This type of blog is rare for me. It isn't going to be positive. It's going to be raw, emotion filled, and angry. If you can't handle that, stop reading. This is part of the life I live. I don't have the choice to ignore it. But sometimes I need to get it out of my system. This is the best way for me to do it. Consider yourself warned.
My husband was FINALLY officially diagnosed with PTSD recently. At the time I felt relief. We finally had a diagnosis and it was on paper so people couldn't deny it. We had always known it was there. So nothing would really change, right? WRONG. He began having a lot of appointments. The past week and a half he has had to drive 45 minutes away every day for a PTSD clinic. He says it's helping him. But then he yells. He yells at me. He yells at the kids. He is easily irritated. This wasn't happening before. Add to that the fact that our only vehicle was having mechanical issues. He was always gone dealing with that when he wasn't at his clinic. I was beginning to feel like I never see him and when I did he was in a bad mood. Thank goodness we finally got the truck figured out. But the rest is still there. I have felt like I was just going through the motions. Only my motions aren't like everyone else's. I have to go into the kitchen and make sure he remembered to put the milk away or turn off the oven. Make sure the windows are rolled up on the truck and the doors are locked. I have to remind him for the 34th time that you can't wash the 4 year old's ballet leotard with the rest of the clothes. I have to find out that it's stifling hot upstairs because he forgot to shut the front door all the way and it blew open and was freezing downstairs so the heat ran continuously. I have to deal with an attitude if I remind him of something because he is pissed about forgetting. Even though he tells me to remind him.
Before everyone attacks me, hear me out. I love my husband. I hate that he has to go through this. It breaks my heart watching him have anxiety attacks. But, at the risk of sounding selfish, what about me? I feel like everything is poor him. I posted a status on facebook last night about a rough evening in our house. Someone commented "Poor Robert!". Looking back at it reasonably, this person didn't know everything that had happened, only what I had written. But it still caused me to burst into tears. It feels like that ALL THE TIME. There are things that have happened in our relationship that we keep between us. But sometimes I want to scream it from the roof tops because I feel like everyone just feels bad for him. Like it's not his fault. I feel like sometimes PTSD gives him a constant "get out of trouble" card. An excuse. I'm not perfect. Neither is he. But we still have to have consequences. It feels like there is all of this help for him. But there is virtually nothing for the spouses. Sure we can go to therapists. But if they are civilians and have never dealt with the situation, it's very difficult to talk to them. Even the clinic he is attending acknowledges that they need to have a class for spouses, but they don't know how to go about it.
The difference between me and a lot of spouses who deal with PTSD is I didn't really know him well before his worst traumas occurred. But I can tell you, it's just as hard. He wasn't like this when he first came home. I guess it can have a delayed effect. I don't know. And I'm guessing the two deployments since didn't help either. The stress of the Army in general. Every day stresses of life. It still sucks. It's still hard every single day. For our whole family. PTSD isn't in individual disease. It affects everyone in the person's circle. Parents, spouses, friends, children. It hurts. It hurts to feel like sometimes he doesn't care. It hurts to watch my daughter's face when he tells her no to something just because it's the first thing he can think of to say rather than listening to what she is asking for. It hurts to watch him be so angry and not know why. And it hurts for him to direct it at me.
Don't get me wrong, 90% of the time he is an amazing husband and father. I know that what I deal with is mild compared to what others go through. He isn't violent. He doesn't hurt me physically. He has progressed in so many ways. But it doesn't hurt me any less. Emotional pain is still pain. I have tried to pretend like everything is so great. Like if I kept telling myself that then it would be. Positive thinking only goes so far. Most of the time it works. I can put on a happy face for my kids and other people in my life. Last night after the kids had gone to bed, my happy face broke. I don't know why, other than the fact that you can only bottle things up so much until it overflows.
I don't really know why I wrote this. I don't REALLY want sympathy, just for people to realize and maybe acknowledge that it isn't just the soldier who deals with this. These wars have created an internal hell for many many people. Not just the ones who went into battle. They come home and it's a battle for all of us. It's a battle I'm not going to lose either. Walking away isn't the answer. I'm going to keep fighting. This disease won't beat this family. I may have crappy days and cry and be mad and want to run and hide. But I won't actually do it. He deserves better than that. And I deserve the husband I love, not the broken version. Our truck was broken. We tried a lot of different things before we finally found the right one and fixed it. I know that this is a process. I know it's going to be hard and frustrating. But it will also be worth it.
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