Maybe I have no place to comment here as a civilian supporter, but I was hoping you might want to here the perspective of the other side of the house. Just what you wrote touched my heart and I wanted to share with you. You share in a way my vet does not (yet) and I appreciate being given a glimpse into your thought process.
Disclaimer: the below is a mix of serious and humor. So you can choose if you want to read it or not.
I push women away that fall for me, I'm too afraid that if they saw the side of me I try to hide, that they'll never look at me the same. I don't think they'd be able to lay in bed with me if they knew that I'm a highly trained and very cold killing machine, that learned to kill to survive...
I don't know how I'll ever marry a woman.
Or hold my unborn child in the future...
I can't see myself being a normal person anymore.
I am a woman who fell for a combat vet with PTSD. He's tried to push me away, but I'm still here. I am not saying that it will be easy to find someone who will accept you for who you are, but I'm telling you that it is possible.
To be honest, if we know you're a veteran, we know that you've been trained to and likely given orders to do things that we can't even fathom. We know that we will never understand because we are civilians, but that doesn't mean that we can't feel love and compassion and empathy towards you, and it doesn't mean that you don't deserve to receive love, compassion and empathy from us.
There are resources out there for significant others. I started my own support group because I needed more support than I was getting. If you have a dream of being married and having a child, don't give up on it. If you find someone that you believe you could have a future with, why not pick one of your better days to tell them that you have PTSD and refer them to a support group for significant others. Give them a chance to prove to you that they'll stay. The right one will.
Right now in my support group, all of our men are in varying stages of withdrawl/isolation and we are relying on each other to get us through the bad days. To be honest, it isn't the dark side that we struggle with, it is the days when they aren't up to talking to us at all... the silence. September was bad for my vet. I got one text a week max and had no idea if he was ok. November is worse for him, but he said he doesn't want it to be like September. He's texting several times a week this month. I am so honored that he cares this much for me that he is fighting against himself to text me. We learn to appreciate the little things (and then realize that they're actually big things).
And we don't look at them the same way, but not for the reasons you think. It isn't because they have a dark side. Hell, I have a dark side and if he can accept me for mine, I can accept him for his. The reason we look at them the way we do is because we can see that they're suffering and we struggle with the fact that we can do nothing to make them feel better. We see how courageous they are to fight these inner battles every day. We are in awe of them. Our brave warriors.
Oh and I sleep just fine next to my vet, nightmares, tremors and all... as long as he snores pretty evenly, and we're back to back I sleep right through it. It's a little harder when he's holding my arm as if it's his rifle, but hey... that is how we figured out its better for me to be the big spoon :hug:.
Those of us who choose this path are forced to come to terms quickly with the fact that there is no such thing as normal... but who wants normal anyway?
