Partner of a dissociative PTSD person. Just discovered she's been lying to me and gave me herpes. I need to confront her with the evidence, but the second I do I know she's going to dissociate. What should I do?

How does she cope with dissociation or high levels of stress and/or desire to self harm?

It depends on the circumstances.

She's likely to go into a self blame loop and then get weird and withdraw and stop communicating.

The problem is, I'll end up talking to some loop in her head, rather than the her that can actually grapple with and deal with problems and communication in a useful way. But *I* can't move past this without engaging not that side of her. There's no way. I'm on the verge of needing to trust her with so much important shit in my life. . . We're going to be financially interdependent, I have a child who's with me part time. I know I can't force her to process, but I also can't just sit on this.

She's back in her home state right now, surrounded by old friends and family who will reinforce old patterns rather than supporting the progress she's made with herself. And I don't know any of them.

/r/ptsd Thread Parent