Relationship Hope Someone Can Help Me....

[cmjl]

I really am hopeful...I love her so much....and I want to be with her....but I know I need to do my part and help with communication. I just hope I can do enough.

 

[EverOnly358]

I don't know if this will help, but I'll just tell you... all I really want is someone to sit with me when I'm so upset. Not to engage in a fight. Not to talk. Not to try to cheer me up. Just to sit and hold my hand. Or sometimes I can't even stand being touched, but I appreciate someone sitting with me. Sometimes I just want to talk about the terrible stuff rolling around in my head (and no one ever listens to me, they change the subject) but I know you're not supposed to ask or force a person with PTSD to talk about their trauma, so just be there, quietly, but THERE, y'know? It might help. And try to talk to your girlfriend when things are calm. Ask her what might help when she gets so upset. But make sure you tell her how much her words hurt you and how you really hope she doesn't mean some of them and how you NEED her to apologize to you, because it's really breaking your heart to hear these things from her. Ask her what she needs when she's upset. Just talking about it calmly might help.

 

[twopenny]

cmjl:-
I'm another who thinks - believes - that PTSD is never an excuse for cruel, abusive, or even just plain unkind behaviour. It can be a reason, it can be an explanation. But never an excuse. I can't help feeling that when she says 'it is what it is' that she's somehow trying to excuse her behaviour.

To give some more context to what I'm writing, my hub has PTSD, and he's done some dreadful things to me. I also have PTSD, and have been truly horrible and nasty to him. Usually this is because one of us has been triggered, or for me because I'm having a sort of emotional flashback, and something he's done is bringing things back that I'd suppressed or forgotten about.

We get through it by sitting down and talking about it afterwards. By working through it together. Sometimes days later, once we're both able to face it.

Everybody's different, and everybody has different levels of tolerance, and different things amount to breaking point for them, but for both of us it's about treatment. If either one of us flatly refused to get help, then that would very likely be a deal-breaker. That said, we haven't forced each other - more an inordinate amount of nudging and cajoling.

Again, everybody's different, but I don't think hub would have been able to work through his issues on his own, and I don't think I could either - though I understand completely how scary it is (I have a horror of medical stuff in general) - and I'm in the UK, so don't have to worry about costs or anything like that.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that the fact that she doesn't apologise indicates to me that she may be in denial that what she's doing is actually hurting you as much as it clearly is. I had to go through that with hub (he was diagnosed before me), and the way I dealt with it was by talking to him when he was calm, and explaining to him that it had deeply hurt me.

At the end of the day, any relationship has to have two sides - PTSD is an irrelevance to that fact. If she didn't have PTSD, would you accept that behaviour from her?? Then why accept it because she does? You can make allowances while somebody is working through stuff, and while people are dealing with things, but you can't forever.

 

[cmjl]

I agree totally. I know for a fact if she didn't have PTSD I wouldn't put up with it. So, I will try and work with her because I love her that much. :)

 

[twopenny]

Good. That will be a huge help to you and her.

I agree with Sweetpea, though, if you set a boundary, you have to be consistent with it - otherwise it gets really confusing.

 

[-Artemis]

It's really awesome that you love her so much that you have come to this site to talk to other people and get advice.

First of all - you don't need to just put up with abuse from anyone. No matter how other people justify their actions.

Also- you said this happens the most when you are doing good. That's probably cuz she is not used to a relationship that is doing good. It's sort of human nature to resist change - even for the better!

I am a sufferer. I will tell you that when something triggers me or makes me upset - sometimes I do and say things that are very mean and sometimes seriously awkward. Usually when I am triggered it takes from 2 to 6 hours to calm down at all. More likely, I actually have to sleep a full night before I am better. There have been times where my family ends up taking me to the hospital because I can't calm down at all and they end up giving me valium. I am always very sad and embarrassed the next day. Maybe she cannot acknowledge the "after effects" very well - in time, she will. When she firsts starts acknowledging it - she will say "sorry" a lot. Personally, I am at a level where I try to just say "thank you" to the people around me who try to support me. I try not to say sorry too much because it makes me feel...I guess more depressed.

BTW - There is no getting out of this mess by herself. Whether she sees a real therapist, goes to a clergy, AA, NA, OA, whatever...This is an illness where we try to push people away. We can't get rid of it by ourselves. believe me, I tried for a long time...

If you can - when this starts to happen - tell her you love her very much and back away. When I am in a spell - what I need most is quiet time and time to feel safe again. TIME being the biggest element here. I've been in some situations where people get all over me when I'm having a spell and it only makes things worse for me.

 

[cmjl]

Thank you so much EVERYONE for the excellent advice. I have an update! The other day, I could tell my girlfriend was "irritable". I noticed this, so I made an effort to communicate without adding to it. I did not mention that I noticed, I just was careful about how I said things...just to not get her more irritated! Good news....it worked. She got through the irritable time and we moved on. I never said a word...just moved on. It was great. This gives me a lot of hope! I wasn't even uncomfortable....I just knew what I needed to do. I did my part and she did hers!