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Relationship Ptsd And Long Distance

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Venture

New Here
Before I begin let me apologize for the length of this post. I am looking for advice and input from community members, and I would like for those reading to have a somewhat complete story. For personal privacy reasons I’m not going to be using any real names. For this purpose, I am Venture and my girlfriend is Kosha (she is the ptsd sufferer).
I would also like to preface this by saying I have a very level head, and I am a practical person with very realistic expectations. Kosha is also very down to earth (when not collapsing into herself), and we both understand the pitfalls ahead of us.

Kosha and I met in an online video game and we have never met face to face. Now before you stop reading right there and move on, listen to me for a moment. I prefaced the above to make it very clear that we both understand the pitfalls of long distance relationships. We met about 2 years ago and have been “together” for about a year. I will explain why we haven’t met yet, in a moment. We talk/text every single day and probably communicate more openly and freely than most couples that live together. Frankly, I have never been so honest with a person and had that honesty reciprocated. It’s an incredible feeling. We were supposed to meet this last Christmas (which would have been about the 1 year mark of our relationship), but a few months beforehand she revealed that she had been lying to me about certain aspects of herself. I wasn’t shocked and still wanted to go on with the meeting. However, due the nature of her ptsd, this secret had basically been pulling her apart for almost a year. Not only was the secret causing her a lot of pain, but her guilt at keeping it from me was even worse. She was convinced I would call the entire thing off once I learned the truth, and so she naturally prolonged her “happiness” as long as she could. While I do think what she did was selfish and unfair to me, I understand it perfectly.

After a few weeks when she realized I hadn’t disowned her (nor was I really even mad) she was completely stunned, and all of a sudden the possibility of an actual relationship with me became a reality and not simply a wishful fantasy. (she has a bit of a history with abandonment and as such conceals her true self as she thinks people will disappear eventually) Up until that point she had been holding onto something she wanted but didn’t think she deserved to have. Kosha doesn’t have the anger problem many ptsd sufferers have, but she does have the most complete and overwhelming sense of guilt I have ever encountered. She considers herself unworthy of happiness and a failure at absolutely everything. She is currently not seeking help, though she has a number of times in the past, and her living situation makes her life feel even worse. Don’t get me wrong, on the outside she leads a normal life. She wakes up, goes to work as a receptionist/secretary for a medium sized company, goes grocery shopping, has recently started working out a lot, comes home, plays some video games, feeds her cat, and goes to sleep. She lives in a decent neighborhood and in a nice apartment complex. However, she has absolutely no friends where she is now. A few years back she moved a few thousand miles away from home (her home life/childhood is the source of her ptsd) and began life anew as they say. However, she is incredibly lonely which adds to her feelings of uselessness. She is also not the most social person, neither am I, and were it not for the internet the chances of us actually meeting would be almost nil. Unlike me, however, her non-social attitude adds to her feeling of loneliness because she feels like she is incapable of making friends. She also has no car and has to take public transit which makes something as simple as visiting a therapist very difficult as the places she could go are a few hours away by bus. She has tried to find a closer therapist but has so far been unsuccessful.

Currently we have plans to meet sometime this summer. As I said we were supposed to meet last Christmas but when the reality of us actually meeting set in for her… she went into a panic. Eventually I realized the stress of our meeting was causing some serious adverse effects and told her we would reschedule. However, I also made it clear that this meeting will happen and that I will not tolerate being strung along indefinitely. I know she has no intention of doing any such thing, but I felt it necessary to let her know that I am willing to work very hard for this relationship but I expect the same commitment. She is as committed as I am; however, she doesn’t know if she has the ability to overcome her problems, and is terrified of letting me down. I have tried my hardest to assure her that I will be here for her and that letting me down isn’t something that she should worry about. I try to make her understand that I do understand this is a life long struggle. Sometimes my “coaching” works and I am able to pull her out of her spiral, but other times it has little to no effect. Sometimes I simply lose my patience and then we both fall apart.
It has been a very interesting 2 years for us both. We’ve both learned an enormous amount about ourselves and each other. Though we haven’t met yet, we both feel so attuned to one another it’s pretty amazing. Please don’t mistake me though; I do understand working a thousand miles apart is not the same as working together under the same roof. I am keenly aware that things could go terribly once we meet, and she is even more of aware of it than I am. In fact it causes her no end of worry and stress. While I am concerned for the future, I’m not terribly worried. It’s just hard to imagine us not working out, and I have tried to imagine everything possible that would cause a major problem. I have not told her I love her though I do without a doubt. I won’t let myself tell her that until we meet and I can see that we work in person as well as we do now. Besides, I’d much rather look into those big blue eyes of hers in person when I tell her.

