It's funny, PTSD is the one diagnosis that every mental health professional I've seen has agreed on, and it's the one that I still feel like an imposter when I say it. Some of my coworkers are veterans and the shit they've been through...it's really hard to see myself in the same category.

But from the time I was born til the time I left home, I got up every day not knowing if I would be safe. I didn't know what stability felt like til I made it for myself as an adult. And I'm still training myself to accept that I deserve it, that I'm allowed to set boundaries with people who disrupt it, and that it's perfectly OK to not make everyone around me happy. If you think your childhood was traumatic, then it probably was. Part of the abuse is being conditioned to believe that it's not abuse.

I didn't expect this, but the antidepressants cleared my head in a way that made the things I was learning in therapy click. Like I understood them rationally beforehand, but I had a really hard time practicing them or feeling them. Now I'm able to catch things in the moment, rather than hours or days later.

I'm glad you're doing well!