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Relationship I Don't Know How To Help.

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adriftatsea

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I'm just at a loss at what to do, where to turn, or how to help my sufferer.
He's been not functioning well for a while. We moved to get him to a better area, to get him to somewhere where he would be triggered less and hopefully have more help. Really wanted to move to a medical marijuana state (please don't judge), but at the time my sufferer wasn't able to move as far as we would have had to have moved. So instead we moved a few hours away where I was able to get a better job and have the ability to transfer us.

My sufferer had a bad nightmare on Sunday and has been triggered all week, in a hopeless, flight type response. He tells me he needs help and says he doesn't know what kind of help he needs, but knows he needs help. He's confided in me he's not sure if I'm the right person to get him the help he needs, because he's gotten nowhere with his help over the past 3 years.

He has trust issues with therapy because as a child, while he was being sexually abused, nobody ever seemed to catch on and the therapist never came out and asked if something bad or like that was going on at home, and him being only 6-7 didn't breathe a word of it. Fast forward to the past 10 years, again he hasn't found a therapist that could really help him with the 20+ years of trauma he's had. So I understand his frustration with continuing to press forward with therapy or try to find a new therapist in our area. He's also given up on pharmaceuticals as no antidepressant has worked, he's very sensitive to medications and has had some not so good reactions to other meds they've tried to put him on, and doesn't want to be on benzo's for any type of anxiety relief because of the last time, he got sick and had the hardest time getting weaned from them.

But I'm just at a loss at where else to turn or how else to help him. I'm in the process of contacting a lawyer to help him get disability so hopefully some of the 'financial burden' he feels he's putting on us by seeking treatment will be relieved. But at the same time he tells me he doesn't want to get disability because his pride is the only thing he has left and he feels like there's more deserving people out there. I try to explain, there is nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it, and you don't have to keep it forever if you don't want it long-term, and he is deserving. The man has suffered 30+ years and has not known peace.

But, I feel like my hands are tied. He's kind of house bound and I don't know how to get him to do things when his anxiety/PTSD take hold. I feel all I can do is ask and encourage. I can't force a grown man to do anything he doesn't want to do. I encourage him to consider pharma for now until we can get him to a medical marijuana state (pot is the only thing that's brought him any type of relief, but with our recent move, that has been taken away because we know no one here) to where he can try different strains to help at night and during the day. But again my hands are kind of tied in getting us anywhere in the very immediate future as I just started this new job in June. I know he's stuck in the present and the past and can't imagine having to wait another 6 months to a year. I understand that as he hasn't worked and has been stuck in the house for 3 years now. I try to encourage him to go out during the day for even just a drive, but no such luck because there's always an excuse and he admits it.

I don't know how else to help. When he's like this I try not to cry or wear my heart on the sleeve, but he knows me and knows how it makes me feel to see him like this. He has a long-time friend and ex-gf who has been through similar things, but has somehow found a way to function and get through it and he, not really threatens, but says he should just go up there, as the last time they spoke she asked the question, "who is helping you?" He stopped talking to her after that as he took it as an attack on the few people trying to help him, but is now wondering what else she meant by that. If she knows a special way to help him get through this. I know she is much, much more better financially than I ever will be, but I don't know how she could help him any better than I suppose understanding what he went through. Sometimes I want to tell him to just go if there's a chance he can find some help and get some peace in his life, but he's my husband and I love him and that's hard, too.

But I don't know how else to help, how else to support him than what I'm already providing and encouraging. I'm starting to feel helpless and hopeless. But I keep telling myself, if we can just get him some access and he knows he needs something to help with therapy (this being pot) to keep him a little calmer/'medically stable' between sessions.

Sorry for the long post......
 
It sounds like you are doing all you can. The rest is now up to him to start facing PTSD by seeking suitable therapy for himself, even coming on this site himself and registering? There will be many people he can relate with on here.
Unfortunately support is where it ends with you as that is all you can offer him. Don't wear yourself out because you won't be of any help to him, but most importantly to yourself! Your needs still come first and you have to make sure you are okay. Don't become the supporter that becomes his other problem. Don't expect anything from his recovery either. Just being there is enough, lending an ear, some comfort when you can, but the rest is up to him.
I am sorry if you don't feel I am any help to you at all, but the most important person in your post is you and it sounds like you are the one that is actually struggling with his PTSD and that isn't going to help him.
 
O wow adriftatsea! I'm on the other end of this ptsd thing but I just came onto the site and yours was the most recent thread.

Just reading your thread made me feel anxious in that it feels like for you everything has become about your partner and helping you'd partner. It also sounds like he's pushing buttons repeating that story about his ex asking who's helping - that would make anyone snxious that they're maybe not doing enough!
Saint Nik is right!

