I will try to be as concise as possible. Father: 4 tours Vietnam, combat injuries diagnosed 100% P & T VA for injuries and combat PTSD 2000. He was basically indigent and my husband and I worked with VA to get him into his own home etc. I grew up with just him and two sisters our Mom took off when we were very small. Over the course of my childhood he basically imploded and ended up self treating with alcohol and drugs. I have worked very hard on forgiveness. Husband: 5 tours OIF/OEF (4 Iraq + 1 Afghanistan). Diagnosed combat PTSD in 2012. Still active duty Army on meds + behavioral therapy set to retire in November. We have been married 21 years and he has been in Army 22.
Y'all, between the two of them I am about to lose my own mind. If one of them is not in crisis the other is. My Dad is in WA state and we are stationed here in GA.
This week my Dad had to have his foot amputated at VA hospital and is in rehab at nursing home in Seattle. They may take his leg to the knee but waiting to see if this is enough surgery. (degenerative ulcers from diabetes on a combat wounded leg with bad scarring etc).
I NEED to go to WA to help figure out my Dad's long term rehab care. But as luck would have it my husband is in the field and doesn't come out until late this week. So, I have to decide in the next 72 hours when and for how long to go to WA.
But the only time I have left my husband alone in the past 4 years for 4 days did not go well. Whatever bad coping mechanism you can imagine, he did it. In four days he caused so much damage to a 21 year marriage I am still trying to recover from it financially and emotionally. So there ya go.
I do not know what to do. I don't know where my responsibility for one ends and the other begins. I find myself ready to spontaneously combust at all times. My husband wants us to move back to WA to care for him when we retire in Nov. I realize it makes me sound like the antichrist but I can barely deal with one soldier with "issues". The idea of living in a house with two of them, makes me want to walk right into the ocean and let myself drown.
Is anyone else here sandwiched like this? Dad combat PTSD and husband combat PTSD?
I clearly can't even really talk to my husband about the full extent of my anxiety dealing with this because he only hears: he has hurt me and now I can't trust him even to go to WA to take care of my war hero Dad. As you can imagine, he doesn't need any more guilt than he already packs around on a day to day basis.
I feel like I am the middle of the rope in a combat PTSD tug of War or working in a combat hospital doing triage at all times. Running to which of them needs me the most at any given time.
Y'all, between the two of them I am about to lose my own mind. If one of them is not in crisis the other is. My Dad is in WA state and we are stationed here in GA.
This week my Dad had to have his foot amputated at VA hospital and is in rehab at nursing home in Seattle. They may take his leg to the knee but waiting to see if this is enough surgery. (degenerative ulcers from diabetes on a combat wounded leg with bad scarring etc).
I NEED to go to WA to help figure out my Dad's long term rehab care. But as luck would have it my husband is in the field and doesn't come out until late this week. So, I have to decide in the next 72 hours when and for how long to go to WA.
But the only time I have left my husband alone in the past 4 years for 4 days did not go well. Whatever bad coping mechanism you can imagine, he did it. In four days he caused so much damage to a 21 year marriage I am still trying to recover from it financially and emotionally. So there ya go.
I do not know what to do. I don't know where my responsibility for one ends and the other begins. I find myself ready to spontaneously combust at all times. My husband wants us to move back to WA to care for him when we retire in Nov. I realize it makes me sound like the antichrist but I can barely deal with one soldier with "issues". The idea of living in a house with two of them, makes me want to walk right into the ocean and let myself drown.
Is anyone else here sandwiched like this? Dad combat PTSD and husband combat PTSD?
I clearly can't even really talk to my husband about the full extent of my anxiety dealing with this because he only hears: he has hurt me and now I can't trust him even to go to WA to take care of my war hero Dad. As you can imagine, he doesn't need any more guilt than he already packs around on a day to day basis.
I feel like I am the middle of the rope in a combat PTSD tug of War or working in a combat hospital doing triage at all times. Running to which of them needs me the most at any given time.
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