Relationship Mood Swings

[Sighs]

So... my combat PTSD partner and I have recently bought a house and money is very very tight. It will improve in 18 months but for now its painful.

On Friday I had very carefully bought some additional groceries (which he knew I was doing) and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I had budgeted down to the last $10 and got everything I wanted to see us through to payday. Got home to find my vet cooking. Great! But what was he cooking? Turns out he decided to go into town and buy $120 worth of groceries and cook us some treat meals. He meant it as a special gesture of love for me but I couldn't help looking dismayed because it meant my carefully planned budget was blown to all buggery.

Anyway, he completely flipped out. Yelled at me for being an ungrateful cow and stormed out. Took off in his car. I'm inside, crying, trying to remind myself that he is just venting, that his PTSD means he cannot control his anger and that he will come back when he is ready to come back.

Ten minutes later he comes in, calling me, and shows me blood on his hands. When I ask him what has happened he tells me that he has slit his dog's throat. Now he adores this dog. But, when he has very dark days he tells me I can have the dog and he will leave and go bush. So just for a moment I think maybe he has killed the dog. As soon as he says it he laughs and says no, he hit a deer with his car and asks me to help him. We spend the next 3 hours skinning and butchering the deer and he is chatting to me like nothing has happened. Finally we finish with the deer and go back inside.

As soon as he steps into the kitchen and sees the soup simmering on the stove he gets just as grouchy as he was before the deer interlude. He is yelling at me, saying nothing he does is good enough for me and he can't see a future for us if that is how I'm going to carry on. We eat in separate rooms because he says he can't stand to look at me.

As usual, given some space he calms down and by the time we go to bed that night things are fine. We had a lovely weekend together.

My question is this: I thought PTSD meant difficulty regulating and controlling emotions - so how did he just switch off his anger to deal with the deer? Or was he cheered up/distracted by the deer and then it all came back to him when he got back inside?

 

[mamachick]

I could not handle what you are going through. I have ptsd and do not go off like that. To say something about slitting the dogs throat is really bad. I think it is beyond ptsd. Just my opinion, but also beyond mood swings. To eat seperately and for him to say that he cant stand to look at you is horrible. I am afraid for you. This kind of treatment may leave you crazy yourself, will make your head spin, and eventually lead you to severe anxiety (I experienced someone similar). A relationship is meant to enhance your life. Even if all is well when you go to bed, what happens before this is awful to tolerate.

 

[greenleaf]

Yes, ptsd can definitely be in addition to other problems; this can't be blamed on ptsd -- you need safety from his behavior. You could get ptsd from things like this too, in my non-professional opinion. Please talk to someone local and get help.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Throw PTSD out the window for a second.

MANY, MANY, MANY couples split up because of financial issues. If you can't agree to and stick to a simple budget, then the future isn't so rosy for the two of you.

 

[blackswan]

@Sighs , I understand being confused by the sudden switch back to calmness after high emotion. It can take me an hour or two to return to baseline after a fight but boyfriend settles much much quicker, I think PTSD means his day-to-day baseline is high so there's less distance to fall back to normal. Boyfriend is also always good in an emergency - the high adrenaline, which would turn us mere mortals into a jibbering mess, puts him into an annoyingly clear headspace. He pays for it later though, it seems to burn a lot of energy that he eventually has to recoup.

The deer was also probably a welcome distraction. And possibly he knew his behaviour had been awful and was invested in trying to win back trust.

While PTSD is a reason for difficult to control emotions it is not a blanket excuse for bad behaviour. You are not a verbal punching bag and you do not deserve to be yelled at. Period. My love doesn't have military training or experience and his overloaded stress rants have been terrifying enough (better now that we have a well established time out strategy), so please take care of yourself first and foremost when emotions are high because he might not be able to at that point. Ultimately, you're supporting him by doing your best to not engage in triggering behaviours, and it's important that he matches that support by doing his best to always behave in a respectful manner. He might need you to take the lead on this for a while when he's triggered (I'm still generally the one who has to call the time out), but an apology when it's all over goes a long way. Did your partner apologise for leaving you in tears?

I often (currently, cause we're in the midst of a highly symptomatic patch) am not able to be looked at by boyfriend. It sounds like slightly different circumstances but just wanted to share that you're not the only one dealing with this. It's really not very nice at all.

Do you have any supports in your life that you can talk to about this kind of thing?

 

[Caterpillar]

I agree with brat17 and greenleaf that this is beyond the emotional regulation problems which occur with PTSD. Your partner was intentionally cruel to you and mentally/emotionally abusive--all because he made a mistake and blew your budget. While PTSD might cause someone to lash out in the moment, your partner carried on the cruelty long after he'd had time to regain control. That comment he made about the dog was clearly meant to terrorize you, and that's never acceptable.

I think you need to have a very serious discussion about what behavior is acceptable. Continuing to put up with this behavior is only going to reinforce to him that it's okay to treat people this way, which doesn't do him any favors as well as leaving you open for further and escalating abuse. If he's not in therapy then he needs to be, because if he feels he can't control his anger then he needs to be having a professional urgently address that and teach him methods of control.

Having PTSD does not mean he's incapable of controlling his anger. PTSD makes it harder, but if someone really, really wants to control it, then they can learn the coping techniques and manage. I have a lot of anger, but I manage to keep it from striking out at the people I love.

