed. But it didn't matter. That's how I spent my nights back then.
Since I knew it was a problem, I made an appointment with a counselor. I didn't tell her about the assault for a couple of sessions and by then, she had developed the opinion that a lot of my depression was due to the fact that I didn't have much of a social life. I finally gathered up the courage one day to tell her about the assault because I was desperate for help. She listened and then... she changed the subject to ask if I'd made it to any night time activities with friends. She totally ignored the assault and completely shut me down. I was devastated. I felt like I had no right to suffer the way I did.
Unfortunately, her actions have caused long-term damage. To this day I cannot tell anyone the exact details of what happened the day of the assault. I've had a couple of wonderful counselors since then; they told me I could tell them when I was ready, but I never could do it. That fear of rejection and invalidation from the original counselor still boils inside of me.
We think that when we go to a counselor we'll get better, but unfortunately in my case, this one particular woman made me worse. I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell anyone the full account of my assault because of that, and that's a shame.
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