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.

strength and pride...

I saw something today that spoke to me.  Generally, I regard Facebook’s over used feel-good posts with rolled eyes and a scoff.  I am the grump cat of my own friends list.  There are too many captioned pictures, fake letters, and repost-this-if-you-cares.  But today, I saw an image of a lion with the words “the worst part about being strong is that no one ever asks if you’re okay” and yes, whomever wrote it, used the correct you’re.

For a moment I contemplated that statement in regards to my own life.  Pride came to mind because yesterday I’d shared a cartoon on Not Alone’s Facebook page from a retired general.  It depicted a fireman drowning because of pride.  When I taught Krav Maga strength and pride ruled.  Nothing hurt.  Nothing touched me.  When the bell sounded it didn’t matter if I was fighting Wladimir Klitschko himself, I would win or die trying.

After a gun seminar, from left to right Jeff, me, Big Mike,
Thierry, Darren Levine(founder of KM in the United States), John, Damon.

Strength in spirit was what kept my 5’1” buck twenty frame going because size was never on my side.  My strength made people step back and assume no matter what I was okay.  It fueled rumors about my background.  I’ll never forget the day I heard two of my students discussing my years as a special forces soldier.  Interesting since I’d never served nor ever claimed to have that honor.  I still smile at the thought.

But pride took me to foolish places.  Pride caused the damage to my shoulder because I refused to admit I’d lost.  I could have tapped out but instead I let Big Mike twist it out of joint.  Pride caused me to continue to get up and fight after I was knocked out, on more than one occasion.  The damage to my brain is becoming more apparent on a daily basis.  Pride kept me quiet when things hurt, when they were wrong, when I’d fallen into a path of destruction.

Pride kept my husband quiet when he came home from Iraq and began struggling with nightmares, lost time, and depression.  Pride let him suffer. Pride let his life crumble farther than it should have.

Don’t get me wrong, pride can be a good thing.  It can be a driving force to amazing achievements.  But it can also be a set of blinders keeping us from seeing what is really happening.  And here is where we circle back to strength.  Strength can cause people to think you are untouchable, but being strong enough to reach out when the path is too much to walk alone is where the true test of will sets us apart.  Asking for help is not weakness; it is strength.  Being strong enough to know you must be part of a team to succeed is a core aspect of military training.  So why is it so hard, when our soldiers come home changed from war, for them to still recognize the value of being part of something larger than self?

We need to change our thinking about strength.  Strength is not synonymous with being alone.  One football player cannot match a team.  His strength is in numbers.  Never be afraid to reach out, because it is strength that moves the hand toward the solution and it is strength that says the words I cannot do this alone.  

what I need...

I always know when it’s coming.  He usually starts with being restless and uninterested in anything.  That’s how I know it’s coming. 

Depression.

For me, the depression has been one of the hardest symptoms of my husband’s PTSD.  I can take the anger.  He never directs it my way, or if he does it’s minimal and fades quickly into an apology.  I can take the sleepless nights and distance.  I can even take the flashbacks as scary as they are sometimes.  But the depression is exhausting especially when I’m not feeling up to being a caregiver. 

Today is that day.  I’m just not up to it.

And I’m tired.  My back is out; my head is pounding.  My youngest is sick as a dog and my oldest is about to experience one of those life events you remember always.  But depression rules the day.

When he came to me last night, I was cranky.  Lying there in bed, I couldn’t find compassion under the pain radiating down my leg.  I can’t always be there can I?  I need to be human.  I need whine.  I need to hurt.  I need to lean.

He’s crushed when he realizes I’ve made it through another difficult patch without him because he couldn’t see past the fog of his depression.  In bed with the covers pulled tight around his head, he’s not awake when I hobble in to check on him.  I know he won’t want to sleep away the day, so I wake him.  Again.  And again.

But I feel my jaw tighten.  I’m tired.  I love him, but I’m so tired.  I can’t let myself get to that ragged edge, the one he hangs at so much of the time, because if I’m there, we’ll both topple over.

Deep breath.  I have to make it to the gym more often than not so my back isn’t so easily swayed by an errant twist.  I have to remember my headaches aren’t permanent, take a damned aspirin, and stop being stubborn. My youngest just has a summer cold. It will pass.  And my oldest, well he’s now engaged and happily going about his life.  I didn’t miss a thing.  This is what I wanted; to be needed.  I was so unnecessary for such a long time, this is what I need, and after all every one of us should be so lucky to understand what we need.