Most men I have met don't like to show their sensitive sides. I used to consider myself lucky because my husband was all man yet so amazingly sensitive to me. I have been cursed with kidney stones as well as having asthma most of my life and yet when ever I have an attack its always the same. I start to freak out which means before you know it I start to hyperventilate, get blurry vision, and come close to passing out. My husband is the only person who can calm me down. He has such an amazing ability to get me to calm down and before I know it the attack is gone. So when I got into my life changing accident he was amazing. I remember thinking how wonderful he was and wondering how long before he got annoyed of my medical condition.
To give you an idea of how bad it is for him let me give you a little idea of my life. I am on a 10 pound for life weight limit, I am not allowed to walk for long periods of time, I am not suppose to do a majority of what normal people do. I have days where I can barely move let alone cook him his dinner. Because of the accident he is forced to do most everything at home after working a full day. He has never complained and made me feel better about my life after the accident. He has always been there for me and takes great care of me. Well that is until Afghanistan.
When my husband came home he seemed almost resentful of my accident and my injuries. He told me shortly after coming home that he was tired of my medical issues. He told me he was getting resentful of having to deal with me. I was so hurt I couldn't believe that this amazing man was telling me he wasn't sure he could deal with me anymore.
For so long after he came home it was stressful for me to mention that I needed him. I felt like such a burden when I was hurting and needed his help. I had times where I could barely move but he would come home and expect me to do my wifely duties and make his dinner. This was all happening during the same time that he was talking about leaving me. He said that was part of the reason he wanted to leave which made it even harder to ask for his help.
There was one particular night that everything sort of came to a head. I was placed on a new medication which my body didn't handle very well I was spending days at a time throwing up, I couldn't eat, my life was miserable. We started having a heat wave and the side effects were getting worse. It was shortly after my doctor appointment that I started having horrible pains, it was so bad I could barely breathe. I fought the pain as long as I could but it kept getting worse. I told my husband about it and he told me it was probably just another kidney stone I would be fine. I told him I wanted to go to the hospital but instead he brought me home and told me to bear through it. He left me at home while he took our daughter to her speech appointment. When he was gone it got so bad that our friend called the ambulance to take me to the hospital. When my husband got to the hospital he was furious with me and started yelling at me telling me I was selfish and thought only of myself. He made me cry he was so cruel. He chewed me out the whole time we were there. It was a couple days later after the tests came back that we found out that though I did have a kidney stone it was made worse by severe dehydration. If I hadn't gone to the hospital it would have been much worse for me. Which of course all he heard was that he was right.
Shortly after that I started seeing a therapist about our marriage and asked him to do the same. Things started to get better but I can still see from time to time the resentment creep back about my condition. Most days he seems fine but when he is in one of his moods he is mean and hurtful and makes me feel like a burden. I try not to take it personally even though the man that hit me ruined my life but it still hurts that my own husband sees me as a burden.
It's kind of funny I am frustrated about how he treats me considering how bad I suffer from the pain and the injuries, yet I tend to forget about how bad the "pain" of PTSD is for him. Sometimes I see my old husband shine through and then other days I wonder who the man is that shares my home. I wish he could get the proper help he needs but like I said before men who seek help put a bulls-eye on themselves so most of them won't get the proper help.
I tell you all of this for those of you that face the same thing. So many personality traits change because of PTSD and as hard as it is for us it is far worse for them. They don't want to treat us bad or constantly hurt us, they want normalcy back and to be themselves. I know from experience how bad it hurts and I wish everyday that my husband could go back to normal but for now all I can do is be here for him and help guide him through this.
I have said it before and I will say it again if anyone reading this has their own stories to tell or something they want to add please feel free to leave a comment. I would love to hear from those of you who have had experiences with this as well.
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