I hope you change your mind and come back
@ShanaK... this is a good place to get support for yourself from other people in your shoes. I love my combat PTSD sufferer very much also, even though the relationship can be challenging to say the least.
Just take what you will from here, and leave the rest. You know your situation and heart, and we don't.
It is kind of interesting looking at how the people in this thread commented on feelings... just the sufferer view versus the supporter view. I'm probably pulling this straight out of my ass, but it's just an observation. We as supporters want to discuss feelings. We think of that as a positive thing. Love, loyalty, closeness, honesty... opening up, working on the relationship, strengthening the bond, what have you. The sufferers (in the terminology of the forum) seem to see feelings in an entirely different light... a source of misery, trauma, stress from therapy or opening up to somebody, vulnerability. Weakening instead of strengthening. No wonder it's rough working through all of the feelings stuff in a PTSD relationship.
My vet also told me something that makes some sense here. He said to imagine thinking about fluffy bunnies. You cannot get fluffy bunnies out of your head. You think about them 24/7/365. Bunnies when you eat, bunnies when you sleep, when you make love, take a shower... bunnies invade your mind. Pretty soon you cant enjoy anything because everything just turns into bunnies. You don't want to think about them, and you try and try to stop it, but you can't. Pretty soon your whole life is bunnies, and you hate it. Nothing is positive because of those f*cking bunnies. Now replace bunnies with combat/death/trauma. Using that analogy, I can see how any type of feeling, even love or closeness, can be rolled up with trauma associations for a PTSD sufferer.
Just a side note... I'm not talking about anybody in particular or trying to play armchair shrink. Just observing.
