Hi all.
I'm new here and have been working to educate myself about PTSD, especially the tendency to isolate when faced with huge amounts of stress. Presently, someone new has come into my life that shared with me their PTSD diagnosis. When we first started talking, they mentioned that they would disappear sometimes and that once they even did it for seven months. I didn't believe it at the time, but they are currently isolating and I am struggling to show them support without suffocating them and giving them the proper space and time to deal with the amount of stress they are experiencing. We have been on one date, and while I would love a relationship with them I will settle for friendship for the time being while they do what they need to do.
Our lives are intertwined with mutual friends that are important to the both of us, which is how we met. Those friends are aware that this is a tendency of his and have advised me to wait it out, and that this is his version of self care. I want to be supportive to him, and after reading A LOT of the threads I think I've taken a lot of the right steps to do that, but I think what I need is some encouragement and maybe a reminder that it's okay to worry about them.
Getting him 'better' or 'helping/fixing' him is not my goal, although it is something I hope happens for them (not the fixing part -- I hate when people say that...Who they are as a person especially when not feeling as they are currently is truly, TRULY amazing). So far my approach has been every few days I just send a quick message to check in on them, no conversation required or expected, and then keep going. He usually responds to say he's okay/alive and just focusing on work, etc, and I never push. When we first started talking I adopted the rule of "He will tell me things when and if he wants to". Still, I'm hoping this is not causing more stress for him and that this is an acceptable approach in general...Advice would be so greatly appreciated.
Romantic or platonic, I really care about this person and hate seeing them suffer.
I'm new here and have been working to educate myself about PTSD, especially the tendency to isolate when faced with huge amounts of stress. Presently, someone new has come into my life that shared with me their PTSD diagnosis. When we first started talking, they mentioned that they would disappear sometimes and that once they even did it for seven months. I didn't believe it at the time, but they are currently isolating and I am struggling to show them support without suffocating them and giving them the proper space and time to deal with the amount of stress they are experiencing. We have been on one date, and while I would love a relationship with them I will settle for friendship for the time being while they do what they need to do.
Our lives are intertwined with mutual friends that are important to the both of us, which is how we met. Those friends are aware that this is a tendency of his and have advised me to wait it out, and that this is his version of self care. I want to be supportive to him, and after reading A LOT of the threads I think I've taken a lot of the right steps to do that, but I think what I need is some encouragement and maybe a reminder that it's okay to worry about them.
Getting him 'better' or 'helping/fixing' him is not my goal, although it is something I hope happens for them (not the fixing part -- I hate when people say that...Who they are as a person especially when not feeling as they are currently is truly, TRULY amazing). So far my approach has been every few days I just send a quick message to check in on them, no conversation required or expected, and then keep going. He usually responds to say he's okay/alive and just focusing on work, etc, and I never push. When we first started talking I adopted the rule of "He will tell me things when and if he wants to". Still, I'm hoping this is not causing more stress for him and that this is an acceptable approach in general...Advice would be so greatly appreciated.
Romantic or platonic, I really care about this person and hate seeing them suffer.