lost SO

I am brad spanking new here and am not clear on what constitutes a trigger alert, so please take this into consideration before reading farther.

My partner and I have been together for a year. She told me that she experienced abuse as a child and that she had a dissociation disorder but definitely not DID.

I recently started my own therapy trying to get to the route of my depression, anxiety, forgetfulness and have been learning all sorts of things like I have a DES score of 43. My last session of EDMR destabilized me and I was a wreck. In an attempt to calm me, my SO told me she had lied to me and has DID with five alters.

I feel betrayed. She actively lied to me and the more I think aboit.it the more I realize all the little lies that went with the big one. I love her dearly, the DID isnt the major issue. She was the only person I trusted implicitly and now in the middle of my own mental health crisis I have to figure out what all this means. I feel like I even have to start over figuring out who she is and I'm struggling.

I was just hoping some of you might have some advice and guidance on how to get through all this.

Thank you in advance.

Hm. So does this mean your SO thinks you also have DID? Is that what's going on with you? We have seen this situation before. You are not alone!

Try to forgive your SO for "lying". Denial seems to be a feature of DID, and you may have been hearing from different alters. It would be entirely typical for some alters to continue to deny the DID while others accept it. And the ones who accept the DID may experience denying the DID as lying. There have been lots of posters right here on the DID Forum who told us they definitely don't have DID, only to come back later and say yes they do.

For many of us covering up the DID and "passing" as normal has been a way of life. Coming out is a very delicate and scary experience.

I think what I've found with my partner, is that she feels ashamed to admit hat she has DID, she's been told all her life by her abusers that she's mad, and that she'll be locked up and all kinds of things and so for her to admit to something like that is a massive deal, and I think that it's hard for anyone to talk about such things, one thing I've found in my relationship is that both of us have told our stories over the course of time and that it's just come out in a natural way rather than in an admitting to things kind of way.

My SO is a therapist and is trying to stay out of my therapy and refuses to provide what she thinks my diagnosis is, which I appreciate. She was in a long relationship before and never told that person. So I'm trying to focus on the fact she did tell me. She felt safe enough to finally say something. I think it's just hard for me to understand the DID part, when she switches it's not very noticeable. She's started talking to me more about it, but it's hard for me to realize that she is sometimes not who I think is there. I know that it's all her, that this is the same person I love, just a whole lot of new and unknown things about her are surfacing. She told me it was so hard to tell me, I get that to a point . Just like you guys said, she's ashamed of it. I'm trying not to make it about me, cause it really isn't, but it kinda is, you know? I don't know what else might be threatening to her and she isn't telling me. It just shook my world in a way I wasn't expecting.

I'm not anywhere to a point where I want to leave her. No. I just need some advice from someone else about how to move forward, I guess. I can't talk to my therapist about this because my SO abd her are in the same field and I can't "out" her, so I'm here with you guys going I dint sounds too much like a whiney poop head!

-- Mon Feb 10, 2014 12:22 am --

Thanks, Una and Promise. I appreciate the perspective you've provided.

Maybe I can help you a bit.

I am the SO of a man who has DID.

I can't begin to tell you all the occasions...especially in the beginning..that I thought something was a lie that turned out to be something my SO genuinely didn't remember saying or doing, because he wasn't present when they happened. Forgotten conversations..misunderstandings. This happens A LOT with DID, so please try to forgive your partner.

Sometimes one small thing that they truly don't remember can turn into a cascade of other things. I know my guy would try to fill in the blank (the lost time) with something else, because he didn't remember and was probably embarrassed, and that made it even more complicated!

Admitting that one has DID can't be an easy thing to do. It's widely misunderstood. She must have trusted you a lot to confide this to you.

Above all, try not to take this personally. I know that's easier said than done, but once you learn a lot about DID, it will be so much easier to understand.

HEY THERE,


first off - you dont sound like a poop head to us we have known lots! lol

There were a couple things that struck us when we was reading your post. The first thing was that we was first shocked at the bed timing of your partner coming out to you at the time you was in the middle of your own life changing event. How ever we then took a minute and realised that actually we think your partner was trying to be there for you the best she could. We was thinking that she wanted to show you all of her self to you and that maybe if woulf help you understand your own self? Taking into consideration your DES scores and all!

The fact that she told you it was definertly not DID is interesting, do you know alot about dissociative disorders? Reading that she is a thearapist, could you tell us what kind of T? Psyco, councellor etc? Anyway if she comes from a T back groung unles they work in a dissciative background there is a lot of phobia towards those with dissciative disorders and may of been projecting her own anxiety about her peers onto you?

That brings me onto to you talking about her to your T. Dose your T know she is your other half? If she dosent then just dont name her by each name if she dose then here is the biggest point your T would lose her job and licence if she past on any information you gave her in a session. Plus the fact its here say - you could be making it up!! its all confidential. Maybe you should get a new T if you cant trust them because a partner is a huge part of a persons life and if you can discuss them you are going to run into problems. say for example you start having problems in your sex life? see what i mean?

The EMDR dystablising is a real sucker, i had the same problem. What is the plant of action with your T now? Did you know your DES score b4 you did the emdr? has your t surgested you yourself has a dissciative disorder with that score?

hope you are doing ok

river and same and jake and william and my littles wanted to say hi

Patience, thank you for the insight. I know she didn't mean to lie to me necessarily and I'm coming to terms with it. She's been very open when I ask questions and patient with me processing and understanding.

Riverside, you guys are correct. When I had my "melt down" after the EMDR I had to travel immediately out of state for work (it was really just one big mistake after another, very bad couple of days) and she told me in an attempt to help me calm down, to let me know that she knew what I was going through because it was the only thing I think she could think to do with me so far away. It helped momentarily then kinda crashed down on me after the fact, but I totally know it was done because she loves me.

I know zero about dissociative disorders. My SO annoyed to me that she lied on purpose about it. She was afraid I would leave, which mass my heart break. She's still mine, the DID didn't change that and to think she lived worrying about that probably every day hurts me for her.

She works with kids and prefers trauma patients and has always been concerned about what would happen if it got out about her. She admits that nothing would most likely happen but stool, it's her job and she loves it. She called my T today, with my permission, to talk about what is going on with me and told my T a bit of her history and told me it would be ok to talk about her in my sessions. I thought that was so very huge for her to do and she did it for me without me asking!

As far as me, I did know my DES score before the EMDR but not a clue what it meant. Still not sure I understand. I'm wading in a fog of uncertainty about it all! My T has said no more EMDR so now I get to worry about what the hell we WILL be doing next! I have no idea what my diagnosis is, other than I dissociate, what category I being in I don't know. Sui much new stuff and I don't have a map to navigate!

-- Tue Feb 11, 2014 2:31 am --

Sorry about all the typos, my phone likes to change words for me. And Riverside, I'm glad the gang said hi!

As I said before, we have seen this situation before. You are not alone. In your other thread you mention your DES score of 51 and that your T now is directing your attention to the possibility that you too are a multiple. I envy you: you are in such a great place right now, with so much support. You have an aware T and SO too.

As one of my therapists likes to say, you can't make this stuff up. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.

Deep breaths. It will be okay.