The biggest problem I face right now is getting her to talk to me when she feeling low. I have read that many ptsd sufferers tend to isolate, and while Kosha does this to an extent, usually she doesn’t want to be alone.

Here is an example of a situation that I face repeatedly:

I hear that note in her voice that says she’s feeling down and so I ask what is wrong. She says “nothing,” or sometimes she says “I’m just feeling down.” Depending on the situation I ask if she wants to talk about it or maybe talk about it later. Probably 90% of the time she will want to talk about it later. Sometimes I press her to talk now (because I know she won’t if I don’t press) and sometimes I let it go until later. It all depends on how bad her mood is and how much patience I have in stock at that particular moment. There have been times where I have forced her to talk and then I gradually pull her up out of her hole and everything is better for a time. But then there are times (like these past 2 weeks) where she has been refusing to talk to me about it (I use the indefinite “it” because I don’t know what is wrong currently). I have let it go on for these 2 weeks and this morning I woke up in a bad mood myself and we got a little snappy with each other. Nothing too bad, I wouldn’t even call it an argument, just some curt words, but when she’s in a mood like this it just makes her feel even worse. She already feels unworthy of help and when I lose patience it just confirms (in her mind) how unworthy she is and how much of a burden she can be to me. Now keep in mind I was only mildly aggravated, but that mild aggravation can cause her to sink even lower. Realizing my lack of patience has only made the situation worse in turn makes me feel even worse, but I simply can’t have 100% patience 100% of the time. I have limits too! She knows this and understands but that understanding doesn’t really help when she’s in these moods.

Eventually she gets out of her mood and then she says something like “I can’t figure out how I got into that mindset.” She is literally in a different place when her bad moods hit and I don’t know how to deal with that mood, yet. I’m learning and trying, but I still stumble and make the situation worse too often. I care about her and so I keep trying to help (I know I can’t solve her problems), but I just try to be there for her. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t. It can be incredibly frustrating. I always feel like if I just leave her alone that I’m somehow failing her so I have trouble letting the situation be, plus I know that I am capable of helping her out of her sinking pit. I have done it plenty times before, but the times where I can’t do it make me feel pretty helpless which leads to frustration which leads to declining patience… which leads to a bad situation.

Another problem I frequently encounter is when she does decide to talk to me about her problems. She will casually and subtly sneak in bits of it in conversation when I’m not ready for it. She might talk about it in a way that makes it seem like a small problem and so I will usually give her a bit of advice or simply listen then move on. She interprets this as me “brushing it off” when in reality I had no idea of the gravity of her words. When this happens it makes it even harder for her to talk to me because she doesn’t want me to just dismiss the topic… which I wouldn’t do if I realized what she was referring to was a serious issue. We’ve discussed this numerous times but she still does it frequently. I do understand part of the problem is me not listening intently enough, but as with patience, I can’t always be on the alert for some serious information from her.

Again, I’m sorry for the long post, but I’ve got about 2 years of this built up. I will stop here for now!

If anyone has advice, words of wisdom, or simple encouragement… or discouragement! Feel free to post :]

I hope everyone is having a good day.

--Venture

PS
What I do not need are any opinions on meeting people online and long distance relationships, please. I always thought meeting people online was a silly thing to do, likely because of all the reasons some of you might want to list off, but in this case I’ve had to eat my own words more than once. I know what I’m doing. :]
 
Welcome to the forum Venture. You will find support here. :)

Also read the 'PTSD Cup' article on the home page that Anthony has written.
 
Welcome to the forum! I don't know how much wisdom I have to offer. I often have little wisdom to offer on this forum in comparison to the abundance of wisdom others on here have.

I did want to say though that internet meeting and dating has become so common. It is not unusual to know someone who met their spouse or significant other on the internet. The beauty of it is you realize who's out there and what the person is about. It is pretty hard to meet someone when socially you feel inadequate. I used to laugh about people meeting online but I have known some pretty amazing couples that I thank God for the internet, so they were able to meet.

I believe it takes courage to have a long distance relationship.

My husband is the ptsd sufferer, but from your description, I can personally relate to some things about your gf to an extent. When I first met my husband, i had a lot of guilt I carried with me about small things I may or may not have done. Somehow, in life, I lacked the ability to properly communicate my feelings. However, like many females, I also lacked the ability to continue as if everything was ok...so I also let it out in small bits.

