Need therapy, but terrified that it’s going to break me. (TW for mention of pet and parental death, and suicidal ideation, also trauma dump)

Note: Hey, please let me know if this is not the right place for this, I’m happy to take it to a PTSD subreddit or something instead, but because all of this started from trauma I got from being audhd I thought it would fit, and I’m tired and desperate.

So I’m in my 30s, and as well as AuDHD, I also have C-PTSD(started at age if 6), OCD, PMDD, and I have physical disabilities that cause me chronic pain and I’m more or less housebound. I have needed therapy for my entire life honestly, and I’ve tried it a few times but I never get past the third appointment.

I’m not sure how to say this accurately because it’s SO complicated even to me, but, I feel that my trauma is so deeply ingrained in me, that therapy is just going to absolutely break me. The one good thing about the ADHD part of AuDHD is that I can distance myself from my traumatic thoughts to some degree, I still think about them constantly but I’m able to distract myself with video games and tv shows, and I am so scared that if I’m made to unmask completely, if I let my walls down, it will be the end of me, because I just… don’t know how to survive confronting 30+ years of trauma, I don’t think I’ll be able to only address one traumatic event at a time, I’m so scared it’ll all come at me at once and I might become seriously suicidal, this has happened before, and I have bad suicidal thoughts a lot recently, not because I want to die though, i have to explain a bit.

My mum and I are very codependent, we’re both disabled and live together, she means everything to me. When I was 6, she got sick, and I was so scared she was going to die that I developed PTSD, and this was long before any audhd diagnosis. Then, when I was 23, she actually did die technically, cardiac arrest, she was gone for 10 minutes and my neighbour performed CPR and it was a miracle she survived but it was.. yeah. Bad. The thing is, because the first incident happened when I was only 6 and undiagnosed, I think my brain was wired wrong since I was still growing, and ever since then, I struggle to enjoy the company of my loved ones, because all I can think is “this will end someday.”

I have always known that when my mum is gone, I will end my own life. I want to live, I want to enjoy it, but my brain cannot imagine a world without her. This is the biggest problem I have, because my mum is now 71, and I am counting the days I likely have left to live, and it’s not enough. I’ve done nothing with my life, if she.. you know, if it happened tomorrow, I will have accomplished none of my dreams, and I have so many.

Another thing is my pets. I feel the same about them, not quite as suicidal, but my late cat was my best friend for 17 years and losing him destroyed me, I miss him so much. I’m always so scared of losing the cats and bird I have now.

And most recently, during COVID, my fiancé who lives overseas was severely mentally abused and made several suicide attempts, and also broke up with me, and even though we’re still the best of friends, it still feels like a very fresh wound.

I know I need therapy, I want therapy, but I am absolutely terrified that it’ll make things too much worse before it makes them better and I might do something stupid, or at the very least I might lose friends, might lose my current partner. I’m so scared if I let the walls down I will not survive. But at the same time, not getting therapy will also kill me.

I need help desperately but I’m so fucking scared, I don’t know what to do, I just don’t know, I really really need advice on this, I’m so scared. I don’t want to die.

Tl;dr: need therapy for childhood trauma, and other several traumatic experiences, scared that bringing it all up again will make me suicidal or even psychotic, but also scared that without it I will end my own life someday, need advice on navigating therapy with all this in mind.