How do you know when its you or PTSD?

[Invisible Fire]

I am struggling with my marriage. I tend to shut down if we start getting along. I push him away when things are going well. I panic when we fight and I'm afraid he is going to leave me. I worry he does love me I worry he doesn't. I want to stay married and I want a divorce. I think he wants to stay with me forever and I know he is going to leave me. I am distant and tend to find anything negative. If I was him I would have ran many years ago. I don't know sometimes if my feeling are legit or if its PTSD. It would be way to long of a post if I shared everything. I am just wondering how you know or if you know when it is your brain or when its the relationship. Is it possible to have a healthy relationship when you have a mental illness/PTSD?. Is it fair to others to even stay with them. Is it really his job to have to tolerate and support me? At what point does he change behaviors to adapt to my triggers? Or is it always my job to learn to cope when I'm triggered. I have came a long way on this healing journey but relationships are very difficult. Thanks for any input.

 

[PTSDisaster]

I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling with this.
I am currently struggeling with the same things. My therapists told me it is the PTSD. PTSD can make you suspicious/distrustful.
I am especiallly suspicious to my partner, because he is the only one who can get that close to me.
What are your triggers with your husband? Are you seeing a therapist right now?
Maybe your husband can come to a therapy session so that your therapist can help him helping you. I know it feels like you're only taking and taking in your marriage, and your husband is only giving and giving.

In my situation, my boyfriend and I both adapt. I think that's the best option, so that I can deal with the underlying real issues which trigger these thoughts in the mean time.
I think relationships are very difficult because trusting anyone in life is the biggest step someone with PTSD can make.

Sorry for the possible bad grammar. Also sorry if this doesn't help you, I hope it will :)

 

[Freida]

Hubby and I have been together 26 years but I was only diagnosed about 6 years ago, so yes, it's possible.
It's just not easy.
It's actually been harder since I started therapy because ignoring symptoms was how I dealt for decades. Having to face them and the reasons for them? Ya. that's tough.
My suggestion?
If you have a ptsd t talk to her about managing your symptoms and learning your triggers and how both of those can impact people around you. Getting practical skills is just as important as the mental stuff
Then go to marriage counseling. That can help with how you both we react to triggers and how both of you can build coping skills in the marriage itself as a team.

 

[somerandomguy]

There's no doubt that PTSD makes relationships much, much harder than they would be otherwise, both for ourselves and our spouses that have to deal with us. I really understand your ambivalence about your marriage since I share the same feelings about mine. I hate being married and wish I hadn't married again, but I do love my wife and kids.

At some point, we just have to trust our spouses that they will be able to 1. emotionally fend for themselves, since we're not able to help, 2. set good boundaries with us, since we often treat them poorly, and 3. tell us when we're treating them poorly, since often we're not able to tell when we're treating them poorly.

We DO, though, owe it to them to really try hard to not be assholes to them. I tell my wife what I'm working on in therapy and the things that I might have trouble with due to what I'm working on. Right now I'm doing EMDR around my feelings of the lack of safety around women, which is a dumpster fire. I've told her that I need to be alone for a certain amount of time after I finish EMDR. At the same time I learned the extra super hard way that I can't drink afterwards. Sex is also a dumpster fire, even though we both want to have sex with each other, and it appears it's something that we're not ever going to be able to figure out.

The hardest thing to remember, but the more useful for me when I CAN remember, is that my spouse is not my abuser. She's not my enemy. We are on the same team. But when I get really symptomatic I forget all of this and then everything goes to hell.

 

[Invisible Fire]

Hubby and I have been together 26 years but I was only diagnosed about 6 years ago, so yes, it's possible.
It's just not easy.
It's actually been harder since I started therapy because ignoring symptoms was how I dealt for decades. Having to face them and the reasons for them? Ya. that's tough

I have been married over 20 years. I was diagnosed a couple years ago. I have PTSD from child hood trauma. and I also ignored symptoms for decades. and it has been a lot worse since therapy.
I can really relate to this. I do have a trauma therapist. Thank you for replying. Sometimes I think I am crazy and although I am sad others have similar struggles its a relief to not feel alone.

The hardest thing to remember, but the more useful for me when I CAN remember, is that my spouse is not my abuser. She's not my enemy. We are on the same team. But when I get really symptomatic I forget all of this and then everything goes to hell.

I can really relate to this. Thank you

 

[Freida]

Sometimes I think I am crazy and although I am sad others have similar struggles its a relief to not feel alone.

The very best part about this forum. Knowing you aren't alone. :)

 

[grit]

Reading your initial post I was nodding along yes to that yes to this and yeah of course to that of course of course....they are all you and they are also your condition of PTSD. You are you and your condition is part of you not outside of you...it is like you break a leg, and by limbing your hips start to hurt, then your lower back, then your middle and upper and your neck and eventually you have a headache and then to add injury to the insult you start to worry about all these and now you are depressed and anxious....so where do you say the leg started or the head or the lower back.

