• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Relationship Feeling lost and looking for guideance

Status
Not open for further replies.
There is a great quote by Maya Angelou that goes something like, when a man shows you who is he is, believe...
@grit what do you mean by "being there for each other and easing all intimacy and relationship expectations?" Do you mean not seeing each other and just see if we find our way back to one another?

Your comment about a tumultuous time is spot on. This is shameful to say, but I never thought about what he was going through with his ex and it triggering symptoms of PTSD. But it honestly makes so much sense. I know he cares deeply for me, for us, and I've been racking my brain as to why he could go do things with her, but is struggling with me. Especially when he know he truly loves me. He is my best friend, my everything, I just want to find a way to make this work, for both of us.

To clarify, neither of us really drink, it was just an example. But thank you, that is good to know about the drinking, mentally filed that away. :)
 
Did your vet tell you about his PTSD and what triggers he had or did you just figure out through all the ups/downs what was going on? Do your vet goes in waves with being social?

Yes, he told me he had PTSD fairly early on in the relationship. His case is pretty severe. He is physically disabled from combat as well. He is unable to work because of all of it, and he spent months in various hospitals after Iraq, including an inpatient stay for PTSD treatment. He cannot really play it off.

As far as telling me what his triggers are... he doesn't even know what all his triggers are. Sometimes things just hit him out of the blue. It could be a smell. A sound. He knows what a lot of them are, but it'd be impossible to warn me about all of them. I've seen him triggered. I've seen him stressed, and I've seen him dissociated. There is absolutely nothing I can do to shield him from any of that. That's not really my responsibility. That stuff is happening in his head, so ultimately he is the one who is responsible for dealing with it. It's everyday life for him.

Let me tell you a story. Once I threw a broken down box into the recycle bin. Sounds innocent enough, right? When he walked in, the second he saw it he was instantly triggered. Full freak out mode. I thought he was going to pass out, then he went into a rage until he puked. That piece of cardboard was laying exactly like a piece of trash that covered an IED his vehicle hit in Iraq. He was not driving, and he noticed it about a split second before the vehicle struck it. He says he will never ever in his life forget that piece of f*cking cardboard.

Did I trigger him? Nope. I threw away an old box. I did not trigger him... he was triggered. There's going to be stuff like that happening. You can't avoid it, and you cannot plan ahead for it.

As far as him being social... he's not. He has some friends he's known his whole life, but they don't hang out much. He has army buddies, and friends from the VFW... but he doesn't hang out with them much either. Even hanging out with people he knows and likes is a source of stress. I've seen him wind himself up about going to the VFW and having a beer on Taco Tuesday, and that's one of his favorite things to do. If he's in that mode, he'll stress about it until he is too sick to go.
 
@grit what do you mean by "being there for each other and easing all intimacy and re...
I do not know you well enough to give you advice or comment too directly in your case. But just think a bit more globally about this. You had relationships before. Were they all like this? over the top like he is my soulmate? my BBF? my everything sort of? then it is a pattern of yours and probably a symptom of developmental from your own trauma. because every guy or girl cannot be all these all the time and then you break up and find another great all these and that until things do not work out.

I think from my own personal experience of hearing from friends, too much excitement and so sure of soulmate is usually a trigger. It is almost you remember this person from the past (most likely the one who hurt you that you loved first time) cause only a person whom you truly love can truly hurt and traumatize you as a child (as an adult it is different ball game). So every guy/girl you meet fits something so perfect whatever you are fitting them under is the problem.

By ceasing intimacy, I met, stop sleeping and attempting to make a relationship. Take that out of the equation because it clouds so much and see for he or she truly is and they will see who you are with here and now lens, not some image in your implicit memory of what love should be like.

You are suffering. Healthy relationships have suffering and pain but both are attending to it maybe different times. Here you are in pain and suffering and have not outlet cause the person causing this is not interested enough to care to be there for you - that safe space called relationship no matter how hard things get.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top