Relationship You Don't Know Me At All

[Echo]

@Chris516 - it is not acceptable for someone to speak to you like that, PTSD or not. She is either very angry with you and not voicing it properly, or she doesn't want you in her life, and again is not voicing it properly. You don't deserve to be anyone's punchbag; none of us do. I would definitely suggest you tell her, if you want to stick around, that you are there for here and want to support her, but you will not be abused in the process. If she wants you around, she will do something about it. If she doesn't then that is another story. This will do nothing for your self-esteem. PTSD does not give us a licence to abuse people, and many of us sufferers do not do so, and have never done so.

 

[Justmehere]

I agree with Echo. Letting her be a jerk to you is not good for her sake or yours. You are enabling her. You deserve to be treated better. She sounds very angry and either she needs to constructively work through the conflict or tell you clearly her boundaries but not be a jerk to you. This should not be "par for the course" - she is being abusive. PTSD is never ever an excuse to be a jerk and you should not use it as a reason to put up with it because it's just how she pushes people away.... I agree with Echo - be clear she needs to not be abusive even if she disagrees or is upset with you. There are more healthy ways to ask for space. It's important for both of you to not enable her being abusive. It's not your fault at all either.

 

[Never Give Up]

(supporter here) - I am experiencing the same thing at this time. No matter what kind of interaction I have, it is always a negative response. Being a supporter is not being a pin-cushion to anger. Can someone please let me know if anger is part of the healing process. I am so new to this and I am trying to grasp what is happening with my wife. I am starting to find I am getting symptoms of my own. Anxiety and lack of sleep is starting to take it's toll.

 

[Echo]

@Never Give Up - anger can come from various things. It can be part of the natural run of grieving; it can mask deep fear; and it can be a response to having been abused, as our true sense of self reasserts itself to say, "That was wrong. How dare you (abuser) have treated me like that?" However, in none of those cases is it acceptable to discharge that anger at other people. That's why we go into therapy, in part, to learn healthy ways of dealing with our symptoms. Ok, everyone gets angry at times and we can apologise, not repeat it and move on with forgiveness. But, if, as supporters, we accept it without challenging it, we are tacitly saying to the angry person, "I agree I deserve to be spoken to like that; I agree you have the right to be angry with me, to never apologise and to continue to abuse me." And the problem with that, is the angry person never takes responsibility and the supporter starts to believe deep down they deserve the abuse. This is how patterns of abuse are perpetuated.

 

[Never Give Up]

Wow "echo" I think I have been carrying around some of the blame that my wife has thrown at me. She is upset with me because I found a lump in her breast 4 months earlier than the doctors did. I went back to the location where I thought I felt the lump and could not find it. Life went on and I know we call have bumps and lumps on our bodies. I am getting blamed for taking 4 months of her life away from her. She has not taken any accountability for her own actions (self body checks). I would never blame anyone for my cancer, illnesses and other things that can happen to all of us.

Thank You for breaking this down for me.

 

[Echo]

@Never Give Up - I am glad that helped. As a woman, I have gone straight to the doctors if there was any suggestion of there being a lump. I know because I have done exactly that. In my case, I was lucky. It was benign. Your wife is really angry at herself for not acting sooner, but she is blaming you. I am so sorry about that.

 

[Never Give Up]

@Echo - How can anyone live in the past and use it to live in the present. I have been going to a counselor and they told me that "we" have no right to blame someone for the past if you have forgiven them for it. I was assaulted from my wife this weekend (a bowl thrown and me) and I had forgiven her for it. I will not use that situation to manipulate our situation. It is just hard to adapt to such an unusual condition.

 

[Echo]

@Never Give Up - I don't really understand what you are saying here. I'm sorry. I think maybe you are trying to link this particular behaviour we mentioned before to PTSD. Sorry if I have got that wrong. I have got CPTSD. I don't blame anyone except my abusers (and unfortunately and unjustifiably, I know, myself) for the abuse I received. When I am triggered, the fear I felt then affects the present, and I can't tell them apart, but I am not permanently in a state of flashback. It is not a choice though; I can't help that confusion - none of us can. Trauma memories are stored in a different part of the brain from other memories, and they are understood by the brain as being part of the present. We do trauma work in therapy to process those memories so that they get stored as normal memories are.

If you were your wife's original abuser, then I could see she would find it hard to deal with you when she has PTSD. But I presume (from what you say), you were not. Maybe some of your behaviour (maybe innocent) triggers her, but I imagine you and she have worked out what those triggers are and try to avoid them.

Despite all that, discovering a lump in someone's breast is not abuse, so I don't see how it is something to be forgiven. I understand it would make your wife very scared; of course it would. And I can understand that some people freeze and don't act (go to the doctors) because they are overwhelmed when they have PTSD. But it still doesn't make it your fault.

