Confusion

[Determinedone]

Can PTSD make you stop praying and going to church? Can it make you feel as if no one cares about you? Make you paranoid? Make you feel as though your trying to make things work but in reality your just around people but totally withdrawn from then and enrage by any type of question or conversation at all most times? Does it make you want to spend 2-3 hrs a day at the gym?

 

[Chava]

Trauma can definitely mess up the god connection for some people (my experience, and sometimes I even feel like I have no soul...but I do work at whatever nourishes my spirit and feelings of being connected to myself, others, the world, whatever). I've also been through periods of feeling very withdrawn, more noticeably in the presence of others, so isolation feels more comfortable.

 

[loris]

sure, ptsd makes you lose connection with everything you value! the gym thing may seem a bit different, but I really understand- it's a great dissociation; really focussed activity (that keeps the demons at bay, and allowing you to feel 'embodied' without your body/mind having control), whereas other less-focussed things- talking to people, going to church, watching TV, are 'dangerous' in that they require a level of engagement, but not total, all-consuming engagement where you are in control. I'm sorry I don't have an answer for what you're saying- I'm after one myself, but wanted to say, you are definitely not alone in what you're experiencing

 

[Determinedone]

Just trying to decipher if he is really trying yet he's dealing with something or if this is all a mind game? His personality is that of a stranger most of the time, on rare occasions the man I know appears but as soon as he begins to feel emotions he disappears ago and the new anger, rage and distant person returns. His is due to being in a war zone

 

[Friday]

Yep. For sure. I've done all those things... And others.

 

[BeatenMan]

I could answer yes to everyone of those things. I stopped praying and going to church, question many of my old beliefs, completely shut down and isolate from people when I am struggling and have been spending 2+ hours at the gym almost daily for the past couple of years.

 

[Determinedone]

So as a woman who has been married to My husband 20 years and know him well before he went to Afghanistan. He says he's trying to see if it will work, yet his emotional abuse is rough n out of character like the things I described. What advice can u give me to weather this storm. By no means am I ready to give up, I'm just wanting to see some sort of sign that things will one day get better. My live for him hasn't changed I'm prepare to go through this with him. Advice

 

[scout86]

Is he getting help dealing with PTSD? Because it's not just magically going to go away if he waits long enough. (I tried that. Waited a LONG time. Definitely didn't go away by itself.)

The only advice I really have to offer you is to do all you can to encourage him to get help and deal with it. You can't love him enough to make it go away. He can't try hard enough, all on his own, to make it go away. This affects the way your brain works and it's just impossible to be objective about your experience all on your own. You see things how you see them, it's hard to see that there are other options. (Sorry, I wish I could explain it better!)

 

[Deleted member 20280]

As a practicing Christian, being given the Hard-Line, 'Just Give it to God' speech every Sunday by the Church Elders, Yes I would say it can.I now no longer attend Church regularly, but still hold my own personal faith sacred, to ME.

Sending :hug:s from the UK if you accept them

Laurie

 

[Little Flower]

I can't offer anything but my best wishes. I divorced god when I divorced my mom n my x
I still belief in Christian values. I received not just lack of support from my church , they never contacted me when I was in hospital n I was the church secretary !

 

[SpikeBall]

Yes to all, especially the gym one!

 

[greenleaf]

@Determinedone -- A pretty important distinction should likely be made between the actions/symptoms you mention in your first post, and the mention you make later of *emotional abuse*. Please do protect yourself, and don't lump any type of actual abuse he's doing in with his other issues; he's absolutely responsible for not abusing, even if it can be "explained" by what he went through.