General Calling Spouses Of People With Combat Ptsd

[emz315]

Its been really tough tonight :( i keep having thoughts that he is feeling so much better with me not being around and that when it comes to sunday he may actually just end it.

 

[Sweetpea76]

i keep having thoughts

Those will do you in girl... the best thing to do when your sufferer is in isolation mode is to occupy yourself. I have the cleanest closets in the Midwest when my vet isolates.

 

[emz315]

@Sweetpea76 I have just come to the conclusion if he wanted to end it he already would have but something is holding him back. Like he wants me to do it. Everyone has always left him. But i dont give in that easy. Dont know if thats a good thing or bad thing.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I hope everybody is doing okay. We are fine. My Vet joined a new gym which has a "different light colour", know what I mean? A different light. He likes it a lot and it lifts his mood.
Right now he is watching the kids while I write here. Nice man :)

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Thank you guys. It is so tough sometimes because this weekend was a rough couple of days and I got a little short with my three year and raised my voice and I saw his brain shutdown and fear kick in. I feel so bad when this happens but when I saw the fear it was like a gut check and I stopped what I was doing, got down to his level and explained to him my frustration after I got him to look at me and apologized for yelling so loud.

I think kids don't expect you to be perfect as long as they know they are loved and respected. Yelling at them is not right to my mind... but when you said you are sorry... I think he understood, didn't he?

 

[holdenmonty]

Yep he did understand and he said it's ok daddy I forgive you. I have been getting better and I put him and his brother in time out when they do something bad. I have been taking some lessons from the tv show supper nanny. I put them in time out and if they are crying then their time doesn't start until they stop crying and when their time is up I get down to their level and ask them if they know why I put them in time out, and our one year old doesn't really get it but he understands that being put in time out isn't a good thing, but our three year old gets it most of the time and if he says ummm I don't know I explain to him again why I put him in time out. O and I always tell them why I'm putting them in time out before I put them in time out. It's amazing how the time out is as much for me as it is for them.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

@holdenmonty and me have been talking about "secondary PTSD". Monty has told me that he is afraid his wife will catch secondary PTSD if he does not hide his symptoms.
Do you have experiences with secondary PTSD?
I think it is a lot of a burden if you have PTSD and feel like you have to go into hiding and cannot talk with your wife about your symptoms and the wife might notice something is not quite right and may wonder if she is to blame.

My husband sometimes does cry and if I ask him what is wrong he does not tell me and just asks me to leave him alone. One the one hand I think that is sweet and manly but one the other hand I wonder if there is anything I can do to help.

I think it is good to reach out to a partner while not burdening him or her with a lot of struff he or she cannot change anyway.

@anthony has some research on "secondary PTSD". I think it is not so easy to catch as one might think and only happens if the person has severe untreated PTSD!

 

[holdenmonty]

I think I have noticed it more in my three year old but I'm thinking it might also because he's three and he loves the cartoons of spiderman and all the different super hero's and the other day when we were having some father, son time he goes lets go fast that's the bad guys car, we need to pass them. So the paranoid part of me is thinking that he is catching onto my hyper vigilance and thinks he needs to be hyper vigilant especially when we are driving because of all the drivers that don't pay attention around us but then on the other hand the more reasonable thoughts are saying that he's just using his imagination and thinking of himself as spiderman and the car next to us as the evil villain.

 

[anthony]

Secondary PTSD isn't about your symptoms, its about how you treat the other person and mostly how they feel from about themselves from your PTSD, so forth. Its like a form of abuse... where a spouse gets PTSD from being abused by a PTSD partner. If that abuse isn't occurring, physically or emotionally, or is kept within limits of normal marital conflict and issues, then it will be avoided. Secondary PTSD is a term only, not something you catch. It means, a person with PTSD abused another person as a result of their PTSD, and that abuse caused the spouse / partner / child to get PTSD as a direct result of PTSD abuse.

 

[mamabuckeye]

Hey all. Haven't posted in about a year. My DH is also a vet and deals with combat PTSD. He is in school now and things have gotten a lot better, but its a daily struggle. He works on campus and is frequently stressed from his boss/"stupid" (in his eyes) tasks he needs to do. I recently found a teaching job so he can quit working on campus now. Hopefully that will ease some stress.

I'm dealing with emotions from him I've never seen. It goes in phases. He is in one now about how everyone lately seems to talk down to him. Still no counseling. Hoping he will go soon. Doubt it though.

It's tough being around people who have NO clue what we are dealing with and that only perpetuates his "better than everyone else" attitude. He is still having a rough transition to civilian life, and I'm not sure if he ever will.

Going to catch up on all the other posts. Glad you all are still here!

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Hey ladies, just wanted to inform you of the 30 day challenge. Maybe you want to show your support by donating, changing your avatar or changing the writing under your flag.

A link: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/change-your-avatar-for-the-30-day-challenge.51326/#post-818601

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I think I have noticed it more in my three year old but I'm thinking it might also because he's three and he loves the cartoons of spiderman and all the different super hero's and the other day when we were having some father, son time he goes lets go fast that's the bad guys car, we need to pass them. So the paranoid part of me is thinking that he is catching onto my hyper vigilance and thinks he needs to be hyper vigilant especially when we are driving because of all the drivers that don't pay attention around us but then on the other hand the more reasonable thoughts are saying that he's just using his imagination and thinking of himself as spiderman and the car next to us as the evil villain.

I think it is normal for a three year old to be like this. Don't worry.
When I was a kid we played we were musketeers and our neighbour was our arch-enemy Milady de Winter and sneaked after her and wrote down what she was doing.

I'll just copy what I wrote about this:

I think that he (it's a boy) understands that daddy is scared but just does not understand why. There is a place where he was very nervous. Our son now believes that there are "bad wolves" in the place and does not want to go there anymore/refuses to leave the buggy.

He is a little bit wild, doesn't hear very well, has hit other boys in the past, climbs everything and so on. My husband says "Yes, of course because he is a boy. I have been much worse as a boy".

I am a bit worried but don't want to pathologize normal toddler behaviour.

I have not been that wild as a kid - but then I was a girl. I never got into physical fights... but then I do remember my brothers did and they don't do it anymore.

So I have to be careful... on the one hand I should not pathologize normal behaviour but on the other hand I do not want him to grow into a bully. Yesterday I was playing with the baby and he wanted me to do something but I had no time. He said the baby was bad and lifted his fist as if to hit him. Daddy gave him a time-out and he called daddy bad and hit him.