This drove my bf (now husband) crazy and he pushed me until I told him what exactly was bothering me. Because I wasn't used to expressing my feelings, it took some time to learn how to decipher exactly what was wrong so I could communicate it.

What I needed was lots of patience from my bf (which I got), constant reminders to communicate (which I got), and lots and lots of practice. I needed to learn about myself and where the emotions were coming from and then learn how to communicate them.

If your gf's reactions are like how mine used to be only magnified due to ptsd, I'm assuming everything I needed, she needs more of. I needed to learn about myself and where the emotions came from. This might take more time then it did for me because a lot of what bothers her may come from past trauma...which makes her emotions more complex and deeper then mine were. Maybe this means therapy will help with this. Once she knows this, she probably needs to learn how to communicate it and know that you will not condemn her for communicating it to you. This will take a lot of patience and persistence from you. Constant reminders to her that you love her and that you need communication.

This took me probably a couple years to really understand and figure out how to do. This is without much baggage. So it may take a lot longer for your gf...though I pray it is much faster.

Hope I was on track with that, but feel free to disregard all of this if it doesn't apply.
 
Thanks for the welcomes!

Yes, Mrs. T, I think a lot of your comments are pretty spot on. Sometimes it is very difficult to tell when her ptsd is causing her to clam up or if it is just simply that she isn't used to communicating, which she most assuredly isn't.

The past few days have been really rough on the both of us. Later this evening, I'm going to press her a bit and see if I can manage to break through some barriers. We routinely go through this which I've learned from reading these forums is pretty routine in itself, it just hasn't been this rough in a while.

Thanks for the post! I will periodically be keeping this updated.

I hope everyone is having a good day.

--Venture
 
Venture,
I am so glad to have found your post. I was hesitant to post about my situation and to tell all that there is.. like the fact that I, Anya, and David (the ptsd sufferer) have never met in person as well. We met online through a penpal site and have become good friends we shared a lot of personal things, message, text, call each other almost everyday since. I have told him I love him, on the 2nd time that he drifted away from me, 'cause I thought I'd never get to say it anymore thinking he's left for real, I still have not understood PTSD that much then. I know he loves me too, he has done things to show it, and he has made hints of wanting to say all that when we're face to face. Anyways, the issue of love or bf-gf is not my main concern here, I just really want to help this person.

He told me from the beginning that he had PTSD, although I never really knew what it was really like and how serious it was in his case. The first time he drifted apart from me was devastating, I felt as if he was just like some other jerks online, I couldn't believe it 'cause he seemed so serious with everything, even having plans on meeting soon, and it confused me 'cause everything was fine he just disappeared on me one day. I tried to contact him and eventually just gave up, that morning after the night when I reflected on myself that I just have to accept and try to live on, he contacted me again and apologized, saying he kept couldn't stop thinking and dreaming of me for weeks now and just couldn't handle it anymore so he just took his chances and contact me again. Before that he kept thinking of me and was all sad too but he said he was feeling very guilty of what he did and he was so terrified of being rejected if ever he decides to contact me again.

So we kept talking again like normal after that, though I still didn't understand how its due to some illness. His behavior sometimes frustrated me, if I knew it was all due to PTSD which he cannot control I would not have acted the way I did. He drifted away from me again a month ago. And just the other day I sent him what I intended to be my last message. And he responded, telling me he's suffering and that he told me his condition from the very start and I never listened, and also that its not because of me its him he couldn't control. This made me think what the hell is this really and I started reading a lot on PTSD, and I am feeling soooo guilty, I feel like I have not been the support that I should have been. He knows now that I understand and that I'm sorry. He talks to me again now though not as much and with shorter responses.

He's a young firefighter, early 20's. He lives alone, and does not have good relationship with family. He lives quite far from friends too, and often avoids them as well. He does not get treatment regularly. The incident that made him have PTSD was during his work, in a fire, and he goes through that same routine everytime he goes to work, I just think his job will always or maybe worsen his ptsd. He says he is born for that job though and does not want to change career.
Do you think his work now has bad impact on his ptsd?
Do you think him finding another job will help?
How do I help him get help for himself like a real treatment/therapy?
How else can I help him? I don't think his friends there are that aware of his real condition. It is so frustrating 'cause I feel like I can't do anything right now to help since I am far away.
 
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