I was diagnosed with PTSD in November of last year when I started going to therapy. It was brought on by an attack while I was travelling in October of 2010. A man attacked me on a fairly isolated stretch of highway, tackled me into a ditch and tried to rape me. When he didn't succeed he strangled me, and after some time he left. I have no idea if I fought him off or if something else caused him to leave; my memories are fairly patchy.
Immediately after it happened I reported it. I told the police, I told other girls in my hostel to warn them to not go hiking on their own, and I thought I was fine. I didn't cry, I even went hiking the next day with a big group of people. I sent an email to a few very good friends telling them what had happened, but assuring them I was fine. Four months after that however, I moved to a new city and I started getting nightmares and went into what I now realize was a period of depression. I finally opened up to my roommate at the time, and talking to her helped me to cope. Again, because that did help a little I assumed that I was getting over it. After struggling with things for months, I finally got help and started therapy.
While I've made some huge breakthroughs, I'm no longer having frequent nightmares or panic attacks, I know I've still got a long way to go. My main issue right now is struggling with how or if or when to tell people close to me. Only a few of my best friends know that I was attacked, and only two know that I'm in therapy and know the extent of how much it has affected me. No one in my family knows anything. I feel like the two friends that do know can give me support, and that they want to, but as much as I trust them I've really only truly opened up once or twice to each of them about what it's been like, and afterwards felt myself immediately closing up and continuing to tell them "everything's fine" whenever they asked.
Another big issue is that this summer I'll be going on a fairly intense and involved trip overseas for six weeks with three friends. One of these is one of the people I've confided in, the other two don't know. I am very good friends with these two, but I'm still reluctant to tell them what's been going on. Mostly this is because I don't want to be "the girl with PTSD" to them. I want to be able to try to move towards a point where this isn't part of my daily life anymore, and I partly feel like telling them would bring everything back again. I want to feel like I'm moving on, that I'm building a life that doesn't revolve around dealing with this. The one friend that knows is encouraging me to at least tell them what happened, that I'm in therapy, and that I do still struggle with it. It seems perfectly logical to me hearing it, but in practice I find that I always talk myself out of it.
So my question is, how did you go about telling people what had happened? The only times I've confided in people have been brought about by an absolute breakdown. The roommate asked me to explain what was really going on after I spent a month being very much not myself, and the other friend witnessed me completely and utterly break down after a stressful week with work and school and family issues, and I confided in him then. Even aside from this, I'm a very private person and I've always had a hard time confiding in people and talking about emotions. I tend to hold things in until I snap, which I would very much rather avoid when traveling in a tiny car across two continents with three other people this summer. Despite having put it off and talking myself out of it, I do know that I want to tell them at least the bare minimum, that I was attacked, diagnosed with PTSD and am going through therapy. I have no idea how to broach that subject however, and to be honest I'm scared of the reaction. Lastly, sorry for writing a novel, and thank you to anyone who gets through the whole thing and can offer some advice.
