Implementing The Impact

[littlelight]

My girlfriend and I have been dating for a little over a year now. She knew the me before I was diagnosed with PTSD, as well as the current detached me. I feel as though she does not fully understand what the PTSD actually does to me, and how could she. She will never fully understand what I think, dream, see. But I honestly think that she could do better in realizing when something I do is habitual from the PTSD as opposed to being a bad boyfriend. We were a very sexual couple before I started going to therapy. We are long distance so I see her once a month usually. So the weekends we would see each other were jam packed with intimate events. But once I started going to therapy and actually diving in and discussing what my thought patterns were, its almost as if a switch in me was turned off. I don't have a steady/ consistent flow of happy feelings. It takes me days if not weeks to realize that something I was doing made me happy. And with out being able to recognize happy thoughts in the moment, it is nearly impossible for me to initiate anything at all. She is a major part of my support system and she does go out of her way to make sure I am ok and as content as possible. But we fight about sex and intimacy about once a week. I don't see how arguing about something that I am trying to make better helps the situation at all. I really just need her to understand what I am going through and implement it into our relationship

 

[Deadman]

I really just need her to understand what I am going through and implement it into our relationship

@littlelight I don't want to discourage you but I'm not sure that is even possible. I only know one couple who managed to hold their relationship together after the PTSD struck. I don't know they managed it but I do know they still struggle.

 

[littlelight]

Yea I don't have any thoughts of grander. I know it is going to be extremely difficult and at some point something in me is going to have to change.

 

[vikingr24]

Yea I don't have any thoughts of grander. I know it is going to be extremely difficult and at some point something in me is going to have to change.

Recognizing the need for you to change is a greater step than most realize, I think. And I am just as guilty of being passive, letting the drugs do the work. I completely left my first wife and a lot of girlfriends out of my personal drama with PTSD. It ended in divorce anyway. I just did not pursue actively the real source of the problem. Of course, PTSD was not a name then. But typical of PTSD there is something to be gained. I finally was diagnosed after the divorce. It was a deep gorge in my life then. But I think I emerged a better man. It is a lot of the reason I hold on to my current wife, despite our differences. I think I chose a Chinese woman because she would have no idea what PTSD is, just so I could make it my own struggle. And it still is. I am not even sure what is right anymore -- to have a lot of talk about it, or just let things slide and figure it out yourself. I know when we do talk gut level and not about PTSD at all, she and I get along good for a while.

 

[Raven]

If you're less happy in therapy than you were before you started going, then that's something you need to think about.

Don't allow the PTSD to be an excuse for shitty behavior. That doesn't mean you shouldn't expect the people who care about you to be patient with you, but just try not to be ass to them, and maybe be patient with them in return.

 

[vikingr24]

I don't think it is PTSD talking much anymore. I have noticed the chemical pool in my body dictates things lately because the nerve pain in my leg is about 32 on a scale of 10 and the drugs that follow are wild as they work on the pain. Whew. Helps me handle the rude remarks.