I follow this woman on facebook. I don't know her, but she is a PTSD wife. Her husband is a combat veteran who suffers from PTSD (I will no longer be calling it PTSD. They are trying to get it changed to PTS because Post Traumatic Stress is not a disorder). She decided to start a page where she can vent HER frustration with his illness, with her struggles dealing with the military and how it all affects her. She is a straight shooter, no sugar coating and is so popular that people, spouses and veterans, send in messages to her. They are questions or rants about Post Traumatic Stress. She then posts them on her page for people to read and comment on. People give advice or say they have the same problem. As I read these questions, I find myself wishing Facebook would have existed 10 or more years ago.
As I learn more about PTS, I find myself not only wanting to help the person who has it, but also the families. The person who has Post Traumatic Stress is not the only one who suffers. It is also the family who bears the burden of it. Spouse, children, parents, siblings, etc. They have to face the cold hard fact that the person after Post Traumatic Stress is not even close to being the same person before and will never be again. They are forever changed. That doesn't mean they can't get help and learn the tools to deal with it, but they will never be the same.
The first time I realized there was something going on with Tom was 4th of July 1998. We were at the lake and some kids had firecrackers. They were the kind that whistled and then popped. We were walking along the beach of the lake when some kids set some of those off. Next thing I knew Tom was on the ground with his arms over his head. When he realized what was going on, he was so embarrassed, he wanted out of that area immediately.
He coped pretty well most of the time. Sept 11, 2001 was the beginning of his serious struggles with his PTS. I found out that is normal. A person can live and cope with it well for a long time and then something will happen to trigger it and then the symptoms will start to show. It isn't always immediate. He wanted back in the National Guard and they wouldn't take him due to an injury and started him on his downward spiral. It was slow at first. A lot of nightmares. He would go back and forth between not being able to sleep at all and sleeping all the time and me not being able to get him out of bed. He would get so mad about the smallest stuff. He got so mad at my sister one time because she just got a new car and she wouldn't let him drive it right away. He was furious! One of our worse fights was over who was going to order pizza for dinner. He completely lost it. These fights would come out of no where and would blindside me. They were rare at first, then they came more often. He started taking antidepressants to deal with the depression that goes along with PTS. They seemed to work really well at first, but as time went on it became apparent they weren't really working.
He started drinking again, pretty heavily at times. About 8 months before he died, he came home completely trashed. Thankfully he walked home from the bar and didn't drive. All he kept saying was, "You are going to leave me, I know you are going to leave me." He started smoking again too. He had been smoke free for 6 years. I didn't know how to handle the anger, depression, drinking, one minute so on top of the world and completely in love with me and the next minute he hated my guts and was screaming at me. Sometimes I was so scared, I didn't know what was going to happen. I was in desperation mode. I would do anything to make him happy. I offered to quit my job so we could move back to our hometown where he really wanted to be. I was willing to go back to being a stay at home mom because he really liked it when I stayed home. One time I was so desperate to help and yet so helpless, that I called his psychiatrist. That doctor then in turn told Tom that I had called. Tom was furious with me and then stopped going to the see him.
The military is finally starting to realize there is a huge problem amongst their vets. All these decades and wars later, they are realizing that telling these veterans to pretend there is nothing wrong and move on with their lives isn't working. They need help with coping and help transitioning back into everyday life. The suicide rate in the military is on the rise. 17 inactive army in the month of July took their own lives. I was watching a video recently of a group of men that were in the same company. The video followed their lives after service in the war. One of them lived here in Phx. He killed his wife and is now in prison. This was a man that never would have done anything like that before PTS. Another one killed himself. One was a drug addict. Another one couldn't find a job and was struggling to stay afloat. Another one was in and out of treatment because his PTS was so bad he had a hard time functioning. He was slowly getting better and starting school.
The military is also starting to realize families need help coping just as much. The VA has started offering training to family members on how to deal with their veteran who has PTS. They also offer counseling for the family members and now there are facebook pages like the one I mentioned that is like an online support group.
Tom was an amazing man. He was good, kind and would give anyone anything that they needed. He just happened to have Post Traumatic Stress in a time where they still weren't sure how to deal with it. I have had confirmation that the hell we went through in the end was the PTS. It wasn't me and it wasn't him. It was PTS and both us not knowing how to deal with it. I am so glad there is help out there now and I really hope the help improves and that Vets and their families are taking advantage of that help. If this was available over 10 years ago, I would have jumped at the chance to use it. And if it was available back then, I didn't know it. It needs to be made well known to vets and their families, help is there!!
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