Hi folks,wow where do you start,I've been married to my ex squaddie for 20 yrs now six yrs in and fourteen years post service.Fortunatly I'm quite a tough cookie and love my hubby immensely or to be frank we would not of made it this far.We've suffered a lot of life changing events over the last twenty years ranging from tough pregnancies to traumatic family deaths and have wethered the storms together.
Hubby was misdiagnosed with depression for a long time by his doctors who treat him for the back condition that he lives with due to injury whilst serving and was only diagnosed with ptsd three months ago since which he started treatment with Citalopram and then swiftly nosed dived into a world of constant flashbacks and night terrors which culminated in a few Lost weekends where he bolted both physically and mentaly back to his childhood town and then holed up in our home after I had left to give him some space to think,becomming uncontactable resulting in an eight hour stand off with the police during which he was in flashback mode and tried to blow up the house by disconnecting the gas cooker.
Hubby volunteered to have himself placed in a secure unit for his own safety and the recieved a couple of weeks care where they doubled his meds,which initialy calmed the flashbacks down and them sent him home with promises of after care.
He was home nearly a week before we were visited by a social worker who told us that he would have to wait three months for an initial asessment re counselling and other therapies and then there would be a futher wait of upto TWO YEARS to commence therapy.......
During the following week the flashbacks returned with a deeper intensity and the periods of confusion following the flashbacks were something of a concern as on occasion he did not recognise me or our 16 yr old son,all he could see was that there was a strange man in his house,never going to be a good situation for an ex squaddie and particularly disturbing given the fact that our son has a rare form of brittle bones desease....
So he checked himself back in to hospital and over the course of the last two weeks things have gone from bad to worse,the docs abrubptly stopped the citalopram and left him unmedicated for two days so it would leave his system clear to start on another med,seroxat,and his flashbacks became increasingly violent both to himself and to others culminating in a full day in flashback mode where he tried to hang himself.
He's now been moved to a psychiatric intensive care unit as the repeated "Floorings" which needed to be carried out for his safety were doing his back no good.They are now using corraling techniques to reduce his levels of percieved threat as they have observed that at no point has he attacked people other than to remove himself from situations where he felt under threat.
The flashbacks are now back down to a couple of small ones and a big one each day,but he is still completely uncontrollable during them and has been picking up three seater sofas to throw at people,something he could never do when not in flashback mode,the guy walks with a stick!!
So thats my sorry tale,at the moment things seem quite dark here,but I do have faith that we can get this to a managable level IF we can get him the right care and understanding.
Sorry if I've bored anyone,Typical gobby scouser bird i'm afraid..
Hubby was misdiagnosed with depression for a long time by his doctors who treat him for the back condition that he lives with due to injury whilst serving and was only diagnosed with ptsd three months ago since which he started treatment with Citalopram and then swiftly nosed dived into a world of constant flashbacks and night terrors which culminated in a few Lost weekends where he bolted both physically and mentaly back to his childhood town and then holed up in our home after I had left to give him some space to think,becomming uncontactable resulting in an eight hour stand off with the police during which he was in flashback mode and tried to blow up the house by disconnecting the gas cooker.
Hubby volunteered to have himself placed in a secure unit for his own safety and the recieved a couple of weeks care where they doubled his meds,which initialy calmed the flashbacks down and them sent him home with promises of after care.
He was home nearly a week before we were visited by a social worker who told us that he would have to wait three months for an initial asessment re counselling and other therapies and then there would be a futher wait of upto TWO YEARS to commence therapy.......
During the following week the flashbacks returned with a deeper intensity and the periods of confusion following the flashbacks were something of a concern as on occasion he did not recognise me or our 16 yr old son,all he could see was that there was a strange man in his house,never going to be a good situation for an ex squaddie and particularly disturbing given the fact that our son has a rare form of brittle bones desease....
So he checked himself back in to hospital and over the course of the last two weeks things have gone from bad to worse,the docs abrubptly stopped the citalopram and left him unmedicated for two days so it would leave his system clear to start on another med,seroxat,and his flashbacks became increasingly violent both to himself and to others culminating in a full day in flashback mode where he tried to hang himself.
He's now been moved to a psychiatric intensive care unit as the repeated "Floorings" which needed to be carried out for his safety were doing his back no good.They are now using corraling techniques to reduce his levels of percieved threat as they have observed that at no point has he attacked people other than to remove himself from situations where he felt under threat.
The flashbacks are now back down to a couple of small ones and a big one each day,but he is still completely uncontrollable during them and has been picking up three seater sofas to throw at people,something he could never do when not in flashback mode,the guy walks with a stick!!
So thats my sorry tale,at the moment things seem quite dark here,but I do have faith that we can get this to a managable level IF we can get him the right care and understanding.
Sorry if I've bored anyone,Typical gobby scouser bird i'm afraid..
