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General Where Do I Fit?!

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Andrea42

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Hi everyone,
I need to feel that i am not the only one going through this...My husband is getting worse by the minute. I almost feel as if i am living with a stranger at times. His PTSD is affecting (not only his) but my sleep, my work performance at the office, and my over all well-being, not to mention he is affected to the point where he is unable to help me with any of the chores or bills and basically being in a marriage together. He is not doing well at work and wants to leave his job. At home, he just watches tv, or goes on the interent looking for ways to do something different in life and we argue all the time! thats the only thing we do together now :-( argue......... he even forgets to eat some days and he tends to need ALOT of alone time. I feel scared and alone. I know i cannot go to him because he is unable to help me at the moment...he cannot even help himself besides when i try to talk to him about whats going on he does not want to hear it and does not usually pay attention to our conversations.. But i am scared.. I do not know whats going to happen next! Things just keep getting worse :-( We have not had a decent day is almost 3 weeks now.....

I almost feel as if i do not fit anywhere in his life anymore! and its not that he is too busy! its because he has PTSD I dont want to say i feel like a single woman so but i feel like i am in this marriage all on my own.. if that makes sense. I just want my husband back. I want us to be able to laugh together again, get along well, have fun together and just live a happy life together. Will this ever happen or am i on my own for good? I dont feel i fit anywhere in his life :-( I dont feel i can do anything for him in his life anymore.
I feel so out of place.

~Andrea
 
Andrea, honey,

I could have almost written that exact thing a couple of years ago. This is the worst bit for both of you, he is starting to get help and you feel like a spare wheel. He wants his space, you want reassurance that everything will be alright eventually. He's probably feeling crowded and overwhelmed and you probably feel like walking out the door. Boy do I know this place. Its so damn lonely you could scream and often do in his direction to get a reaction, some emotion, anything. He retaliates, goes deeper into his cave and the situation gets worse. Have I got it right so far?

I'm no expert here as it took me ages to get past the emotional hurt that this generates. Even sometimes it still rears its ugly head when I need emotional support and there is none coming. Nothing. Lets look at what you can do to make you feel better because you can't make him eat, he won't talk while there is so much conflict cause he's hiding in that cave and if you try to talk he will probably feel poked, annoyed, angry........all because he doesn't have the answers either. PTSD aside Andrea, he is a bloke and all blokes do this kind of stuff to varying degrees. If you can help you feel better it will impact postively at home, when he realises that everything is not going to result in conflict or more emotional demands on him he will easier to talk to.

You need to take care of you. Rest, relax, go to the movies with a girlfriend, read a book, exercise and eat well. Try and put him and your worries out of your mind at work, its just too stressful otherwise. I know that you would rather do this stuff with him but eventually you will be able to once he has healed to a certain point. Its not easy and sometimes its really sad. It can get better. I can't promise you that it will always be roses, PTSD doesn't go away, but both of you will get better managing it. It won't always hurt this much.

Why is he getting worse when he should be getting better? Its the nature of the beast, he will probably get worse and maybe a lot worse before he gets better. Keep posting, vent, I will chat to you and if I was close by I'd give you a hug.
 
Andrea42,
I wish I had a magic pill but I don't. All I can say is I know how you feel and I am there with you. There are good days and there are bad. My hubby and I are in a bad patch too. I know what you are feeling and all I can offer you is friendship, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on.
 
Kerrie-Ann,
wow...you have left me speechless.... i really dont know what to say..i want to cry and i probably will in a minute as i type this.. im just stressing out very bad and having a horrible day today. I was hoping you would respond...and i feel better now that you did.

I could have almost written that exact thing a couple of years ago. This is the worst bit for both of you, he is starting to get help and you feel like a spare wheel. He wants his space, you want reassurance that everything will be alright eventually. He's probably feeling crowded and overwhelmed and you probably feel like walking out the door. Boy do I know this place. Its so damn lonely you could scream and often do in his direction to get a reaction, some emotion, anything. He retaliates, goes deeper into his cave and the situation gets worse. Have I got it right so far?

yes yes!! i am the spare wheel!!! i dont like feeling that way! it does not help me! It does not make me feel better right now, it actually makes me feel worse! why must they put us through this??? and yes it makes me want to leave! Im sorry if i am repeating everything you said but i do need reassurance right now and all he wants its space! why is it like this? why cant i do anything at all for him? I feel so useless :(
I dont want it to take ages to get over all the hurt..goes to show that you are a strong person.. but I am too much of a sensitive person for that, i am not that strong and i dont know if i can do it. I am hurting right now..and im on the verge of giving up. Its affecting me in a horrible way. I feel stuck and with no choices left.
Why does he need me? i dont do anything for him, i only annoy him! I dont want to make this worse for him like i have been doing. Why am i still around? these are questions i cant even answer and i think i should be able to.

If you can help you feel better it will impact postively at home, when he realises that everything is not going to result in conflict or more emotional demands on him he will easier to talk to.

I would love for this to happen and i can see how it can happen and i hope i can make it happen...i want to try this because the few times that we have been ok for a couple of days, he starts getting closer to me. But we are only ok for a couple of days, sometimes only hours because i start scewing up again.. I start getting "annoying" with all my needs and worries...I do need to learn to have better control of that. Fortunately it doesnt take him weeks and months to come around and i dont know if that too will get worse...but i wont worry about that now. Very good point you make Kerrie-Ann... about him realizing that when everything does not end in conflict that things between us will be easier to deal with...even if its just talking. I would like that.

