So one of the things I did at therapy was ask straight out, "Am I traumatized by my experiences?" and she nodded and dug out the DSM and we ran through it. She had been treating me as someone with at least borderline ptsd since I started coming in, but we went down the checklist today.

Yeah, I have a pretty significant number of symptoms. Like, a lot. I didn't really want to think of myself as being hurt that bad, but I was. Am.

And the panic stuff?

* yesterday. Our appointment was on Saturday, I've just been rolling this around in my head for a while.

Fairly sure most people reading this are going to have some variation on a "No duh" reaction, but hey, at least I'm addressing it now instead of just in moments of "weakness".

I got real mixed feelings about saying "survivor" since others have been through way worse that me. But it is what I aim to do.