Good morning everyone, I have just discovered this wonderful place and have done some amazing reading over the past two days. It has reallyopened my eyes to some trouble that I have been having recently. I'm hoping I can get some feedback on a direction to take with my relationship with my GF.
The quick rundown is that she has mild PTSD (if it ever can be mild). She is functional, works fulltime, seems to be quite normal most of the time. She had two traumatic experiences when she was 17 and since has nearly lost her mother to cancer 8 years ago (still could be anytime) and just got out of a physical, and emotionally abusive marriage to an alcoholic. That was the end of last year.
I also got out of a bad marriage aroudn the same time, and we work together and bonded a friendship that turned into a great relationship. Things were going very well, we meet a lot of each others needs and have a strong foundation for a future. We talked heavily about a future, even realizing that we had only been dating for 7 months. Eyes wide open. Except I didn't know about the PTSD. She's not on medication, she doesn't go to therapy. It's something that she thought she was mostly over and it seems to be ther case, until recently.
Lately (past month or 2) she had been feeling very overwhelmed and unsure of what she wants. One day we are settign a date to move in together, and the next she wants to be alone for the weekend. After that she grew more distant and last week told me that she wanted to put our relationship on hold.
Not knowing about the PTSD, I pushed her for answers, all she could give was an "I don't know." in regards to what we were doing, if there was a future, what she wants.
She said she wants to be alone, and that she needs to resolve the issues from her bad marriage and figure out who she is and why she made those choices. She said she needs to heal and needs to do it on her own.
She has constant nightmares of her trauma and her abusive Ex. She rarely sleeps well. She doesn't eat well or with any consistancy. She is always getting sick. She has athsma but smokes almost 2 packs a day. She goes back and forth between what she wants, says one thing then shortly afterwards goes back on it.
I am torn myself. I want to help her, but she says she doesn't want help. I don't want to lose her, and just "letting her go" is so difficult especially since I work with her everyday. She is isolating herself, and I fear that she might never be ready because her mind will always create issues for her to get over.
So after reading a lot on here, what is the best way to support someone like this with PTSD? I understand giving her her own space and time to sort things out, but I can't ignore the value of helping to support her self esteem through compliments and making sure that she knows I am here for her.
I really want to continue to send her emails of kind words and call her just to tell her that I am thinking about her and to let her vent off steam about work and other stresses of the day. That isn't giving her space though.
What is the best approach here?
Sorry for the extra long post. It's hard to sum up everything sometimes.
Thanks!
-Arashi
The quick rundown is that she has mild PTSD (if it ever can be mild). She is functional, works fulltime, seems to be quite normal most of the time. She had two traumatic experiences when she was 17 and since has nearly lost her mother to cancer 8 years ago (still could be anytime) and just got out of a physical, and emotionally abusive marriage to an alcoholic. That was the end of last year.
I also got out of a bad marriage aroudn the same time, and we work together and bonded a friendship that turned into a great relationship. Things were going very well, we meet a lot of each others needs and have a strong foundation for a future. We talked heavily about a future, even realizing that we had only been dating for 7 months. Eyes wide open. Except I didn't know about the PTSD. She's not on medication, she doesn't go to therapy. It's something that she thought she was mostly over and it seems to be ther case, until recently.
Lately (past month or 2) she had been feeling very overwhelmed and unsure of what she wants. One day we are settign a date to move in together, and the next she wants to be alone for the weekend. After that she grew more distant and last week told me that she wanted to put our relationship on hold.
Not knowing about the PTSD, I pushed her for answers, all she could give was an "I don't know." in regards to what we were doing, if there was a future, what she wants.
She said she wants to be alone, and that she needs to resolve the issues from her bad marriage and figure out who she is and why she made those choices. She said she needs to heal and needs to do it on her own.
She has constant nightmares of her trauma and her abusive Ex. She rarely sleeps well. She doesn't eat well or with any consistancy. She is always getting sick. She has athsma but smokes almost 2 packs a day. She goes back and forth between what she wants, says one thing then shortly afterwards goes back on it.
I am torn myself. I want to help her, but she says she doesn't want help. I don't want to lose her, and just "letting her go" is so difficult especially since I work with her everyday. She is isolating herself, and I fear that she might never be ready because her mind will always create issues for her to get over.
So after reading a lot on here, what is the best way to support someone like this with PTSD? I understand giving her her own space and time to sort things out, but I can't ignore the value of helping to support her self esteem through compliments and making sure that she knows I am here for her.
I really want to continue to send her emails of kind words and call her just to tell her that I am thinking about her and to let her vent off steam about work and other stresses of the day. That isn't giving her space though.
What is the best approach here?
Sorry for the extra long post. It's hard to sum up everything sometimes.
Thanks!
-Arashi