this is why...

When I was a kid, we had a gentleman down the street who was a Vietnam veteran.  He was mean and didn’t want us on his lawn.  I didn’t understand at the time.  I didn’t know what post-traumatic stress disorder was.  After all, my father had been in the Navy just before I was born in 1970.  He was fine.  He didn’t yell at the kids on the block or stare incessantly at nothing.

As years passed, school taught me about war, but the only tangible things we learned were dates, death tolls, and war heroes.  We never learned about the thousand yard stare, or the horrible price our soldiers paid to live afterward.

When I met my husband, he’d already been diagnosed with PTSD from his time as a combat medic in Iraq, so instead of writing him off like I’d done in the past, I opened my computer and typed in the words - and how very lucky we all are to have that option.  What I got in return was an education on the human condition.  Throughout time, authors have written about PTSD though never uttered the words.  Homer wrote about it, Ajax going mad under Athena’s spell then taking his own life.  Lady Percy witnessed Hotspur’s “terrible nightmares”, intrusive thoughts, and detachment after battle in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.  PTSD even shows its head on the civilian side in Jane Austin in Anne speaking about Louisa having a nearly fatal fall and never being quite the same afterward.  PTSD has always been there, always a specter haunting the aftermath of war.

Across the world and throughout history, the names have been countless.  Soldier’s Heart, Shell Shock, Heimweh (German for homesick), Estar Roto (Spanish for to be broken), Battle Fatigue.  The Swiss called it Nostalgia, the French, maladie du pays.  Eventually, in the 1980s, doctors stopped tempering the names with the belief it would go away with rest or time and they called it post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD for short.  Sadly, those who had it were also called malingerers.

I, like so many others, was unaware but meeting and falling in love with someone who suffered from PTSD was an eye opening experience.  I learned so much, mostly that education is the key.  The more we know about PTSD the easier it is to provide comfort, provide assistance, and provide answers.

My husband and I spent a lot of time sitting on the porch in the wee hours of the morning.  He smoked and talked.  I listened.  I didn’t judge, I didn’t offer “I understands”.  I just listened.  His PTSD brings a lot of hard days.  We’ve progressed, but it’s still an uphill battle.  He suffers periods of depression, anger, withdrawal from family, nightmares, and hallucinations both visual and audible.  There are also many physical issues such as unexplainable pain, pseudo-seizures, loss of concentration, and stomach problems.

Eventually, my desire to know everything about PTSD led me to Courage Beyond.  I found helpful information about treatments, symptoms, support groups, but most importantly, I found others.  Others who’d made it or those who were still walking the same path I was but moving forward.  It was like the beacon I’d been trying to follow, the one that had gone on and off for so long, finally stayed lit.

Not too long ago, my husband asked me to help him die.  He said he couldn’t live like this anymore.  We’d had a high stress day, or maybe it was an anniversary he’d not shared. It wasn’t the first time, and I know it won’t be the last, but I’m also hearing it less and less as time passes and we learn the ropes of dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.  I’m not sure how many spouses have heard this request from their loved one, but I know I am not the only one.  I am also thankful that he says the words instead of keeping them to himself.  He’s found a way to reach out. 

Unfortunately, our loved ones cannot always find the strength to reach out to us.  They fear judgment.  They fear causing burden, and sadness.  In their mind they may decide the family is better off without them.  Families likewise may suppress their feelings or go into autopilot.  Relationships diminish slowly but steadily when this happens.  This is where Courage Beyond comes in.  We offer that anonymous hand, the one without strings or worries of causing pain.  We’re there for the entire family providing online counseling, a crisis line, a community of others who’ve been there, and one-on-one sessions with doctors all over the United States.  We are a safe place to share your struggles and talk to others who’ve been through it.

Through our blogs and audio interviews, we offer stories of those who are coping with PTSD or the rigors military life.  Our online support groups are available every week and can be found on our website CourageBeyond.org.  We also provide free of charge one on one counseling to any service member, veteran, family member, or loved one in crisis.  Our focus is to keep those who are coping with the invisible wounds of war from falling through the cracks.

Through vigilance we can all learn to recognize the signs.  If you or someone you know is in crisis please call 866.781.8010.  We can help find strength beyond the battlefield.

losing emotions...

A long time ago, I was a fighter.  I sustained a few concussions, more than a few actually, and the resulting issues led to substantial family problems.  I suffered from emotional dulling for a long period of time.  This is a not so uncommon side effect of brain injury (and yes, concussions are a brain injury, even mild ones).