People with ptsd are just people. It's not like nothing can be asked or expected of them.
Your husband needs to work on his own recovery but it sounds like you are doing the whole job for the two of you!

Exhausting for you and disempowerimg for him!
 
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I guess it's just hard to watch him struggle when he's triggered this bad. And after I take a deep breath and try to look at it from a different angle I am doing all I can do and the rest is up to him and where he needs to take responsibility in wanting to get help. I guess when he vents about feeling like I'm not strong enough to help him, I let it get to me too much when I shouldn't.

I have long ago accepted his PTSD and what it possibly meant to our relationship and that he's just a person who has had a really shitty draw in life and understand that its ups and downs and slow progress (if any) to to some relief, but it's up to him to make that progress and all I can do is be there to help and support. And I know I need to do better about keeping myself grounded when he's triggered because I know my anxiety and fears don't help the situation at all.
 
((adriftatsea)) I really feel for you! My own PTSD was brought on by a long relationship with a man struggling with addiction issues, and it was a very similar situation!! I have learned over a long period of time that my habit of setting myself aside and putting others first always was a form of codependency which came about through my own set of traumas.

I really urge you to get help for yourself. It's not fair for him to vent about feeling you're "not strong enough to help him". Although you obviously love him, it's not really your responsibility to help him with his own baggage - aside from loving him as in any normal relationship. Maybe he is feeling desperate when he says that, and I can understand that desperate feeling, but he has to love you too and your feelings need as much room as his.

We all have baggage, that's the truth. Of course, some of us have more baggage than the rest of us, but we all need understanding and support. You are not an exception to that rule.

It's actually more healthy for him as a person to understand this, and it's definitely more healthy and rewarding for you in your marriage to understand this.

Your anxiety and fears are understandable in the situation you're in. You matter as much as he does! And in the long run, to have a happy relationship both people need to be putting in.

I did the same thing and I understand, but in reality you're allowing him to be quite selfish in your relationship. He needs to step up, PTSD or no. It's not an excuse for a free ride!

I've read some of this section now and it just really sounds like a lot of abusive relationships. I honestly think a lot of the partners in this section shouldn't be in relationships until they've got a grasp on their own situation. Just my honest opinion!

Maybe it's because I'm a woman, but I wouldn't want anyone to feel so encumbered by my problems in a relationship!
 
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Thanks JoJo. I 've been trying to do more for myself, but its still hard. I love him to the moon and back and I know when I vent on here, its the darker days of our relationship. We have lots of good times, just not so much when he's really spiraling down. And I don't always post it on here but he does care for how this is all affecting me and part of the reason he wants to push me away and go because he wants me to have the life he sees fit for me. I don't feel encumbered by his problems. He had no choice in his problems as a child and growing up and now they're haunting him and he's struggling on how to get help. We talked last night and he admitted he hasn't fully accepted the fact that on one hand he has his life of how it could have been/should be and on the other hand he has his PTSD and 'darkness' in him from his past that haunts him.

I don't know. But Im going to start a journal I think to minimize my ranting posts like this because when I do i realize it's all negative, because it's what I'm struggling with right now in our relationship. I realize our relationship isn't the most healthy right now, and he does too, but at the same time I struggle because I know if we were in a place where he was able to get the medication of his choice and start therapy (he's talked recently about trying pharmaceuticals again, but then backslides on talking about that because he gets in a funk thinking about how it could take 6 months to start feeling better, and they've never really worked in the past for him) and he realizes in the state of mind he's in now he can't do therapy alone. Blah. I don't know. Thanks though for the thoughts. ((JoJo))
 
adriftatsea,

It's great to see that your beginning to focus on yourself and keep your SELF emotionally fed and healthy. It must be really difficult to be there and support someone when your self isn't getting what it needs. There's only so much you can do for him, such as be there when he needs you, and the rest is up to him.

I guess the best you can do as a supporter is keep yourself emotionally and physically healthy and do your best not to add to their difficulties. In my opinion, draw support for yourself from others on here with the caveat that unless they (the people on this site, your friends, family, people on the street) are operating in a professional, therapeutic capacity it might be best not to try to implement any suggestions or "fixes".

Online we all tend to be specialists and doctors and I've seen enough abused people traumatized by well meaning individuals when something "worked for them."

Take everything with a grain of salt when the aim is anything other than loving support.

Peace and love,
VoR
 
Hey adriftatsea,

It's completely okay to rant - please don't let my reply make you feel like editing your rants! We all need somewhere to go to do that. And of course there's always good and bad in every relationship. I loved my partner too and I don't regret that at all.

Just remember to look after you - coming here and venting is probably very much part of that!

Take care xx
 
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