Can 2 Cptsd Be Together? That Is The Question...

[Deleted member 20978]

My wife and I both have CPTSD, though we did not know this until very recently (been together 7 years, married 4). We're hitting real end-game difficulties, but since this diagnosis is such new knowledge its recasting so much of our past struggles and makes me want to work on things.

Can two people with CPTSD work? What if my behaviors when triggered *are* her triggers and her behaviors when triggered *are* my triggers? (Or: what if I fight and she freezes and flees, and my biggest triggers are being abandoned and ignored, and her biggest triggers are seeing someone get angry?)

[Edit]: To clarify, by fight I mean argue and yell. With an intensity that reflects trauma, but not violent, and (in my opinion) not abusive; I am trying to resolve conflict via admittedly ineffective means, especially for her, since she was traumatized by angry outbursts of a family member as a child and also she has auditory issues so can get be hard to negotiate verbal communication much less heated argument.

I feel like we deserve to get appropriate therapy and learn about these issues since we now know what they are. On other hand, 7 years of retraumatization of each other has created a lot of trust issues and resentments. I feel like we're trying to be loving and civil, but lurking beneath surface is anger, some of which is aimed squarely at each other, and some of which is childhood anger that has become associated with each other.

[Edit for my wife's sake]: When I say anger/resentment at each other, on my part it is specifically anger about her shutting down communication and avoiding necessary conflict resolution. I think she feels I am angry at all sorts of other things, which I'm not. Other difficulties are just difficulties or different needs that can be in conflict, but I'm not angry at the *conflict of needs* when these exist, just the inability to resolve such conflicts through communication. Okay done editorializing myself.

Also, I love her and she loves me. I know the latter not so much because she says so but because she's worked so damn hard despite everything to *try* to take care of me. She also says so, but words are just words. I love her and so much want to help her be a happier person and not in so much pain, but feel like I fail to do this. I'm trying damn hard too.

Anyway I don't want to go into great depth as we're both on these forums and its hard to publicly analyze our marriage. But generically, can this work? Are other people here in such a dual relationship?

 

[Padfoot]

It can with open communication and an understanding of one another.

 

[twopenny]

It's possible. It's not easy. I mean, marriage for "normal" people isn't easy, but this is harder.

My hub has Complex PTSD from combat (though it's more complicated than that sounds), and I have it from stuff in my childhood.

As Padfoot says - communication is the key - even if that's after things have calmed down, and not when one of you is actively experiencing symptoms / triggered / etc. And you do have to both remember that it's not about you.

Hub shuts down when he's going through stress, and stops listening to me, and shuts me out. Because my mother ignored me as a kid, that's one of my triggers (being ignored and shut out), so it does sometimes make things worse for a while. We just work through it.

Things also get much better, and easier, with treatment, in my experience (though they tend to hit bottom first).

 

[anonymous]

Hi Jemini,

Although different, yet it has reminded me of me and my former husband who had a different disorder with similar symptoms, I just wanted to say that what helped very much (that idea just came way too late (in year 11 of a 13-year marriage, the last two years of which were divorce proceedings)) was living seperately. In our case we even lived in different cities -- and found back to actually looking forward to seeing each other and spending a limited amount of time together whenever we did. It brought back some much-needed ease, joy, hope...

As said, it might have been a real chance if we had tried that years earlier. All the good of a relationship had vanished already and later-on I learned that as soon as I had moved out, he had had an affair where he lived. But still: the living apart really brought back some of those much-needed things that a relationship needs to grow.

I can hear my therapist just now answering your question (because I have asked her things like that before): "Yes, it is possible." As is the case with people and relationships, the more of each are in the mix, the harder things can get. I believe that both have to be equally ready, willing and able to put effort into it to make it work. Back then in my life, there was no such equality.

Wishing you both the best.

 

[Cwolf220]

I don't know. I have gotten myself into a few more relationships than I thought possible w PTSD sufferers. My last was w a man who I was w a year, I am a female veteran and he a male, and he lied, stole and took everything he could from me wo me realizing til close to the end. I wanted nothing but the best for him, to help him, but I could not. I think personally you have to be on some level of sanity before you can help someone else. Still care for him but cannot have that in my life.

 

[stuff]

I would think it would give more of a fighting chance than not both having C-PTSD. Understanding can go a long way. It's really hard to translate what you go through with C-PTSD symptoms to someone who doesn't have any concept of that. At least you have similar foundations. It might make for the occasional bad clash, but understanding why you had that clash can do wonders for resolving it.

If you are both willing to accept that you may trigger each other from time to time and probably will need a bit of counseling to sort that stuff out on occasion (but to be honest what relationship doesn't?!). All relationships are hard work, and everyone who experiences PTSD has their own unique experience, but I'd say it's actually a benefit. It might help to have a safe word when you realize you have been triggered or are triggering the other person. Acknowledge that your individual experiences have just set the situation on fire. Make the effort to take a time out, and come back when you aren't triggered to resolve things. Most importantly, I think I've learned how important communication is, even if you have to send notes to each other. I know my words don't work so well in person when I'm feeling triggered.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Can it work? Yes, it can.

