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Heisenberg
Learning
How would it be for you if your partner were open and loving towards you? Would you be able to lean on him and maybe even sink into his loving strength? Would it help you make sense of the cancer? Or maybe even stop the cascade of negative thoughts and feelings before they took over?With my partner, no. He was in the military for 20 years and did multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. He experienced the usual "don't have PTSD or we will discharge you" crap and "don't take any medicine to help any of the PTSD symptoms we have given you or we will discharge you" bullshit. They even denied him PTSD as a disability when he retired, even though it was in his chart and what he went through would give anyone PTSD. He really just had to shove down all of his trauma and it was bound to come to the surface eventually. I was stupid for thinking for so many years that he was surprisingly well adjusted instead of being more suspicious of how well he appeared to be handling so much trauma. We were in a great place where he was very excited about me and us buying a house closer to the ocean. He was delighted and moved my things into our home together. He was really proud of himself for a bunch of changes he had made to himself and he was genuinely happier than I'd ever seen him for most of last year up until November. He's always gotten triggered and kind of depressed around Christmas, but this year was obviously the worst it has ever been. I think that my partner is genuinely hurt and suffering and confused and he's asking for space to try to "unf*ck his head" as he told me. I believe him when he says he can't handle the strong emotions that I bring out in him and that he is terribly confused and overwhelmed. It doesn't excuse how he has hurt me, but he hasn't tried to use it as an excuse either, he knows that he has hurt me and that I was "an innocent civilian casualty to his effed up head," as he phrased it. It's of little comfort to me and my loss and how my life has exploded, but I get it. I also have a lot of compassion and patience with him because he IS going to therapy and trying to get on medication now. If he weren't trying so hard, I don't think I'd speak to him at all. I know how hard it is to go to therapy and do that work and, if he does do the work, he can start to regain his footing, and I hope that he does.
On one hand, I have CPTSD and I've always said that I will never abuse someone like I got abused and I have taken that really seriously. I don't lie or raise my voice or try to hurt anyone verbally or physically, and I make a real effort to be understood and to be polite and to explain myself if I do say something that gets taken the wrong way. But I am a people pleaser and I fawn instead of fight or flight or lashing out. I get it, though. Yesterday I got so frustrated from a pile up of negative things happening to me that I punched myself in the arm hard enough to break the skin and it's bruised and swollen now. I turn my anger and issues inwards and a lot of other people turn it outwards. It's the same thing, just directed differently, and people call me good for not hurting other people, but it's the same hurt inside and it's coming from the same place as someone who reaches their tipping point and lashes out at their loved ones. Disappointments and frustrations build up and feel catastrophic and deeply confusing and overwhelming to someone who is struggling with their mental health. My straw that broke the camel's back yesterday was getting a stale sandwich delivered from a food delivery order, which turned to this in my head: "Nothing ever goes right for you and nothing ever will. You can't count on anyone. You shouldn't have gotten your hopes up about anything. You are so stupid. What a waste of money. You shouldn't be eating anyhow. You should disappear. Now you have to deal with reporting this order and you can't even think. You're so crazy. It's so noisy in your head. How are you going to get anything done ever? Nothing good is ever going to happen to you again. You're better off dead." That's how quickly things spiral. It wasn't about the sandwich; it's that I'm lonely and I have cancer and I'm depressed from what's going on with my partner and I have a ton of stress from moving that I'm trying to be positive about, and I keep having flashbacks to my childhood home and hearing things, but the sandwich was the last disappointment that my fragile mind could handle for the day. It's hard for anyone to understand what's going on in another person's head or how close they are to falling apart at any given time and a lot of times it'll seem like something trivial happened and a person with PTSD lost it over nothing, but it's a buildup to that loss of control.
That said, none of it justifies abusing someone else. If the person with mental health issues isn't going to therapy and taking their medication and working on themselves, then that is on them, and they don't ever have a right to hurt the people who love them and who are trying to support them. I refused to put up with my partner's verbal abuse and gaslighting that suddenly popped up and I wouldn't want anyone to put up with any kind of verbal, emotional, mental, physical or sexual abuse.