The past couple of weeks have been epic in the sense that
not an ounce more stress could have been crammed in, and no, this has nothing
to do with taxes. Our taxes were a
rather pleasant experience by comparison.
I’m not even sure where to begin, or if I should write about this at
all. Feelings might get hurt,
however at this point I’m at an impasse. Feelings are going to get hurt
regardless of my actions.
So here goes…
We have a stressor in our lives right now. It’s a loved one, a close family member,
who has disregarded my husband’s PTSD since he came home changed from Iraq
almost 9 years ago. This person is
selfish and ridiculous in many ways that I can overlook, but some things are
inexcusable. I have spent every
day since I met Chris minimizing anything that exacerbates his PTSD. We have carefully crafted a beautiful
sedate life that he can feel safe in, and I cannot overlook this person’s
intrusion into his haven any longer.
I won’t go into past hurts, they don’t matter in the grand
scheme of things and they are a separate issue in my eyes. To begin, my husband’s medical issues
are many. Extreme stress causes
him to have what are called pseudo-seizures. They are not epileptic in nature, but are physical
manifestations of emotional distress. Usually he seizes for around 20 minutes; this leaves him
horribly sore the next day. He
eventually loses consciousness and also loses varying amounts of time. He’s suffered from them for a couple of
years, but we’ve minimized their occurrence quite successfully until now.
For the past several months, this family member has brought
their life problems, problems of their own building, to our house, our
haven. Chris hid his distress from
me for long time, and he hid it well until Easter. Since that day, he’s had two major episodes that have come
very close to me calling for an ambulance. Just last night he admitted to me that suicide has been on
his mind since this person came back into his life.
So what do I do?
Immediate family members are hard to remove from your life especially
when they’ve burned every bridge and you’re all they have left. I have talked and explained until I am
blue in the face about my husband’s needs but I have hesitated to get
mean. I fear however time is
growing short and my inner fighter is starting to surface again. I will not allow anyone to ruin what
we’ve built. But how do you tell
someone that they’re poison? That
their presence is the finger that squeezes the trigger? How do I tell this person whom I do
care about, that they’re not welcome in my home anymore unless they can come
over and not covet everything we’ve built in an attempt to create guilt, not
cry and whine over unimportant non-issues in an attempt to bask in sympathy,
not talk about how depressed or how horrible and sad their life is when it is
no different than anyone else’s reality, and not expect him to solve all their
self-made problems when they’ve not spent a single moment trying to help or
understand his condition and what he’s been through?
How?
To be continued when I find a solution. Wish me luck.
