One major change my husband has had since his return from Afghanistan is his sleep patterns. I know I touched on this before but I want to go a bit more in depth tonight. My husband has always been a hard worker. For most of our lives he has worked 14 to 20 hour days. Now that may sound like an exaggeration but I assure you its not. Since we got married he has either worked two jobs or he drove for Sysco foods. The long hours and hard work made sleep easy for him. He could sit on the couch watching TV and next thing you know he was out cold snoring. He made an art form of getting two or three hours of sleep and then working another 18 hour day. He would go to bed at night and on his days off it would take hours for me to fully wake him up. I could try everything from bringing fresh made cinnamon rolls to him to enticing him sexually and he still wouldn't wake up. All that changed with his return from Afghanistan.
When he first came home he would stay up most of the night and then report for formation. He would come home for lunch and collapse. He would take a short hour nap head back to work and stay up again most of the night. When he started seeing his therapist they gave him some sleeping pills to help him finally get to sleep. I thought finally he would get some sleep but they didn't help. He would follow directions take them like required but at 3 or 4am he would wake up and not be able to go back to sleep. So frustrated he stopped taking them. As the months drug on he still didn't sleep much. He was staying up until 3am sometimes later and then leaving for work about 6. The longer he went without sleep the more his demeanor changed and the harder it was to talk to him.
It wasn't just his ability to sleep that changed it was the way he slept that changed. He used to go to sleep in one position and stay that way the whole night. He barely moved making it so much easier for me to sleep since I toss and turn all the time. When he came home he was a different man. Like I mentioned before since his return I have suffered bruises and bloody noses. He now thrashes and flops back and forth in his sleep,and I kid you not he has even marched in his sleep. He has become a violent sleeper. I have learned one thing when sleeping with him stay away from his arms and always stay up by his face to wake him up. I learned to be gentle and carefully urge him to wake instead of shaking him or touching him.
It has been almost a year to the day that he came home and while he is sleeping better he has never gone back to his usual habits. He has good nights where he seems to sleep peacefully and then he has nights where he can't lay still. I have learned the difference between his good nights and his bad ones. A good night for him includes snoring. On the nights that he snores (which happens maybe once a month) those are the good ones. His moods the next day are better and his overall attitude is better. His bad nights can range from frequent tossing to him asking me every time I move what is happening. I swear there is nothing more frustrating than trying to sleep and every time you move someone questions you.
For each person with PTSD the sleeping patterns are different, and it may take awhile to learn them. I offer this advice to you....always be gentle and never wake them standing below the waist. Before my husband came home our friend that was staying with us also had PTSD and most mornings I would wake him up. I learned fast to stay above his waist when waking him up. The one and only time I tried to wake him up by touching his leg he kicked and jumped knocking me backward. You see these men are used to sleeping in the field with their hands close to or holding their weapons. Any touch is suppose to alert them to danger. The other advice I have is to be gentle do NOT shake them. Several soldiers sleep with some sort of weapon under their pillow most of the time it is a knife. The point is if you shake them their instinct is to grab the knife and start swinging. The same goes if there is no weapon they will just start swinging with their fists.
I know that this all seems insane or frustrating but lets be honest each of us has our flaws most of them we could change over time, but they can't change the PTSD. In my opinion the best thing you can do to make life easier on them is to learn as much as you can about what they are going through including what it takes to give them a good nights rest. My husband always says its the little things that count. Learning their patterns and what does or doesn't work for them are the little things that can make their life a bit better. Learning these things shows them you care. And while it won't take away the frustration of the PTSD it will help them to not feel so self conscious about it.
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