My emotional state looked almost like depression, but I wasn’t sad.  Imagine, looking at your children and feeling little more than the knowledge they’re yours.  Imagine feeling nothing for your spouse whom you know you used to love.  Image feeling no connection to anyone, they’re just background noise.

For two years I struggled to figure out why I felt so little.  Nothing affected me, nothing touched me.  Looking back, it was longer than that and started slowly over the course of my career as a self-defense instructor.  It made me a good fighter, but I didn’t understand why I was so able to shut down.

Unfortunately, many of our military who’ve been in combat are struggling with the after-effects of blast injuries and concussions.  What was thought to be a mild injury or sometimes not an injury at all is slowly being recognized.  These men and women struggle to come back to normal life with a wide range of real emotional issues such as depression or anger, but emotional dulling may not show itself as an issue very easily.  It may just seem like distance, loss of love, or just plain cruelty.

I struggled for years to understand and eventually I did heal.  But maybe had I known I wouldn’t have had to spend the next several years repairing the damage I’d done to my family or my friends.

giving up the wheel...

In the last few months, I have been lucky enough to be given a larger role at Courage Beyond, formerly Not Alone.  I’ve become their Online Content Manager and in-house graphic designer - yes, I’m finally using that degree I earned so long ago. 

As tickled as I am about this opportunity, it doesn’t come without an added layer of stress.  For the first time in almost six years I’ve not focused my complete energy on the care of my husband and his PTSD.  Even though I work from home, I’ve had to let him fend for himself some days so that I can get projects done.  This bothered me a great deal at first, but as the weeks have passed I’ve noticed something heartening.

Chris has begun to take on a more active role in coping with his PTSD.  In the past two weeks he’s read each night before bed.  Though he still has trouble sleeping well, he’s sleeping a little more and also finding comfort in being free from the intrusive thoughts while he reads.  He’s trying to become more active (we’re both facing that hurdle), and he’s decided to change his diet to help with his stomach issues.

The moment I stepped back and gave him back the wheel, he drove on down the road.  He didn’t veer off the side or crash horribly at the bottom of a ravine.  He still needs me sitting shotgun, and sometimes I’ll have to drive, but he does the same for me when things get too heavy.

I’ve learned a hard lesson about being an effective caregiver slash loving spouse.  I can’t live his life or remove every ounce of stress.  We’re partners.  I’m not in charge and he is not my patient.  He is my husband and my best friend and I trust that he always will be no matter which one of us is behind the wheel.

suicide...

It’s become difficult to write this blog lately.  The more and more people, family, friends, and coworkers, who know it’s me writing, the harder it is to write about what’s really going on.  So tonight, I’m going to take a page from some training we’ve been doing and fall back on my own words about being honest with ourselves.

In the past month I’ve allowed suicide to creep into my mind more than once.  I’ve not made plans or even thought about how, but it’s there like a comfort against what I understand to be temporary but cannot see past. 

The thought of people knowing this makes me sick.  I can’t be considered weak.  I am a brick wall against the world for my veteran, and I cannot be weakened by my own emotions.  He counts on me to pilot our ship over rough seas.  But I’m standing at that ragged edge right now where tears hang just behind my face at all times.  My mother’s death, my son’s turmoil, my dad being so far away and lonely, have all piled across already burdened shoulders.

I know if I post this, my husband will be devastated.  It will be a crushing blow to an already battle worn man.  I know he’ll think it’s my job or the impending C & P, but it’s not.  I’m not worried about the exam.  I’m happy in my job.  He’ll think it’s him.  And it’s not.  He’s my best day.  I just can’t breathe because my chest is so constricted and I cannot seem to figure out why I’ve become so tightly wound that I’m about to explode across lives.

I know I’m not going to do it.  I have a running list in my mind of the reasons I can’t.  Too many people depend on me.  It’s not that I’m important, but I am necessary to make sure they’ll be okay.  I’ve been here before, sitting with my legs dangling over the cliff, smiling at the thought of release but knowing it’s just not going to happen.

So, I disconnect from emotions and focus on tasks, but as anyone knows compacting things causes energy and energy must escape somehow.  So the tears break surface and I sob uncontrollably until as suddenly as it started it stops.  I expel only enough to stop the escape, then I go back to compacting it all down into a boulder in my chest.

I don’t really want to say anything out loud.  I don’t want the attention, the eyes filled with pity.  I’ve spent three horrible days locked in a hospital because of errant words that couldn’t be taken back.  The fear of doing that again is more unbearable than the thought of actually going through with taking my life.  But in the end, I won’t do it.  I know myself.  It’s a game I play to keep myself going, like an alcoholic looking toward a drink tomorrow.  I know it’s not healthy, but right now health and survival are not one in the same.

finding my path...

