I'm a supporter and can probably give a lot of input here despite that fact that I'm going through my own tests yet again with my partner away from me.
There are two distinct and seperate issues involved in this discussion - children living with a parent/parental figure who has unmanaged PTSD and is therefore physically, emotionally, verbally, financially or sexually abusive, and children living with a parent/parental figure who is managing their PTSD the best they can and who is very clear on the boundaries of a relationship.
No matter what age the children - whether toddlers or teenagers or in their early twenties - they WILL be affected by what is happening around their environment. And supporters - this part is important - the ultimate responsibility for excluding unhealthy relationship behaviours lies with YOU. Tough call ? Trust me, I know. I've been there - and struggle with it daily. My journey right now is tough. But it's worse because I wasn't tough enough on MYSELF two years ago. And I was selfishly blind to the effects of my children. I allowed ptsd to be an excuse for his destructive behaviours towards me. I ENABLED. And guess what? To stop enabling means you need to start working on YOU. And in that sense, many of us supporters have to face our own denial.
Ironically I spent 6 months on a project about domestic violence. The job started at a time my partner has been what I call "in recovery" for about 12 months. Prior to that time he had displayed aggressive behaviours,blamed me and the childrens' behaviours for his outbursts, found "friends" who exacerbated his beliefs that I was the one to blame for the seperation and so on. A 3 month seperation, EMDR, individual counselling for both of us and discussions on boundaries in our relationship, led to a blissful 12 months. But he still did not want to see the link between his work and his triggers. And so over the last few months, the roller coaster of emotions started again, and inevitably the short fuse came with it. MY change of behaviour and his learning by working on parts of this project together caused a change in him this time. He left before his anger became uncontrollable.
Now I'm not saying this has made my life any easier but what it HAS done is taken away the often used "excuse" that the relationship is the problem. I'm not sitting here as I did 18 months ago trying to work out what I could have changed, what I might have done differently to make him happy and so on. He has space in his overflowing brain to think about what really DID cause this episode. He may or may not "wake up" to the truth. Either way, I'm not being hurt. And my children are observing a new and confident mum who has compassion and understanding whilst keeping herself safe.
I'll do a seperate post at some stage about the effects on children, and the importance for us unaffected by ptsd to get "real" with ourselves. Between my partner and I we have 3 children. Old enough now to talk about what did happen, what's happening now and what may or may not happen in the future. This time it's MY turn to change. I have choices. So does the sufferer. Both parties need to take responsibility for change. And fair or not - it's the supporters whose stress cup has more space to sort some of this stuff out rationally.
