StrongHeart
Silver Member
My boyfriend is a combat vet; both Gulf Wars. He has told me bits and pieces but what I know is pretty grisly. He has been diagnosed with c-ptsd. He is working through the VA to get help, and he's only been home just under a year. We've been dating 7 months.
Let me say first that I really love this man. I am divorced myself, and neither of us are very young. We have had wonderful times, so much fun, and we share many many common interests. The best thing we share is our sense of humor and excitement over going new places and trying new things. If it weren't for the PTSD, this would be almost too good to be true.
That's the catch - the PTSD. Because there are times that he gets very irritable and paranoid. It is mainly when he doesn't get enough sleep or when there is an anniversary, and because he was in for 2 wars, there are many of them. He works a night shift, and long hours, so sleep is often an issue. We mostly only see each other on weekends because of our work schedules. When he gets into an episode, it takes very little to set him off, and then it escalates quickly into pretty awful accusations and name calling. The last time, he took himself to the VA hospital because he knew he was out of control, but before that he said some horrible things to me, including calling me a "user" and "self-centered bitch", and he seems to bring up all sorts of unrelated random things. Just raging at me. It's shocking. I'm not dependent on him or using him in any way. But as awful as I feel afterwards, he feels just as bad if not worse. It doesn't seem like there's anything I can say or do once he gets into this rage. It seems to be this pattern that has come up, where we disagree on something small, he blows it out of proportion, and before you know it, he's raging at me.
He says he is committed to getting help, and is now seeing a therapist. Unfortunately, it sounds like he has to relive everything before he can start dealing with it, and he is likely to be off-kilter before things get better. That is how he has described it to me. He is very good at explaining things, and he says that he doesn't even know where the things come from that he says. He says that he doesn't mean those things, that it comes out as automatic as loading a weapon during a firefight. He has asked that I give him time to heal, that I not give up on him, and he is working through all of this. But my question is, how can I act like the words he says to me were not said? What do I do? How do I forgive him, or do I?
Let me say first that I really love this man. I am divorced myself, and neither of us are very young. We have had wonderful times, so much fun, and we share many many common interests. The best thing we share is our sense of humor and excitement over going new places and trying new things. If it weren't for the PTSD, this would be almost too good to be true.
That's the catch - the PTSD. Because there are times that he gets very irritable and paranoid. It is mainly when he doesn't get enough sleep or when there is an anniversary, and because he was in for 2 wars, there are many of them. He works a night shift, and long hours, so sleep is often an issue. We mostly only see each other on weekends because of our work schedules. When he gets into an episode, it takes very little to set him off, and then it escalates quickly into pretty awful accusations and name calling. The last time, he took himself to the VA hospital because he knew he was out of control, but before that he said some horrible things to me, including calling me a "user" and "self-centered bitch", and he seems to bring up all sorts of unrelated random things. Just raging at me. It's shocking. I'm not dependent on him or using him in any way. But as awful as I feel afterwards, he feels just as bad if not worse. It doesn't seem like there's anything I can say or do once he gets into this rage. It seems to be this pattern that has come up, where we disagree on something small, he blows it out of proportion, and before you know it, he's raging at me.
He says he is committed to getting help, and is now seeing a therapist. Unfortunately, it sounds like he has to relive everything before he can start dealing with it, and he is likely to be off-kilter before things get better. That is how he has described it to me. He is very good at explaining things, and he says that he doesn't even know where the things come from that he says. He says that he doesn't mean those things, that it comes out as automatic as loading a weapon during a firefight. He has asked that I give him time to heal, that I not give up on him, and he is working through all of this. But my question is, how can I act like the words he says to me were not said? What do I do? How do I forgive him, or do I?
