Why is it SO hard to talk about?

I should start this by saying I'm not diagnosed with PTSD, but I do have a lot of trauma to work through. It affects my daily life so much that I'm often isolating myself in a dark room, because it is the only time I feel safe. I'm safest when there are no people around me.

I get the anxiety attacks, the panic attacks, the restless nights and appetite changes. I use substances. I don't take care of myself and don't eat enough. I have lost a lot of weight. The worst part is trying to socialize or being in a public place, such as my work, because I'm so overly cautious, quiet, and clumsy. There's a man whose face I can't look at, not even for a second, because his face looks so much like the person that gave me this trauma...

Anyway, I have this really bad habit of pretending to be perfectly fine. I try to smile at people, although not so much now, since they don't like me anymore. These are people I see five days a week. They talk badly about me. I don't handle rejection well, so I break down and cry in a dark room or I keep doing my job, but I mentally space out and just go through the motions. It's a cleaning job, so I keep cleaning but get lost in my head. I have stopped looking at these people and talking to them, but they now talk about me more. I pretend not to hear it.

Unfortunately it's a very social job, and that's the thing I cannot do. I panic when I have to talk to somebody. They could ask, "Hey, how are you?" My response is always "Good, how are you?" It's automatic and it feels robotic, like I'm not human or something.

I've done this for so long. It's how I survive the day, by simply smiling and saying I'm good. I don't know how to stop.

Maybe it doesn't help that this workplace isn't healthy for me. I had just started this job, not even three months in, when a trauma happened. It involved a coworker, and people talk about it but they don't know anything. They treat it as some little mishap, maybe a bit of an inappropriate interaction. It's no big deal to them and it happened "so long ago." Hearing stuff like that pisses me off, because it wasn't some minor thing. A coworker took advantage of me, fully.

It's so hard to just say the words. I've gone back to avoiding my problems, whisking them into my mind while I force a smile. The place I work in now is the same as when I was traumatized. So I already know, I can't heal in this environment. Worse than that, nobody knows what happened to me so nobody understands my trauma responses. They think I'm weird, or stupid, or they avoid me. I was hurt and I have FOUGHT to be where I am now, only to hear daily smack talk about me, and not a single person there understands. One guy even wears a SI prevention jacket and still doesn't get it... he talks the most crap.

I'm so tired of fighting. Every day is a fight. I'm not eating, sleeping, and I always want to SH. I'm making myself ill. And nobody checks on me either, because I have mastered how to pretend I'm fine. They don't know that I still have flashbacks. I still panic. I fear it happening again, all of the time. Like someone is going to pretend to be a friend just to take advantage, like he did. I trust nobody. How much longer can I do this?

Oh, and I'm in therapy, but I don't fully talk to my therapist about this. I'm too ashamed, so I pretend to be better, when I'm actually so much worse. I'm just tougher now. I don't let it show when I'm hurting, and I put on a smile. Even when I see him, hear him, feel him. Nobody knows, nor would they care. It's been three long years.

I know there's a simple answer here, to quit my job and never see those people again. I already did once. I quit for six months and was unemployed for that time. Then I came back. I thought I was ready to go back, but I wasn't fully healed and I have screwed everything up. At this point I've considered outright telling people, but that is a terrible idea. People can't know. I just wish they understood I am struggling, and yet I continue to pretend to be fine. Even though they know I'm not. They think I'm hung up on a guy or something.

I'm sorry for the rant.