It is all of you. It felt to me you were triggered when you wrote this and hope you comeback and write again another day when all seems to be less intense and you find your other strength and you can say...ooh yah my ptsd is lower today and I am upward rather than downward. The best thing, IMHO, you can do for any relationship, and obviously your marriage of over 20+ can attest to maybe is your partner can speak for themselves, can leave and protect themselves and you can respect that. Every time we think for others, we are basically thinking for ourselves - it is another form of anxiety acting out. Unless the other person says I am leaving, my status is he is not leaving. If I see myself thinking why is he with me? is he leaving? am I doomed to be alone? ooopsie is that me dysregulating? the alarm system is on. I take care of me.
To ensure I am not living in lalaland, I may use humour and ask my husband, are you leaving me? or if I am darken, I may ask him somberly, I feel like you are leaving me which he often responds, why would I do that?

In short, you are not crazy. you are human wondering and asking because you care you and you care your partner and worried of both.

 

[pam4him]

So sorry for the struggle. Lots going on in your post, and your life, so let me tackle a few things. 1. We cannot control how others feel about us. He obviously loves you greatly, including the PTSD. It may help to stop worrying about what he is thinking. Ask him if you need to, but it sounds like he's there to stay. 2. Sometimes with PTSD, we forget how to function in what most would call a "normal" relationship, how to relax and find joy when things are going well. For that, I'd suggest therapy if you're not already in it, and if you are, to discuss it with the therapist. 3. It sounds like a lot of this is the PTSD, and again, I urge you to seek help, if you're not already. When it's good, try some deep breaths to allow your mind and body to relax. Perhaps work on retraining your mind to focus on positive instead of negative. If you notice something negative, try to stop the thought and replace it with a positive instead. It takes effort and consistency, but it can be done. Prayers for peace, wisdom and strength.

 

[Friday]

Is it fair to others to even stay with them.

Not my choice to make. It’s MY choice if I want to stay with them. It’s THEIR choice, if they want to stay with me.

Is it really his job to have to tolerate and support me?

Nope. He can choose to, but isn’t obligated to. Just like it’s not your job to tolerate and support him. You can choose to, and can also choose not to.

At what point does he change behaviors to adapt to my triggers? Or is it always my job to learn to cope when I'm triggered.

I treat triggers and stressors as any other like/dislike in a relationship. IE be considerate, and go for the win/win... and always have boundaries; both in how I expect to be treated, and how I expect to treat others.

I am just wondering how you know or if you know when it is your brain or when its the relationship.

I look at the pattern.

If it’s a pattern with me, or a pattern inside the relationship.

A pattern with me will come with me, anywhere. A pattern with the relationship is either unique to that relationship, or that person. Sometimes it can definitely be both, and to varying degrees.

 

[HealingMama]

I think healthy is possible but it takes a lot of work, and a lot of self awareness on both sides. I do better in a relationship with someone that is also working on themselves. I definitely relate to your ambivalence and have no advice since I'm constantly in the middle of that stuff. I think trust is the hardest "regular life" thing that we can do as survivors of whatever got us this label.

You wouldn't tell by looking at my posts here but I find mindfulness skills to help with this issue, when I remember to use them. I have to catch it early or I am convinced that (whatever... I have an enemy that wants to hurt me so I either need to run away or hurt them first).

 

[dcb2410]

That must be a very difficult thing to deal with. I’ve been on the other side. As a now ex partner of someone with complex
PTSD from multiple traumatic events I rode the rollercoaster for a while and then got thrown off. My ex partner said she opened up with me in a way she never had before
She chose to isolate from her own family. One minute she was panicking I was off seeing someone else and was insecure. The next she shut down Over some perceived non thing and that was it. I was kicked to the curb hours after messages of adoration and love from her. It’s been utterly shattering to my sense of this world. But I also appreciate that this push / pull for those who live with PTSD is very real. I’ve lived with depression on and off from my own things in life. I can only speak from my own experience and say that I would
Think that honest and open communication both ways is important. For those living with ptsd to be as open as humanly possible about the things that are likely or do trigger. I know my ex partner found it so difficult to articulate those things even when she could be so open about so much. She could tell me her life story in great detail but when it came
Down to telling me that a,b,c were the things that caused her angst she really
Struggled. When the stress cup
Filled over it fell apart. I wish we had discussed some sort of code word or something like that that she could
Say when it had become too much. At least I would have had some clue in the moment to pull back and that it wasn’t something else. I can’t speak for all relationships / people but definitely wanted to be someone who sought to understand and be supportive to the best of my ability but wasn’t fully aware of how trauma often plays out. In my case at least had I better understood the triggers I would have been better able to better adjust accordingly. Can’t speak for your partner but that’s my experience

 

[Tinyflame]

I think much can go back to not realizing how high the level in the stress cup is, the fragility of the cup itself, the inability or poor ability to self identify emotions, or communicate, trust.