TexasPTSDwife
New Here
Hi, I'm Terri, 29, of Marshall, Texas. I'm a newspaper writer, and I'm not anonymous. Love the Internet for making it possible to be whoever you want, but I'm just me.
I'm here because my husband has PTSD. He has PTSD from being on a volunteer fire department for 17 years and responding to and cleaning the remains from bad wrecks, fires and drownings. It troubles him that many of the people he tried to save didn't make it. Remembering the children who died violently is especially difficult.
He told me he had it 2 years ago when we first started dating, and he took meds but he was not talking with a counselor and not communicating with his family practitioner. So a year and a half ago he went off his meds.
He blames me for that because we talked about it several times and I didn't understand how they helped him then if he was't working through his problems with a professionnal. He knew I was not a professional and he also knows I do not take credit for his decision to listen to me.
We only got married in June, and everything seemed fine leading up to the wedding and for the past 4 months after. He was upbeat much of the time and rarely expressed anxiety or that he had flashbacks.
Then he started pulling away from me, his energy was gone, his caring was diminished. Our intimate encounters were just as frequent up to about a month ago as he began to talk on the phone a lot with another woman.
I think I made things worse when I told him I didn't like him talking on the phone so much to his pretend sister, who his parents picked out through their church to save from her terrible marriage and sad life. He acted like I was supposed to just stand back while he developed an emotional relationship with another woman, spending a lot of time talking with her (happy for her, surly for me).
Maybe I didn't understand how expressing my upset over the woman affected his PTSD symptoms, but I've never been someone who just allowed others to do her wrong. That is also why it is so hard for me to stay and support him. I want to fulfill my promise to be there for him, but I also cannot take the way he won't look at me and treats me like I'm the enemy.
I may also have depression now. I cry at any hour and feel responsible for the way he treats me worse than a stranger. I've even lost 30 pounds, and while he won't do anything around the house whatsoever, I've had to pickup lots of chores. He treats everyone else like normal but avoids me. He tells me my tears are selfish, but aren't all tears geared toward a personal feeling?
He downgrades the idea that I also might have PTSD from being a news reporter and going to many of the same things he has seen. I've covered homicides, fatal wrecks, fires, drownings, and headline obituaries, delving into the lives of many great people who have suffered tragedy. And where one department might have a slow day, my days would take me to the department which wasn't. I have seen a lot in the last 4 years, and constant.
My job is terribly stressful. But on the positive side, I feel I honor the memory of the people who are victims, even as I talk about their demise. I believe my writing is straight-forward, and while perceived at times as invasive, less damaging to families than some writers might provide.
I know I have trouble "turning off" and being overly vigilant. I used to go driving through the city looking for nothing in particular, thinking falsely that by watching I might somehow stop the terrible things from happening. I would stay up all night listening to the scanner, hoping I wouldn't hear anything. (Which I do not do anymore!)
Was I selfish in not wanting to have him talking about his problems with the "fake" sister?
He has now been seeing a counselor for two weeks. He looks like a ghost, which is just as troubling as the way he won't look at me. I know it's not a dishonesty thing, but I feel like he's trying too hard to hide his feelings from me. He hopes to get back on some medication through a family doctor.
He has verbally expressed a desire for "space" and will not be in the same room with me unless one of us are sleeping. I really miss him calling me, caring about me, and he used to be the one who made me smile.
I'm so hopeful one minute that our love and dreams are not dead and gone, and the next I want to flee and look forward to a life of my own. While giving the space, I'm acutely reminded how independent I used to be and how financially independent I could be.
I hope to make friends here and am willing to chat off forum.
Thank you for reading and I hope to update things with more positive and promising words.
Sincerely,
Terri
I'm here because my husband has PTSD. He has PTSD from being on a volunteer fire department for 17 years and responding to and cleaning the remains from bad wrecks, fires and drownings. It troubles him that many of the people he tried to save didn't make it. Remembering the children who died violently is especially difficult.
He told me he had it 2 years ago when we first started dating, and he took meds but he was not talking with a counselor and not communicating with his family practitioner. So a year and a half ago he went off his meds.
He blames me for that because we talked about it several times and I didn't understand how they helped him then if he was't working through his problems with a professionnal. He knew I was not a professional and he also knows I do not take credit for his decision to listen to me.
We only got married in June, and everything seemed fine leading up to the wedding and for the past 4 months after. He was upbeat much of the time and rarely expressed anxiety or that he had flashbacks.
Then he started pulling away from me, his energy was gone, his caring was diminished. Our intimate encounters were just as frequent up to about a month ago as he began to talk on the phone a lot with another woman.
I think I made things worse when I told him I didn't like him talking on the phone so much to his pretend sister, who his parents picked out through their church to save from her terrible marriage and sad life. He acted like I was supposed to just stand back while he developed an emotional relationship with another woman, spending a lot of time talking with her (happy for her, surly for me).
Maybe I didn't understand how expressing my upset over the woman affected his PTSD symptoms, but I've never been someone who just allowed others to do her wrong. That is also why it is so hard for me to stay and support him. I want to fulfill my promise to be there for him, but I also cannot take the way he won't look at me and treats me like I'm the enemy.
I may also have depression now. I cry at any hour and feel responsible for the way he treats me worse than a stranger. I've even lost 30 pounds, and while he won't do anything around the house whatsoever, I've had to pickup lots of chores. He treats everyone else like normal but avoids me. He tells me my tears are selfish, but aren't all tears geared toward a personal feeling?
He downgrades the idea that I also might have PTSD from being a news reporter and going to many of the same things he has seen. I've covered homicides, fatal wrecks, fires, drownings, and headline obituaries, delving into the lives of many great people who have suffered tragedy. And where one department might have a slow day, my days would take me to the department which wasn't. I have seen a lot in the last 4 years, and constant.
My job is terribly stressful. But on the positive side, I feel I honor the memory of the people who are victims, even as I talk about their demise. I believe my writing is straight-forward, and while perceived at times as invasive, less damaging to families than some writers might provide.
I know I have trouble "turning off" and being overly vigilant. I used to go driving through the city looking for nothing in particular, thinking falsely that by watching I might somehow stop the terrible things from happening. I would stay up all night listening to the scanner, hoping I wouldn't hear anything. (Which I do not do anymore!)
Was I selfish in not wanting to have him talking about his problems with the "fake" sister?
He has now been seeing a counselor for two weeks. He looks like a ghost, which is just as troubling as the way he won't look at me. I know it's not a dishonesty thing, but I feel like he's trying too hard to hide his feelings from me. He hopes to get back on some medication through a family doctor.
He has verbally expressed a desire for "space" and will not be in the same room with me unless one of us are sleeping. I really miss him calling me, caring about me, and he used to be the one who made me smile.
I'm so hopeful one minute that our love and dreams are not dead and gone, and the next I want to flee and look forward to a life of my own. While giving the space, I'm acutely reminded how independent I used to be and how financially independent I could be.
I hope to make friends here and am willing to chat off forum.
Thank you for reading and I hope to update things with more positive and promising words.
Sincerely,
Terri
