I Want To Help The Person I Love!!

[AB87]

My girlfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship for one year now. She is a survivor of sexual abuse and has been diagnosed with PTSD. I know that she has trouble sleeping and often has nightmares of her abuse.

She has told me that she only feels safe sleeping when I am there but unfortunately i cannot be there all the time! I feel so helpless...I wish i could always be there to hold her when she is scared. She is making amazing progress and is working hard to move on in some way.

She will not let her abuser take the rest of her life and I am so very proud of her for that. Any advice on how to help with the sleeping safety would be much appreciated!!

 

[macca]

Hi there. I wish you had more answers here, and I haven't got much to suggest. I am triggered by darkness, uncovered windows at night, and being alone at night, among other things, but those are the ones relevant to your question. My flashbacks are of someone coming through my window, and they freak me out. I have trouble when my husband isn't there. I feel safer if he is beside me, though sometimes even that doesn't help. I cannot sleep with the lights off unless he is there, and even then it's very difficult.

It still happens sometimes when he is there, and that was a simple but useful thing (in the current house we live in anyway) - and that was to close the wardrobe door. Silly I know, but it helped. The only other thing that has helped outside of therapy has been to have the dog, or the cat, or both, in the room with me. I had a dog who was very friendly, but protective of me if I was alone. She helped me heaps for nights I had to spend alone.

Unfortunately, not much else has helped until recently, when I've started having therapy. Does your girlfriend have a therapist? If not, I can't recommend it strongly enough, but it would need to be someone specialising in trauma if possible. I avoided going to therapy for a couple of decades - I'm here to tell you that was a bad idea!

I hope you find an answer of some sort. You're a very caring boyfriend!

 

[BloomInWinter]

When I first escaped the psychopath, I went from being an outdoorsy person to being terrified of every night sound. I stopped going outside after dark unless I had to. I installed steel frame doors with deadbolts. I installed motion detector lights very high up on my house where it would be difficult for someone to mess with them. I installed several locks on the door to my bedroom, too, so I could feel safer. I called and asked the police for extra patrols.

Once I got my dog, my fears at night were greatly lessened. His alertness to things is very comforting. If he's not concerned, I know all is well. He'll get up and check on things in the night, since we live in the middle of a lot of wildlife who are visiting our deck, pecking on our siding, etc.

I alerted my neighbor to my fears and situation with the stalking. He was a Vietnam Vet and a very early riser, plus he had insomnia so he'd sit on his porch in the night. Thankfully our homes were in yelling distance. That gave me a measure of peace of mind.

I was reassured that in my community there are very few people breaking into homes. As I gained skills for self-comforting and quieting my anxiety, it began to get better. When I finally agreed to try sleeping medications, I actually began to get a few hours of sleep a night. I started feeling better and was able to work more on the traumas at the root of the problem.

I can't recommend therapy enough. I didn't get it nearly soon enough.

 

[AB87]

Thank you so much for your input. Actually i am a girlfriend. :):) but thank you! yes she is in therapy and making great strides! I am so proud of her progress!

 

[BloomInWinter]

My apologies. I'm hopelessly brain addled some days. ;)

 

[macca]

@AB87 I'm sorry, I missed that too. :( I've been a little scattered lately. So, I want to fix it - you're a very caring girlfriend! I'm glad she is getting therapy, and that she has such great support from you.

 

[AB87]

Thank you so much you are both very kind and encouraging :)

 

[BloomInWinter]

You might get better responses asking this in the supporter's section. They're experienced at this and have good wisdom.

 

[WendyA]

@AB87 She is SO fortunate to have you to support her. I wish I had that, my nights are horrible and I'm alone. I do have a best friend, but he can't stay with me at night or in the evenings so I have pictures of him, he made me some videos of him talking to me lovingly and I have written things from him and his jacket to sleep with. All those things help me get by. It is not the same as having him there next to me, which would be the best, but they remind me that he loves me and I have him on my side.

 

[user17231]

Are you prepared to be woken up at 3 AM by someone who's irrationally terrified? I lean on my girlfriend in this way from time to time and I find it very helpful. I bet if you let her know she can call you at any hour just to talk that would be very soothing. I know in my experience late sleepless nights can be absolutely terrifying.

Good luck, she sounds like she's making amazing progress and is very fortunate to have an engaged and supportive girlfriend like yourself. :-)

 

[Tolkienian]

Sorry to bump this after a few weeks, but I've got a few ideas. I too am in a LDR with my boyfriend, and he's incredible (I'm the girlfriend with PTSD in this scenario). One thing that really really helped me was him giving me a pair of his sweatpants to take with me when I leave for school. In the beginning, they smelled like him, and it gave me the feeling that he was beside me and so I was safe. That association has continued, and so if I have a rough day, I can put on the sweats, crawl into bed, and either call him or think about him and feel safer. Hugged long-distance, if you will.

Another idea that might work: a stuffed animal could fulfill the same desire to have some part of you with her, even far away. You could also record/write a bedtime goodnight for her, so that she can hear your voice or see your handwriting just before she goes to bed.

I know that I am well aware that my boyfriend would love to be with me to help me all the time, and so there are no hard feelings about him not being. In some ways, long-distance is easier sometimes, because we're building trust through talking when the stakes are lower (someone can't physically hurt you when they're 2000 miles away...) It gives me, at least, the chance to see my boyfriend as him rather than as male-therefore-dangerous-person, which allows me to trust him, which of course makes going to see him more awesome.