About putting my husband out of my mind while im working? its just the type of person i am...i have always been like that. He did not go to work today, and i was barely able to do anything...i dont know how to control that yet. I worry alot about him because i dont understand how bad he is feeling and what he is capable of doing because he feels so lost and confused. My life has become very secluded...I have become an introverted person..something i was not before... Since i met him, he has always been my best friend, my strength, my hero so its hard for me to find new activities or even do things on my own...

Well im venting all over again lol and i wish i could get a hug from you...but just the fact that you said it means the world to me..
I am going to start working on myself and hopefully while i do that he will have his "space" or "alone" time.. And in the end it will bring us closer together...

bwt...DD thinks he is funny and told me he was going to give me advise but you beat him to it Kerrie-Ann lol very funny ;-) i miss my husband alot.
 
Desert4now,
I appreciate your kind words...and i accept your frienship, and offer the same to you. How do you deal with it? Do you just stay out of his way? Its hard for me to do that (maybe im just an annoying person) but what do you do to stay sane? because i feel i am going crazy!!!! :-( they do need to invent magic pills!!
 
Andrea42,
Wait a minute dear! You are not an annoying person. You are not his problem although he likes to make you feel that way. PTSD is the problem. Don't ever forget that. You're in love with someone who is sick with PTSD. Dealing with that on a daily basis is, to say the least, a difficult and emotionally fatiguing task. You are a great person. You need to step back and take care of yourself. You need to keep writing here when things get bad. It can get you through if you know you are not alone and you are not crazy and trust me you are not crazy or the one causing his problems. I get through by remembering why I fell in love with him in the first place. Even though that person disappears at times, I know he is still in there lost. I equate PTSD to cancer. I wouldn't stop loving him if he had cancer. PTSD puts the twist of making the care giver hurt almost as bad as the PTSD sufferer. But it is still a sickness. I hate PTSD with a passion but I love my husband.

I hope this helps you. Cry if it helps ( I cry often to release). Write to us. Surround yourself with other positive people. Take care of yourself and please don't stop living your life. Hang in there my friend.
 
Desert4now,
Well i annoy myself enough to give myself headahces sometimes :-) but i know what the problem is. I know its PTSD. And you couldnt have said it better

I hate PTSD with a passion but I love my husband.
I feel the same.... and thanks for making me see things the way you see them...i wouldnt stop loving my husband either if he had cancer so we need to fight this the same as we would anything else in life that tries to get in the way of happiness.
I cry all the time :-) thats pretty much my release as well so i feel comfortable with that by now....

Its just a bit frustrating when you have been at work all day long...he has been at home doing pretty much nothing... you get home and you are happy to see him and he's still watching the damn tv and cant seem to get away from it ahhhhhhhh!!!! or am i just confused..and is that just being a man?? lol

i dont know....i need a hug when i get home and i need to feel as if i have been missed....it sometimes doesnt feel that way...
 
i dont know....i need a hug when i get home and i need to feel as if i have been missed....it sometimes doesnt feel that way...

Andrea,

I am sure that I can speak for most spouses.......we all feel the same way. As for annoying your husband, all women annoy their husbands its just PTSD exaggerates it. Try not to take so much hurt on board. Sometimes it really has nothing to do with you, its all PTSD and his need for space to heal. Other times its just marital bs. Its really easy to get the two blurred and then we women tend to get ourselves wound up in this emotional spiral of self-blame. One third of the time the blokes just aren't even aware that we are on the self-blame merry-go-round, the second third is just marital bs and the final third is PTSD and them legitimately being assholes.

The self-blame merry-go-round is a hard one to deal with because you need to build self-esteem in order to get past that. If your self-esteem is low, putting yourself in the PTSD firing line will make it worse. I don't know what your husbands tactics are but Anthony (in his moments of vehement self denial) would blame me for everything AND I do mean EVERYTHING. I'm surprised that I didn't tilt the world on its axis for everything that I was responsible for........him being in bad mood, our marriage going to custard, his drinking and the list just went on. He tried this bs on me just recently and my response to that was 'next you'll be telling me that I am responsible for the war in Iraq'. Its rubbish and deflection tactics from their own reality. Andrea, working on your own self esteem will make you realise that you are not responsible for all that ails your husband and your marriage. You own your stuff, he owns his and you both own the marriage/partnership.

As for the marital bs and working out the fine line between that and PTSD. I'm still working on that myself, I get it confused sometimes but with time it does get easier. When or if I ever work it out, I will be the first to post it here.

And finally the PTSD bs. If your husband is being a pain in the ass, tell him so, politely, straight to the point. Resist the temptation to elaborate and cloud the issue with all of the other stuff.
 
Andrea,
I miss hugs too. I really believe that down in there somewhere they really want to reach out but have somehow trained their brain to supress those feelings. Its like there is a seed of fear in their heads that grows in the way of feeling and giving love. I wish I could figure it all out, but as much as I try to rationalize what is going on, the outcome is that those with PTSD just can't give themselves out to others and we who love them want to save them from that horrible fate. I wish that they would just "get it" that we who love them are safe harbors. Does that make sense?
 
Am I the only one who wants a tranquilizer gun for Christmas? There are some days when hubby is bad and blaming me for everything i just want to shoot him in the ass and make him be quiet.

It sounds like we're at the same place/stage Andrea, everything you wrote is what has been happening, except hubby just started a new job, so that stress is added in.

Even looking at him now, sitting across from me at his computer, I get the urge to just chuck something at his head to punish him for making me a target, but I obviously know that's not a good idea...lol

Loving the man but hating the disease is right, but a tranquilizer gun would still be nice. :think: :wink:
 
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