General Spouse's 5:00pm Symptoms - PTSD Physically Wears Them Out

[LaVonne]

I am wondering if anyone has seen this behavior with their spouse: My husband becomes very exhausted by 1:00 from dealing with his life's stresses. After lunch, he takes an hour or hour and a half nap. He gets up and forces himself to stay up by doing chores around the house. By 5:00, he is tottering on his feet, looking at me with a dazed look and definitly will not remember anything we have talked about around this time. He goes to bed. Then, in the morning, he is my old lovely husband again until after lunch when everything starts going down hill again.
He did this before he was put on meds. Now, at 5:00, he takes his pills and crashes until around 4 in the morning. No problems with flashbacks. Before, he would crash and sleep like the dead until 12:00. Then he would be tormented by flashbacks. What do you think?:dontknow:

 

[Jen]

Hi Lavonne my husband would still be in bed at lunchtime would get up have something to eat then be asleep in front of the tv all afternoon. We bought a small business he HAS to get out of bed but recently it seems to be getting difficult again for him to wake up. He will get up in the middle of the night he doesnt go to bed till after midnight and stand at the fridge eating chocolate he cant remember doing this.
Jen

 

[anthony]

Most of this is actually categorized as depression. Whilst medication is wonderful for some things, it doesn't directly stop the majority of symptoms for depression. Whilst this may sound strange, you actually need to force them up and out of bed, make them have a shower, have a coffee if they do that as part of their day, then make them go for a 5, 10 or 20 minute walk or exercise. Make them do more exercise in the afternoon if needed, even though they feel tired, it will actually reignite the bodies natural defences and efficiency to continue on again. Depression is the cause of what your seeing primarily.

 

[LaVonne]

Refreshing

It is so reassuring to know that he is not the only one who does this. I could not mention this behavior to any of my acquaintances without them looking at me as if I were nuts.
This behavior is frightening to watch. However, I will try to get coffee into him after his nap today and see if he will go out for a bit of a walk. Then he can work in the house if he wants. We will see if he is a bit better this evening.
Thanks to both of you.

 

[Deleted member 3]

LaVonne,

Anthony used to do his own version of this, though not so much anymore. Some of it I imagine is just the simple fact that their bodies are plain worn out. It takes a lot of nervous energy to have PTSD, with your mind always going and your body at a heightened sense of arousal. Kind of like running a half marathon each morning!! Sleep is often the best thing for them, in my opinion it is right up there with exercise, eating right and taking medication if you need it. The other thing is the medication might help him sleep free of nightmares but it is still medicated sleep. I find if Anthony is having a bad day, if I can I let him sleep in or try and work it so he can have an afternoon sleep. Like I said, he doesn't do this so much anymore but used to when he first started dealing with his stuff. Sometimes, I would come home from work and he would be so physically sick and drained that I used to send him for a shower and then straight to bed. So you can see, it is not just your husband.

I agree with Anthony's thoughts on 'forcing someone up'. I have had to do this to Anthony before. I have made him get out of bed, have a shower, shave, eat and go for walk. Sounds like you are mothering them but I prefer to think of it as caring for them......as long as it is not too full on. Anthony used to let me know clearly if he just wasn't up for it and I would let it go but usually a little coaxing worked wonders. They might be grumpy but they will feel better for it and routine helps. I found with Anthony in the early stages that even a slight change to his routine would mess his day or a week up. It is not so bad now but I am careful to give him advanced warnings of events or things that he will have to do during the day. He will tell you differently but in reality he does not do surprises well!!