For me, personally, no. I can't even have ptsd friends. I need the non-ptsd-ness as a reality check. Otherwise it would just be two people swimming in the twilight zone. But again, this is me.

 

[Kintsugi]

I rather agree with Stuff that it could give you a potential edge to understand one another. That being said, for that to happen, I think, you both need to really understand that your differing instincts of reaction are really the same at the core. My fiancé doesn't have PTSD, but I've come to understand for a long time now that I get sad and he gets mad. Angry men scare the crap out of me. My being super sad makes him angry, because he's frustrated with my response to stress being crying and reclusion. But I try to understand (try being the operative word here) by making the sadness and anger equal in my head. I try to understand that at moments where I might cry, he may yell. The moments when I would slink off, he might storm out. Etcetera.

That dynamic aside, I had a vet friend that I believe was interested in a serious relationship with me, and it was actually our shared experience of PTSD that made it an appealing possibility. Unfortunately he was just too menacing to me for me to attempt something like that. (But not because he was angry as a person--totally not saying this is like you at all or relates to your situation. Just a personal thing.) Anyway, I definitely agree that it not only could work but could enrich your ability to understand one another down the line.

 

[Deleted member 20978]

I *am* angry. And I've gotten angrier over the course of our relationship (while also definitely getting more able to manage that anger). It makes me (and for that matter all human beings) angry to have conflicts never able to be resolved or to have my needs ignored no matter how I communicate them.

I say this because it is hard to figure out, if someone is making me angry so much of the time (or, frustrating my legitimate attempts to communicate, which leads to anger because I cannot resolve the frustration), where is the point where you say, okay, I love this person, I *understand* what she's experiencing and how she's being triggered, I care *sooo* much about all she has gone through in her life and with me and want to support her being healthier, more empowered, happier, BUT... it's destroying my health to be together?

When is that point?

She cares about me too and tries and tries, and is experiencing retraumatization constantly too. What gets messed up is our differing perspectives on who is causing what. I'll tell her that some thing she does is inappropriate or harming me, and she will get triggered (cant accept any form of correction or negative feedback without being triggered), and will get really agitated and intense and say that she's not 100% to blame for everything and what about the time I did this bad thing and AHHHHH lots of intense emotional spewage. And I'll try to defend myself, try to explain, hang on, saying "you did X and it hurt me" is NOT the same thing as saying "you are 100% to blame for everything wrong with the universe". But then of course any attempt I'm making to defend myself is seen as yet more criticism and the intensity ratchets up until my heart rate is way too high.

I'm sure she could describe equally untenable dynamics from her end. I even get it I think. But sometimes I feel like, wait, isn't there *some* objective perspective of what is and is not healthy communication, what is and is not fair, respectful? How do you establish proper boundaries and communications after years of messed up conflict?

No one can know. :( I hope therapy can help, and don't want to lose our marriage. But it's so stressful, it feels like a full time job that is killing me inside, causing all sorts of mental and physical health problems. I want that stress to stop.

And the thing is, I *don't* blame my wife, and I *don't* blame me. I blame CPTSD. I feel like splitting up is not going to solve things in either of our lives, that the CPTSD needs to be treated, which it has not been. But am I delusional? Maybe our lives would both be better apart.

So much struggle. Just praying and hoping for things to get easier (a lot easier). If things weren't so intense, it would feel a lot easier to imagine years of therapy to work on and improve things. But it's like living in a minefield and having really shaky legs all the time.

Rant vent rant vent rant.

 

[Deleted member 20978]

Amendment in fairness to PJ: none of the above statements are black and white, or 100% of the time. My needs are *not* completely ignored all the time, for instance. But, literally, the explosive drama is (and has felt this way a loooong time) a more than daily thing.

I guess one question I am struggling with is how to factor 1) recent horrible trauma that turned our lives upside down, and 2) that we had never been diagnosed until after this trauma. So things are far more unstable now than they were before April, but before that they were unstable and high-conflict. But we didn't have any tools to know why that was. And so on and so on, I go in circles trying to sort it out.

 

[Kintsugi]

I think the easiest go-to communication format is "When you do X, I feel Y" back and forth. Maybe writing to each other would be easier? Like sharing a notebook where you can write issues and then maybe scheduling specific times and increments when you can talk in person and discuss things in real time? Like, you can write statements any time, but from 5:00-5:30 on Tuesdays and Saturdays you talk about it, but only then? If you really wanna get serious you can set an egg timer and have six five-minute blocks where you trade off, and switch who goes first to interrupt the pattern every other time? I know that this is not exactly how communicating with someone you share your life with works, but perhaps it would help?

I feel like if the "When you do/say X, I feel Y" format isn't working, maybe space is the only option left. It's a pretty non-threatening format, I think.

 

[dms]

Good Morning everybody! Reading this is very painful for me because I have BPD, PTSD etc and the person that i love has CPTSD. We use to constantly triggered each other in the many way you all have described. It's so painful to look back now at how much we hurt each other. Reading this has triggered me today because I've basically let go of my friend but the love hasn't died. He has asked me to leave him alone, ignores my texts and has isolated his self from me months now. I wish you luck.I'm starting to date others again just to move forward.