Wish I had seen this post earlier. There are several of us PTSD survivors on these comments I'm sure you'll hear from many. I believe all of us have in common the same thing that you're dealing with we have a hard time wanting to open up and explain what we've been through maybe it's a residual of the guilt we felt for having parents that treated us so badly and feeling it must be something wrong with ourselves however, therapy only works if you're able to tell people what your problem is and let those who can relate give you information of how they have handled things were how things have been done for them. I was a victim of sexual abuse or incest and from the age of which I had no language until I was 18 and left the home it has impacted my entire life and I managed to keep it bottled up thinking that someday I would confront my abuser and boy would I give him it's a piece of my mind! As though he didn't already own my entire mind! My poor luck, he died before that happened it was as though he had gotten away with it all. I crashed totally so far into depression everyone around me thought I had some disease that was killing me. My mother took me to Mayo for a full work-up to find out what on Earth could be wrong with me. Finally I was referred to a psychiatrist and after many many bad or false or even illegal pairings I found wonderful doctor and a not too bad therapist. However, having been on the same regime for the past 20 + years I have been having some difficulty lately with flashbacks nightmares, Etc maybe because I've been physically ill and it's been rather debilitating which leaves me too much time to think and bad habits return. Like you, the worst thing I can think of is to have to find a new psychiatrist as I have moved and my other psychiatrist has retired by now, and start this entire process over from the beginning probably including reassessing all my medications and changing them because they've been working for 20 years and there's probably something new which a doctor I would see now would want to try new things. I spent years in group therapy as well as individual therapy and found group to be much more helpful I eventually was even named the group therapy leader and worked under a licensed therapist. I find that all survivors of childhood abuse seem to have many similar attributes or actually, polarized versions of the same attributes. For instance, depending on your abusers preferences, you might choose to be overweight and unattractive or anorexic and unattractive but in general you fall into one group or the other mostly. The same thing goes for sexual abuse, you seem to turn out either brother promiscuous or absolutely uninterested in sex but with anyone. However this is about you, not me I was just giving you my background and credentials I guess. I highly recommend that do you find a psychiatrist who will work with you on medication which you probably need to begin with and may or may not need to continue. Don't be frightened by all the things you read on here about different antidepressants and withdrawal symptoms, Etc I'm on the one that is considered the worst being Effexor and I have only had withdrawal problems once and that was when I was so sick with After Effects of a surgery that I vomited everything and could not take my medication. I neglected to tell my Healthcare crew that everything was coming up so it took them awhile to diagnose symptoms. But that was easily taken care of on its own affects her has never caused me any problems other than the time I inadvertently went cold turkey. As I'm sure you know, you'll need a psychiatrist if you need any prescriptions and even though there are some great psychologists in this field there will have to refer you to a psychiatrist if you need help getting started digging your way back out of that whole you are in. If you're reluctant to start with an individual therapist and go through this all start here, I have read nothing but good, true advice after all, we are all in the same sort of a boat and we might as well share what we know rather than everyone starting at the beginning to end up in the same ending. I can say after more than 20 years that my flashbacks and Nightmares and freeze ups and general anxiety about everything has improved ten thousand percent! But it is never gone and there are triggers that will bring it back no matter how well I'm doing so it's important for me to talk to people who know and can help me find my triggers in order to avoid them. Whatever you do, you need to know that you will get through this if you work at it and believe me, it is work, much more painful than physical work. Good luck in finding good support and help. Just call me Sandi. One quick PS, I live in Southern Florida and I found it nearly impossible to to locate a good group for therapy, when I lived in tiny little Iowa I had options of which group to choose. I know there are more people here who are suffering the same as you and I but I can't figure out what they're doing for therapy!