Need to open up, new memories surfacing (trigger warning)

Its been a while since i last posted here. Things are looking better, I finally got into therapy (CBT but with a focus on trauma and dissociation since its the main problem). I have now been diagnosed with PTSD and my therapist and her supervisor both think its my strongest diagnosis and has influence on all the symptoms I'm having. My therapist has also concluded that the symptoms I have categorized as dissociative are indeed dissociative. I'm not diagnosed with a dissociative disorder though because the dissociative symptoms are nowadays not so bad and more related to PTSD. I still have the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder too but this has been called into question since I am now in full remission, the symptoms I had might be closer to bipolar with psychotic features and also its now believed that the PTSD and dissociation have played a strong part in my mood and psychotic symptoms.

****TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEXUAL ABUSE****
So the thing that I needed to open up about is about the memories I have about being sexually abused. So now that we have been working on reducing the dissociation and also since I now feel safe, new memories have started to come up. I previously thought that I was raped once by a stranger when I was six years old, but now I think I know who did it and I'm starting to have new memories that point into the direction that abuse was not a one-time incident but rather lasted for years (it must have started when i was six and ended by the time we moved to a different city when I was 10 years old). It could not have happened every day since the abuser was not family (he was the big brother of a close friend of mine who lived in the same neighborhood), but I think I could have been raped for tens of times. I'm definitely trying to think these are all false memories but the more I try to deny the memories and the symptoms the more i dissociate. I have tried every method of denial but i just go emotionally numb, start dissociating and having psychosomatic symptoms. So it seems like the only option is to face the memories and the symptoms but my mind is trying every possible to trick to keep me away from it and even though I try to deny it, facing all this scares me to death. I really don't want to remember, I would do almost anything to forget and get rid of symptoms. Like right now I can feel the rapist on top of me and I feel like I'm being raped.

One thing I would like to point though is that my therapist and i have not talked about the abuse in detail and we have not used any methods of memory retrieval, so I'm recovering these memories on my own.

Hey there. I don't have any advice to add or anything, but I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for this new revelation that you've gotten. Also, I wanted to say that you are very brave to be starting to remember this and even braver for actually trying to face it! That takes a lot of guts, in my opinion.

That is common we think. More happening then originally thought. I only have verbal abuse memories. Other things happened. Sorry you went through that.

Zed.

Thanks for the replies. I spent yesterday pretty much in denial with the consequence that I was pretty numb and dissociating and I seemed to start drifting towards old patterns of thinking. When I numb out I also sort of "toughen" myself and eventually start fantasizing about violence and abusing alcohol and drugs (I had a substance abuse problem and I have been in a serious street fight) and that sort of stuff. I have been able to stay clean and sober for well over four months now so I'm not that worried about a relapse but what happens very often when I go extremely numb is that I get so irritable and angry that I need to take high doses of sedatives (I have been prescribed with lorazepam + haloperidol + propranolol for that) in order to not to start throwing things etc. and to prevent myself from doing anything self-destructive either (I very often also get suicidal at that point). So this denial thing is not an option since I don't want to sink back into that hole where I feel like suicide and/or murdering people is the right option.

I have not talked about these new memories with my therapist since its a couple of days until the next appointment and she hasn't answered my emails (we use email as a tool to encourage me to write down things and for her to keep updated, but she rarely answers since she gets a too much email to answer everything) but previously she has been very clear in saying that she does not want to encourage me to do any kind of avoidance. She doesn't want to take any definitive position on whether the early childhood memories I have recovered (I have recovered real and accurate memories of events I had repressed though) are real since that would be unprofessional, but she has definitely said that I need to face the emotions, flashbacks etc. related to the events.

So this "oh these are just false memories" thinking I'm having is definitely just denial. At this point its impossible to say what exactly happened, but its clear that something big has happened and I need to face it. This morning (I live in UTC+2 timezone) I think I have managed to get at least a bit past the denial phase and I feel like I'm having some kind of shock reaction. I think this is normal though and now that I think about it this has been the pattern with all the trauma I have had whether I always remembered it or recovered it. First I get denial, then I get a shock reaction and then I start to emotionally connect with the trauma.

Right now I feel like I can face this, I think this is the worst thing I have yet to face but facing severe trauma in general is nothing new to me and I am better equipped than ever for it, and I also have my therapist supporting me which is a big difference to earlier times when I had zero support.