I am a sufferer of PTSD and female. I can relate to you totally, which is sort of odd, because you're the supporter. Makes me wonder if PTSD living someplace on the radar on a long-term, committed relationship just makes one fear the inevitable separation of mortality even more.
If we stay together long enough, one of us is likely to go before the other. So, I do actively suppress the anxiety of what would happen inside of me when the only person I trust on the planet were taken from me,especially without warning. When he's on his way home, and I hear sirens, I have to cope with the panic that he could have been in a terrible car accident. I think it every time for a moment, and feel this terrible sinking feeling, before I shake it off and go about my business.
I simply don't know how I would handle it, and I don't know if I would want to handle it, which makes it all worse. I am maybe passively suicidal my whole life. I sometimes can't move out of the way of a speeding car heading at me, because, in a way, I want to die and have my suffering end, no matter how much I love my husband and kids. The pain of being alive for someone who has had PTSD for decades with a prognosis of it staying and life getting more and more limited is not a good feeling. But I have never been actively suicidal, except one day.
I made a deal with God, literally. I said, I'm going to die now because I am not okay with this, and if you promise that life is worth living and you will make it worth all this pain, then you have to give me a big sign loud and clear that is so shocking that it will stop me in my tracks. I took the supplies I needed and was prepared to go into the mountains and use them.
I decided on the way to the place I picked to make one stop to perhaps give my boyfriend, now husband, a minor opportunity to see me. If he was too busy, as he was on most days, to say "Hi," then I'd just go without telling him anything.
On this day, I assumed that would happen, and that my stopping by to say "Hi," after they found my car and maybe body, would be interpreted as "goodbye" and hopefully, "I did love you." (I was young and selfish and never stopped to think that if this occurred he'd be messed up for life or afraid to say "Hey, I'm busy" to anyone again for fear they would go kill themselves as a result.)
He ran out to say Hi and ran back inside to work, so I prepared myself to make a getaway and leave, but he came right back out holding a small box and, in a parking lot on a gray day, on a loud street and a flattened cardboard box, with a look of deep empathy and hope, he asked me if I would marry him. I remember saying I would love to marry him and hugging him with tears in my eyes for several reasons, if he would have me in the state I was in but that we really needed to talk.
He had to work, but he met me at a coffee shop and we talked about my depressed state. He lifted me up and gave me a reason to think outside of my own bleak world. I began to think of him, of the poor sap who had the misfortune to fall for a mess like me.
He saved my life back then, and probably so many times since, by just being a wonderful person. He admitted later on that he had just picked up the ring that morning and had wanted to wait and plan something romantic. But we are so in tune that he had this strong impulse to pop the question immediately the next moment he saw me.
If you knew him like I do, you'd know that this is NOT like him. He is very good at keeping secrets and holding onto surprises for months until the best moment or the holiday or whatever.
Even though this event and experience should make me trust life a bit, it can't undo the trauma, which makes the future and present a state of fear. But, when my husband is around, I always have the feeling I want to stick around just to hang out with him and help him in life, and be with a friend.
I guess, in a way, he's the only reason I'm here. So, hell yeah, I think if he died, I would probably die, too.
If we stay together long enough, one of us is likely to go before the other. So, I do actively suppress the anxiety of what would happen inside of me when the only person I trust on the planet were taken from me,especially without warning. When he's on his way home, and I hear sirens, I have to cope with the panic that he could have been in a terrible car accident. I think it every time for a moment, and feel this terrible sinking feeling, before I shake it off and go about my business.
I simply don't know how I would handle it, and I don't know if I would want to handle it, which makes it all worse. I am maybe passively suicidal my whole life. I sometimes can't move out of the way of a speeding car heading at me, because, in a way, I want to die and have my suffering end, no matter how much I love my husband and kids. The pain of being alive for someone who has had PTSD for decades with a prognosis of it staying and life getting more and more limited is not a good feeling. But I have never been actively suicidal, except one day.
I made a deal with God, literally. I said, I'm going to die now because I am not okay with this, and if you promise that life is worth living and you will make it worth all this pain, then you have to give me a big sign loud and clear that is so shocking that it will stop me in my tracks. I took the supplies I needed and was prepared to go into the mountains and use them.
I decided on the way to the place I picked to make one stop to perhaps give my boyfriend, now husband, a minor opportunity to see me. If he was too busy, as he was on most days, to say "Hi," then I'd just go without telling him anything.
On this day, I assumed that would happen, and that my stopping by to say "Hi," after they found my car and maybe body, would be interpreted as "goodbye" and hopefully, "I did love you." (I was young and selfish and never stopped to think that if this occurred he'd be messed up for life or afraid to say "Hey, I'm busy" to anyone again for fear they would go kill themselves as a result.)
He ran out to say Hi and ran back inside to work, so I prepared myself to make a getaway and leave, but he came right back out holding a small box and, in a parking lot on a gray day, on a loud street and a flattened cardboard box, with a look of deep empathy and hope, he asked me if I would marry him. I remember saying I would love to marry him and hugging him with tears in my eyes for several reasons, if he would have me in the state I was in but that we really needed to talk.
He had to work, but he met me at a coffee shop and we talked about my depressed state. He lifted me up and gave me a reason to think outside of my own bleak world. I began to think of him, of the poor sap who had the misfortune to fall for a mess like me.
He saved my life back then, and probably so many times since, by just being a wonderful person. He admitted later on that he had just picked up the ring that morning and had wanted to wait and plan something romantic. But we are so in tune that he had this strong impulse to pop the question immediately the next moment he saw me.
If you knew him like I do, you'd know that this is NOT like him. He is very good at keeping secrets and holding onto surprises for months until the best moment or the holiday or whatever.
Even though this event and experience should make me trust life a bit, it can't undo the trauma, which makes the future and present a state of fear. But, when my husband is around, I always have the feeling I want to stick around just to hang out with him and help him in life, and be with a friend.
I guess, in a way, he's the only reason I'm here. So, hell yeah, I think if he died, I would probably die, too.