Maybe there is part of this that I am missing? Maybe the problem lies elsewhere. A good trauma therapist would help you to sort this all out.

 

[Never Give Up]

@Echo - I think you just nailed it. I am on the same page with what you are describing. I agree and understand your post.

 

[Chris516]

Echo, I agree with you about, how she treats me at times. Yes I have wanted to challenge her. But from what I have read on PTSD, challenging in the moment, is not exactly advantageous. Echo, I am glad your scare was benign.


Justme, It is almost like(sometimes it feels like it), that I have to be the one to set the boundaries. Because she won't. Even with her threats of cutting off communication, she doesn't stick to it. I think because she is a 'people pleaser'. Thank you. I know her behavior is not my fault.

Never, I agree, I am not a 'pin-cushion' for whatever is making her upset at a given time. I too wonder if anger is part of the healing process. I have had bad sleep since I was a teen thirty years ago. My (ex)fiance blamed me for a lot of her 'issues'. I don't blame anyone for my congenital health issues. Your wife sounds like my(ex)fiance. She didn't throw things at me. But she 'diagnosed' me with two physical(and eleven mental/behavioral) issues. Until I put my foot down, and told her I don't have any of the things she said I did. I wasn't in denial about my own health. It was her way(I think), of taking her anger out at her step-father for abusing her.

 

[Chris516]

I did a search on Google, and found a thread posted on My PTSD from 2011. I grant you they are not mental health professionals, but ordinary people like you n' me.

https://www.myptsd.com/threads/anger-why-is-it-so-prominent-in-ptsd.16238/

Good discussion about PTSD and anger.

 

[Justmehere]

That is an interesting thread you linked to. This one might be helpful too in helping to understand why anger is common. It is a defensive response, along with flight, freeze (dissociation), and fawn (co- dependency). https://www.myptsd.com/threads/figh...tions-to-trauma-inflicted-in-childhood.10484/

Your friend is using these defenses... And is abusing you and ignoring the real issues. It is sometimes true that hurt people hurt people...

PTSD and anger are linked. It does not make it ok. Depression and suicide are linked. Depression doesn't make suicide ok... It is helps explain the behavior, and it helps explain why boundaries against abuse and suicide are all the more important for recovery and for survival of a relationship while someone battles PTSD and/or depression. (The depression thing just being an example)

I want to tell you about one of the most healing and best things anyone has said to me was, "I want to talk to you, but you can not scream at me. I'm not going to talk to you until you are calmer and can tell me what is making you mad in a calm manner."

My friend wanted to hear me and also cared enough to not let me be an abusive jerk to her.

My anger comes from trauma and my friend did something that triggered PTSD related anger... but it was not going to help me heal from the trauma to let herself be victimized by me by stating in communication with me while I was still actively being abusive to her.

I am still friends with her and I am so thankful for what she did. It helped me have hope. She thought I could calm down and talk it through when all I saw and felt was rage. She did not outright challenge what I was angry about in the moment, and she was smart not too! Just like you. I was trying to push her away in a terrible way, but she didn't abandon me, just like you with your friend.

That kind of anger isn't of a logical rational place where I'm using all of my executive functioning. She also didn't abandon me. But in the moment she held a clear and bright boundary. She told me she would talk to me later when I was calmer. She hung up. I was furious when she did... and mostly scared. I immediately emailed her and said we would not be friends... really I was thinking I had really screwed up this time and she was going to reject me. She emailed back asking me to think through my decision and if that's what I wanted, she would respect it. She knew I had PTSD and knew my anger was related to it. She wouldn't let me scream at her but she wanted to be friends and work through what she had done. She was humble too. She wrote that she probably did make a mistake and wanted me to tell her what I had done to make me want to push her away.

I did eventually calm down and apologized and took responsibility... She forgave me and we worked through what made me angry to begin with. We became even better and closer friends.

Few people have the capacity to do what my friend did for me... but I tell you this to try to show you, someone having PTSD is cause to have even more clear boundaries, not to allow them to be jerks because anger is linked to trauma.

I know you care about her... if you can risk telling her no, I won't let you be abusive because it does not serve you or me, you will be helping her! She may push you away more... But the most amazing friends are the kind who are willing to hold boundaries and not allow abusive behavior while not abandoning the person (if this is possible, and it's not alway possible or a good idea. Sometimes the abuse invades boundaries and that should mean an end to the relationship.)

I still struggle with anger but have made a lot of progress since then. I don't scream at or be a jerk to my friends anymore. Instead, I'm now sometimes screaming in my car alone, about the actual trauma and working through it, while building healthy relationships.