It’s hard to write sometimes. Hard to sit quietly examining my inner self, trying to make sense of the construct I’ve created over the years to cope with outside forces.  It becomes easier however with each passing moment that I allow myself to be honest instead of holding onto old beliefs of who I am.  Easier still if I listen to those who love and know me because they are to who I show my truest face.

Seems rather out there but stop for a moment.  My mother always said we have three faces.  The face of who we think we are, the face of who we show the world, and the true face of who we really are.  With trust in someone, we find ourselves showing our true face and therefore seeing it as well.  Many times however, we deny that face.  We don’t want it to be true because it is that face which is most vulnerable.  It has no barriers, no battlements. 

When outside forces diminish trust between people, the face turns away from the truest face and walls arise.  Trauma to the psyche damages the ability to trust.  Paranoia, fear, anger all create blockage.  So it is sometimes up to the counterpart to help find the path back.  We all do it, helping those we love navigate life, and it’s done for us as well.

The helping can be subtle as an encouraging smile during difficult moments.  Or it can be blunt and hard, like saying what is not wanted but most needed.  When we choose to be most honest with those around us we create trust.  This trust creates ease in motion and thought.  It allows us to become comfortable in our own skin and move forward in evolving and healing.  When we help others find their truest face, we find our own.

Knowing my true face has been an exercise in letting go of old pain I’d become accustomed to cultivating.  Anger and disappointment over losing who I was clouded my ability to find my way to a new path so I could figure out who I am now.  I simply stood at the fallen tree across my old road and cursed the heavens for being unfair.  It’s easy to get caught up in what might have been when our plans are so set in stone.  But stone gives way to the elements and we must give way to circumstances we cannot control.  The goal is not the destination but the journey and many times plans must be changed regardless of how loudly we scream to the world or how pitifully we cry for ourselves.

Finding enough strength to hear those around me has been my biggest challenge and my greatest reward.  It created light where I could not see allowing my new journey to become visible to me.  And though I will always look back on my old path with fondness I’ll no longer stand with my feet planted crying for what I lost.

socks can do amazing things...

It is thought that knitting first appeared somewhere in the Middle East.  In my house it appeared when my mom got sick.  We weren’t expecting terminal illness, no one ever does, but it happens.  Over the course of the nine weeks before her illness took her life, I learned every technique in knitting that I could.  I knit feverishly.  I filled two large bins with beautiful colors of wool in all different weights(this means the thickness of the yarn).  I even learned to spin and dye my own wool.  The only aspect I didn’t dive into was raising my own sheep, and that’s only because we don’t have the room. 

Luckily, even though I am left handed, there is no difference in knitting.  One always knits the same way other than which hand holds the working yarn.  My first project was a Christmas stocking.  I took on fancy stitches like cables and double knitting.  Watching videos online, I learned how to knit socks, sweaters, hats, mittens - you name it, I figured it out.  I knit presents, I knit selfish.  I learned to knit with the largest to the tiniest of needles and in the end, I gained a skill that has strengthened my coping skill-set.

This need to make things has served me well.  I was a potter for 18 years of my life.  I like to create.  It feeds my soul, but it also helps me deal with the ups and down of life with PTSD.  Hobbies can be a wonderful outlet when times are hard.  They occupy the mind so our days aren’t spent dwelling and rolling over all the horrible possibilities.  Through knitting I’ve taught myself to not worry about what I cannot change.  I can’t cure my husband’s PTSD, I couldn’t cure my mother's cancer.  I won’t be able to find a magic remedy on the internet.  I can educate myself, but I can’t fix everything.

I can however fix a stitch.  So in knitting, I give myself the ability to fix what I can.  Being able to fix something helps because many times I feel like I’m failing my husband in not finding that magic cure like I thought at the beginning I could.  I can however knit a pair of socks that fit like a dream and some days, that’s good enough.

deep breath...

I am having a bad day and I am allowed to say it.  This person is causing me stress, and that person is causing me stress, and I am allowed to call them out.  I am going to cry, and I am allowed to shed those tears without fear that I am causing anyone else distress.  I do not need to swallow them to save others.  Others need to realize I am not made of Teflon and everything does not slide off me without leaving a mark.  

So, I am going to take a moment to shut down everything everyone else needs from me and consider my own needs.

I am having a bad day, and it is okay to be human.