How to handle dealing with people who either change their position over time on how much they acknowledge their trauma or don’t really acknowledge it at all?

My thoughts on this are that no matter what, you can’t help another person out of their own denial. You can be there for them, consistently validating their pain as trauma and offering your support and honest opinions, but if they aren’t ready to accept their past as traumatic then there’s not much else you can do beyond that. You can try to bring up the inconsistency, but that might totally backfire and push them further into denial. You might have better luck bringing up the trauma itself and asking pointed questions about it and suggesting things that have been helpful to you, but if you do that, make sure you do it very gently and supportively. Maybe you could pick them up a copy of Body Keeps the Score or some other trauma book to help them along?

/r/CPTSD Thread