This probably sounds harsh and it's kind of intended to. I took a lot of mental and emotional abuse from people with mental illnesses when I was younger and their behavior is actually what caused my PTSD. Those experiences forced me to realize that there's no excuse for abusive behavior, ever, period. A person who truly doesn't want to be abusive simply won't be, not when they're severely triggered, not even when they're psychotic. So mental illness is not an excuse.

 

[Sighs]

@Bronswan - Once he calms down we do talk about things in a respectful manner. There is no point trying to talk to a combat vet in an aroused state. His leaving in the car was his time out strategy. I know never to follow him or try to force him to engage.

@Caterpillar - I guess its a matter of degree. Combat vets have a different threshold as to what 'striking out' entails. I have told him that if he is ever physically violent towards me I will leave as I cannot live in fear for my physical safety. From his perspective, yelling and then leaving WAS controlling his anger. (As opposed to what an infantry soldier is trained to do - channel fear and anger into aggression and violence.)

 

[mamachick]

Anger is a secondary emotion caused by fear, frustration, feelings of abandonment, helplessness or feelings of being powerless, disappointment, feelings of being criticized and defensive, and many other things. Anger can be managed but even in healthy people, cannot be expected to be eradicated from ones life. We will all get angry, and recognizing it, pondering it (is it legitimate or is it coming from irrational beliefs) is something many of us need to do. Taking a time out is a healthy response in this.

The things that your guy has said is not anger (in my opinion), it exceeds rage. Some statements are so cut throat (no pun intended) and personally and professionally, I have seen such statements in those with more going on than ptsd. I had a man threaten to kill my puppy because he was mad at me. He had no ptsd diagnosis but may have ptsd. On another occassion, he said that he hated one of my friends so much that he would like to see her get it up the ass and bleed to death. These statements have SHOCK value. How can you ever know if the person who says such things are actually capable of these acts? The fact that such gruesome statements come out of their mouth is cause for BIG concern.

Your life can be turned upside down and destroyed without ever laying a hand on you. The rollercoaster of emotions, dealing with extreme ups and downs, outragous threats or insinuations, are forms of intimidation that has the potential to leave an otherwise mentally healthy person broken. It can lead you to anxiety disorder, panic attack, substance abuse. I know that we want to feel strong and support our men, but we do need to realize that we need not gamble more than we can afford to loose, and we can loose our own stability, security, sense of future. As an abused woman, I would prefer a beating over many of the things that have been said and that have instilled fear, loss of confidence and self esteem, feeling crazy at the words of another.

My daughter, between the age of 16 and 24, only put her hands on me on 3 occassions, but for years there was daily verbal and psychological abuse. The last couple of years, she was controlling my life so didnt need to be as abusive verbally. She was running my home and I felt powerless and lost confidence and esteem. She played a large role in "breaking" me. I isolated and stayed in bed alot. so her and her boyfriend could have the kitchen and living room to entertain. Ten yrs ago I had a wonderful life, would not trade places with anyone in the world. Now I was self loathing. She made some more demands on me and I flipped out, I told her that she was as fat as a pic, referred to her as a heffer, etc, and once the words (anger) started rolling, I could not stop. I allowed myself to be driven to the edge. I didnt make threats or break things or get violent, but I spit venum that was repressed within me. I am only telling you this because she saved every text and message, and I looked like the nut. Her behavior, while abusive, is mild to the intimidation of your guys statement.

So when I say I am in fear for you, there is a fear of physical safety, but more likely and powerful, I fear that one day you will break emotionally, loose your confidence and esteem, wonder who you are and how you got here, and much more.

If you throw a frog into a boiling pot of water, it will jump right out and save its life. If you put a frog in a cool pot of water and turn the heat to high, it will stay to its death. We have the tendency to increase our tolerance to bad behavior, jusitifying it with the more time invested. As you said, yelling and leaving WAS controlling his anger-GREAT, but when he came back, he commented on slitting the dogs throat. Abusive me often direct it at punching a wall, breaking a table, etc-its an intimidation tactic-it lets you know that you will be next.

I hope that you hear me at face value and not critical. Im not good at sugar coating my thoughts. I wish you well.

 

[Sighs]

Thank you for your concern @brat17 - I appreciate it.

 

[Caterpillar]

The rollercoaster of emotions, dealing with extreme ups and downs, outragous threats or insinuations, are forms of intimidation that has the potential to leave an otherwise mentally healthy person broken. It can lead you to anxiety disorder, panic attack, substance abuse. I know that we want to feel strong and support our men, but we do need to realize that we need not gamble more than we can afford to loose, and we can loose our own stability, security, sense of future. As an abused woman, I would prefer a beating over many of the things that have been said and that have instilled fear, loss of confidence and self esteem, feeling crazy at the words of another.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened to me. But I wouldn't listen to anyone who told me it was a dangerous road either.

 

[mamachick]

@Caterpillar, I know I wouldnt listen to wise words either. I always thought I could put my hand out and pull someone up, and only got pulled down-repeatedly. Now I think I am at a point of no return. Years ago, I had it all turned around and was strong as steel. I seperated from my husband, dated a sociopath, had an accident. Went slowly downhill and at my age now and health problems, I dont think there is anything to salvage or any return. Now just getting up in the morning is a success.

 

[Caterpillar]

@brat17, I really thought I could save people too, that it was one of the few things I really had a talent for and that my efforts would earn me care and respect from the people around me. Needless to say, it didn't work out that way. Instead of building them up, I got systematically broken down and now often have the same thoughts as you--that I passed the point of no return and that my mental health is gone forever. I hate coming here and seeing other people making the same mistakes.