Lost at Sea *trigger warning*

Hi, I guess. You can call me Scarlett. I'm here because I have PTSD. I can't afford therapy to actually be diagnosed, but I've read enough about it.

My trauma started when I was 8 and went until I was 13. I was tricked by my cousin who was 2 years older than me, into doing thing that kids shouldn't do. He'd touch me when no one else was around and he'd call me sexy. He'd show me skin mags he'd gotten from somewhere and he'd tell me how I'd look like them when I got older. I had my first pregnancy scare when I was 12, because I didn't know how sex worked and I was convinced that's what we'd done, but it was never penetrative.

And then again when I was 18, I was raped by my boyfriend at the time. I didn't even know it was rape until three or four years later. I remember I was looking up a symptom I had on Google, involving the PTSD, and it said that people can get PTSD from rape and that was when I began questioning.... everything. He'd also hit me, but again, that never registered to me that wasn't how romantic relationships are supposed to work.

I'm now 26 and have decided I can't just keep going on as if it never happened. It did happen. And I can't keep letting it control me or tell me how to live my life. I need to get better, for myself, for my fiance, for his kids, especially for his kids who have also been through a ton, to show them it's okay to heal.

Trauma tricks you into thinking this is how your life is, and if you heal, you'll be who you were before. But that's not true. And I'm struggling the most with finding myself, figuring out who I am now, what I like, what I want to be and do. I just don't have answers to any of those questions and it makes me feel like I am so very lost at sea.