General Wanting To Find Some Friends For Support And Friendship!

[sherri ward]

I am so thrilled to have found this forum! Just in the interactions I have had so far I am feeling a lot of support. It is such a relief just knowing I am not alone. Thank you to everyone that has responded so far, I am looking forward to getting to know all of you better!

 

[Pale Warrior]

Oh Sherri,

I went through an almost identical experience in 1999.

My beautiful husband went to work and didn't come back for 4 months and what came back was a broken shadow.

Same time in ITU, 26 hours of surgery in the first 6 days, months in traction, TBI, PTSD, limb salvage (lost 5 joints), over 8 years a further 21 operations. 7 years in a wheelchair, morphine addicted, psychosis, depression, unemployable, amnesiac... phew...

No family worth a damn on either side. Gave up a dream executive job - full time care giver - no respite - went crazy - ended up in therapy.

We are still together, things have improved. I have walked out on him and returned xmas before last.

Jeeze, I so feel for you, it's :poop:. No, acctually it's :poop::cry::poop::mad::poop:.

He does his best and I value that so much, but he will never be the man I married. I want to make it as it was but it will never be the same.

 

[sherri ward]

Daisygirl,
I think that sometimes he does realize what he is doing and sometimes he doesnt. He sometimes is so confused about things that i dont fault him for his behavior because its like it's not really him. Other times he is fully aware of his actions. Very rarely will he apologize for anything though and that gets very frustrating. I am trying to get into the mind set of doing for me but it is hard. I guess this is the first step though.

 

[sherri ward]

Pale Warrior,

I am right there with you, I would give anything to be back where we were before the accident, to have my husband back. I know that will never happen and I think that is what gets to me the most sometimes. I get very depressed sometimes. I try to keep it together for the kids sake but it's hard.

 

[Pale Warrior]

I so get this:

He sometimes is so confused about things that i dont fault him for his behavior because its like it's not really him.

It's horrible for me to admit it but it is "him", the new him. I am 12 years down the line and it still irks me.

Other times he is fully aware of his actions. Very rarely will he apologize for anything though and that gets very frustrating

I put up with this for about 7 years, the no apology business. He would shrug, say nothing and/or leave the room. I had to stand firm on this, manners cost nothing, and we eventually got it sorted. I had to be clear, calm and persistent in reminding him that we both had to say sorry and when ever I apologised for something I pointed it out to him, calmly.

There was a short period when he started to throw sorry at me for things that had nothing to do with him, things outside his control, and I had to repeatedly ask him to stop. I was like a broken record.

But it got better, slowly, very slowly, over a year of repeating myself paid off. Good luck.

I am trying to get into the mind set of doing for me but it is hard

This is a MUST, an absolute marriage saver, you have to get you own life or you will drown in the pool of PTSD & TBI madness. Get your own therapist, get out of the house, work, play, learn, sit in a supermarket car park and listen to the radio, anything, but get your own life and soon. It works.

Oh, and come here and rant!

 

[Eleanor]

We've gone round and round on the apology business too. My H came from an abusive family and previous marriage and "apologies" were worthless currency to him. He didn't want to be "like them" and apologize but then just do the same thing - and since he didn't feel in control enough to guarantee that it wouldn't recur, he just sucked it up. He's much better now, not perfect, but now there are unsolicited apologies and I think he understand how much it means to me - how "just going on" feels to me like just "erasing" my experience (just like my family of origin did).

He was also dead set against buying flowers. I happen to love flowers. It took some time, but I got a perfectly lovely bunch of roses this V-day. So.... Hope!

 

[Tinyflame]

I am sorry we can be so horrendous. :(
(((((Hugs to all))))))

 

[Pale Warrior]

Oh Junebug,

You cannot immagine.

We know not to "blame" our beloveds - that it's the PTSD/TBI - but when day in and day out, for year after year, the simple word "sorry" seems to trigger them, it becomes a trigger for us, for our rage and frustration.

Yet it seems so silly, such a tiny thing.

