I have been trained to show compassion, have been given tools to heal (surgeon), and they are hurtful in this case. It seems that what I have to do is to lie on the sofa, and watch the drama unroll right in front of me, while giving her all the love I can. Is that not being selfish?
Well, sofa surfing, watching dramas unfold and not really participating in the life of your partner isn't really being loving, is it?
On the other hand, actively listening intently with an open heart, putting your self aside, and
suffering with (which is the actual definition of compassion; it's often muddled up with the simulacrum of 'compassion' which is actually, forgive my bluntness, akin to transitory sympathy) are the hardest, least selfish things in the universe to do. But these hardest things do constitute real love.
The vast majority of people can't or won't do these things or any combination of them.
Mostly people prefer to satisfy their own needs first - which usually includes behaviours based on what they think they know, what they think you should know and do, what they need you to be, how they think you should 'cope' which is designed to ease their anxiety, their 'rules' for living/problem-solving, the rules they've been taught, the techniques they've been taught, conforming to the dictats and tick-boxes of their institutions and colleagues, what their friends and family pressurise them to think and do etc etc.
Thing is, PTSD invariably turns all that groupthink on its head or wipes it all out. As PTSDers, we find that just about all the 'rules', expectations and conventions are either just not true or they are irrelevant. We find that nice people aren't particularly nice behind all their learned behaviours and rules, even good people lie and cheat, that being a genuinely good person is no protection from harm, that people really don't listen no matter how kind they believe themselves to be, that professionals are often dangerously clueless, that the world you thought you knew so well really isn't like that at all and, thus, you're continually surprised at most people's naivete from which they make daft or ill-informed mistakes which can further injure you, that there really isn't anyone or any body out there to protect
any of us from traumatising events and their exponential effects - despite huge, costly health&safety industries, civil and criminal justice systems, social work and therapy industries, etc. etc. Indeed, sometimes these industries actually cause the PTSD.
It's like living or, rather, trying to survive on an alien and terrifying planet. In such an environment, unless you're very fortunate enough to have genuinely compassionate family/friends, you know that you absolutely must protect yourself - flight or fight - when people don't hear you and look like they're going to injure you.
If you physically flee then you're thought of generally as weak (if not a total loony), you've lost your ground, when in fact it often takes great strength and presence of mind to walk away - not to mention grace. If you flee into dissociation because there are no safe, physical places for you, then you're dubbed 'psychotic' or 'mad' and treated accordingly. Verbally fighting people who are unkind or clueless and determined not to change their minds because of course they know best and you've got PTSD so you must be mentally disordered is exhausting and very demoralising so you just stop trying to explain in the end. Physically fighting them often lands people in trouble with the law - and, in this alien landscape where very little is as it appears on the surface, the law isn't fair or just or right as often as we're taught it is. The same could be said of our healthcare services too.
To my mind, so much CBT-type intervention, especially as kwik-fix-delivered in our austerity-driven climate, is not much more than attempts to draw one back to the consensus faux reality (which, clearly doesn't work for so many people who are usually described in undermining terms: 'disabled', 'vulnerable', 'the poor', 'the mentally ill', 'the sick' etc.).
Thank you for reading. None of this is a comment on you or your intentions
@Aching65 , rather it's a distillation of my experience generally - some of which I know is shared by other PTSDers. Your friend may be experiencing and feeling something of what I've described too.
You've opened your heart to the forum and I admire that. If you can be so open to us, then it's a good bet you can do so with your friend....
