Supporter Doesn't Want To Talk About The Hard Things

[PositiveSoul]

Hi everyone! I'm new to forums, I felt like it would be a good way of receiving some non-bias advice from people that may be in my situation or have been in my situation.

Firstly, thank you for sharing your story @shiraz...(PTSD Is Destroying My Relationship). It's not nice to hear you're going through that but also confirms that I'm not just making a big deal out of nothing. I could of written your list nearly word for word...it's incredible. How are you doing now?

In a nut shell, I've just arrived back from the US...I spent 3 weeks at a criminal trial as a key witness. Previous to that I was a victim of sex trafficking from 2011-2012. The trial has since finished and the perpetrator was convicted to 27 years. After escaping in 2012, it took 1.5 years working with authorities to arrest the man responsible. I was on a high for a year once I escaped and got back to my family but for the last 1.5 my mental and physical state has gone down hill. I like to think that I'm a mentally strong person but no matter how hard I try to deal with the PTSD, I cannot seem to shake the symptoms it brings on. At the moment my main issue, and the reason I came to the forum, is because I have a very supportive boyfriend yet he still doesn't quite understand what I'm going through...nor does he really want to talk about it.

He is Italian and I'm Aussie....so we already have a cultural, language barrier. After all the episodes I've had over the last 1.5 years with him, it's like he's lost respect for me and doesn't take anything I say seriously. I totally get that but I constantly feel like we're in a power struggle and he knows I'm not confident with myself and I don't know who I really am. He hasn't said this (an issue I have...assuming I can read his mind) but he's actions tell me a lot. I just want to restart the relationship and have suggested having a break but he doesn't want to and sees that there is nothing wrong. The main problem I have right now is that I cannot communicate with my boyfriend about this and I need to be able to...I don't want to break up with him because he is so incredibly supportive. It's just I don't think he knows how to process it all. He's a light hearted, fun loving guy that doesn't know what the word 'depression' or 'anxiety' means. I've had to start taking an SSRI as my PTSD is affecting my work, my relationships and my health...I'm also seeing a pschologist and I can't even talk to him about that because he looks at me like I'm weak and asks me why I have to do that?

If anyone has any advice, I would be very grateful.

 

[Purplemunchkin]

Hi, I'm a supporter and not a sufferer.

I don't really understand what my husband is going through, and to be honest, I hope I never do. He has not gone into detail about what caused his PTSD (I know it was various traumas through his career as a police officer, including one major event, but I don't know the nitty gritty). And again, I don't really want/need to know.

This is a man I love. I will support him as best I can, and am very protective of him. But I don't think I could handle the full 'truth' behind his PTSD and what he has seen/experienced.

To me, this is what he should discuss in therapy and, if you don't feel able to talk to your psychologist about it, then maybe you need to find a different one as their primary job is to help you.

You mention that you feel as though your boyfriend has lost respect for you, and doesn't take you seriously. Is that just in relation to the PTSD, or for everything, as you also mention that he is very supportive.

Does he understand PTSD? This forum has done wonders in helping me to understand how to relate to my husband, and how to cope when things don't seem to be going so well. Maybe he doesn't really 'get' that it's a mental illness and some education would help with that?

Good luck x

 

[Kintsugi]

My partner does not want to hear about my abuse. I used to think it digusted him. I think it does, but I don't think he is disgusted by me. Hearing anything about it really upsets him. But frankly, he had to know, so in the first two years or so of our relationship, I did talk about it. Not all the time. But I had a lot of episodes. I was triggered a lot. I was grieving all the time. I couldn't stop talking about it sometimes, because I was just so sad, I was in mourning, I just wanted to say why I was acting so crazy.

He basically said one day, enough is enough. He didn't want to hear about it again. But at that point, he had heard all he needed to hear to understand what I was not simply fondled as a child (what my parents believed, told themselves, for years). That was important to me. He had to know enough. I needed to feel some sense of validation. I needed him to know it was horrible. I needed him to know enough to understand why I was so insane sometimes.

He would not have begun dating me if he had concluded when we began seeing each other that I was BPD. That's him. He concluded I was not BPD, the courtship continued (I didn't know all of this). He found out I guess a couple months before we were in a committed relationship that it was PTSD and went ahead anyway.

On my end, I could not be in a serious relationship with someone who did not know I had PTSD and who did not know at least the essentials, if you will, of my trauma. My trauma is sexual in nature, and it is important for my partner to understand enough to be a source of suppport when things get out of hand. Sometimes his version of supporting me is leaving me alone, and that's just fine with me. But he had to know. He had to know enough.

Now I don't talk about it with him. The last time I tried, I guess a month ago, he got upset with me. We moved on. I come here instead. He doesn't trash talk the forum, even though I know it bothers him when I am active here, because it is sort of a way to calibrate that my crazy is getting worse.

However, my partner is also bipolar, and he has been hospitalized multiple times (I have never been hospitalized), so his perspective may be somewhat richer.

I also got treatment early in my life, and PTSD has been life long for me. It has always been part of my identity.

But I still could never be with someone if they didn't know at least enough about my trauma to take it seriously. Very seriously.

I can very much empathize with the whole medication thing. B quit taking medication in the summer of 2010. Since then, he has started referring to psychiatric drugs as a sign of weakness. I really hate that. I have tried to tell him to knock it the hell off. He basically told his sister that she doesn't need to take drugs to feel better, that she can do it alone if she were only disciplined. I knew B when he was on meds. He really, really needed them. I pulled his sister aside one night and told her that I loved her brother, but what he was saying was complete and utter bullshit, and I told her to never, ever feel bad or weak for taking medication in her journey to be a better, more functional person.

Sorry that was so long. This thread hit very close to home for me. I hope you can find the support and understanding you deserve, here and elsewhere.