As I explained to my husband: I carry the caregiver burden willingly and with love, I work to keep the home secure and put bread on the table, I study to improve our future, I wake very night with your screaming, I manage your medical diary and live with your anger - all done with love and respect for your efforts....

...and you can't say sorry when you screw up ???????????? The straw that breaks the camel's back (see my avatar).

PAX

 

[Eleanor]

Well, it's not like I'm miss mary sunshine myself a lot of days!

In my college days I used to get involved in these long discussions that would start out wondering which was worse - racism, or sexism or whatever. They evolved into discussions about not "ranking" oppressions. I think much the same is true here. I REALLY REALLY believe that - at least for those of us who CHOSE people who already have PTSD as partners (as PW and Sherri:( didn't) that we have the "yin" issues to their "yang" version. (See I'm doing what my T tells me and not saying "we are screwed up in opposite but equal ways" :D. Ooops.) So us supporters (at least this variety) are just as "horrendous." The good guys/bad guys story just doesn't apply here.

We are in this together, Junebug.

 

[Eleanor]

PW - it is and it isn't.

I have to remind myself that when he is "in it" it all FEELS real. So, it may be that if your H says sorry for stuff that is not "him" he has to "own" who he is now, and however hard it is for you, perhaps, just perhaps it is harder for him? You, after all, can do something that is effective and "helps." He gets to be (mostly?) a "patient." Which is a virtue because it is HARD to do. Particularly for men. Good ones, in their bones, believe their job in life is to care for US - not vice versa. My FIL married a much younger woman as his last wife, and the plan was that she would outlive him by a far distance - but, alas, she got cancer and passed first. It killed him. He might well have gone on for more years - but within two years... He was gone too. My grandfather was the same, gone within a year. This is not so unusual. He is fighting deep stuff here.

None of which is to excuse the omission, or to minimize your anguish at the absence. I get it. I really really really do. I have (do!) cry those frustrated angry tears. I WANT him to apologize, grovel even (just a little). I need the acknowledgement. AND I am coming to understand just how much it costs him to do so. And he is coming (slowly, since it comes with a load of guilt) to see how much it means to me to get one. Sigh. It is not an easy road.

An aside: An apology story.

When I was in grad school I got the best apology ever from my best friend Josh. I can't recall what he'd done, but it was bad and I was ANGRY. I was in the copy room, and there were slick tile floors in the hall and copy room, he called my name from the hall, and then slid in on his knees, hands folded, head down, and said "please, please, forgive me." What could I do? I cracked up, and instantly forgave him (and have forgotten what it was all about.) I suspect this will stand as the best apology ever in my life. And I guess I'm good with that.

PTSD just objectively sucks. It just does.

 

[ProudWife99]

So us supporters (at least this variety) are just as "horrendous." The good guys/bad guys story just doesn't apply here.

We are in this together, Junebug.

I could not agree with this more! I think back on some of the things I said and did when A first came home from Iraq. He was sent home early due to suicidal thoughts and this caused me to miss my finals in my last semester of my undergrad. This caused me to lose my internship I had worked so hard to earn. I was livid, to say the least. Once he was "stable" I was so angry that I could barely stand to look at him. I wouldn't even let him move back into the apartment I was so upset, and hurt, and broken.

Now I look back on those days and feel so much guilt. He reached out for help, which took a strength I'm not sure I even posses. And after the initial shock of him being home wore off, he got no compassion from he. He had to live in the barracks! =(

For all of the things PTSD has "done" to me, I've made more than my fair share of mistakes. I still feel like crap about most of them.

 

[Pale Warrior]

{PW does the Happy Dance}

I am just bowled over, blown away, my gob is smacked....

I can spend an hour here discussing the ins and outs of this stuf, getting perspectives and sharing my own - ther is nowhere else on the panet I can do this without getting the "there there" or "it'll be alright" resposes.

And yes, I understand why others can't discuss on this level, but wowsa folks - I love this place!

You are all amazing, we are all amazing.

I am going to get a coffee and do some more happy dancing, xxxxx