A little popper and a breakthough

Being an Army wife is really hard.  There are a lot of things that are expected of you without question and while the Army says they support families, when in reality we are only important or beneficial as far as we are keeping our soldiers happy and healthy.  It is not uncommon for an Army wife to be pregnant by herself, deliver a child by herself and raise their children as a single mom would, all the while fearing for their spouse’s safety.  However, in my case although I faced all this myself I held honor in my heart for my husband and was proud to be an Army wife.  And while there had been a lot more light shed on the struggles of reintegration when the soldiers come home, there is nothing that can prepare a wife for her husband who comes home with PTSD. 

The signs aren’t always obvious; at least for us they weren’t.  When my husband first got home he had lots of high anxiety, but was told this was normal as they had to get used to mingling with civilians and menial tasks that had been forgotten during deployments.  When Josh’s anxiety remained high even months later I asked what he thought of PTSD and was surprised at the very negative outlook he had on it.  He said he knew there were people who actually suffered with it, but more often than not, it was just a soldier’s excuse to get medication or a way for someone to try and get out of the Army.  Despite his answer, I continued to watch his behavior.  Josh has always been a very easy going, go with the flow sort of guy, so when his stress levels started surpassing mine I was concerned, but considering all he has been through with his injury, to coming home to a six month old child and having to learn the role of dad overnight, as well as all the continued stresses of work and life it seemed understandable to have stress.  Yet, he still didn’t feel quite right.  I always felt his anxiety sky rocket when we went to common places like Wal-Mart or the mall.  He couldn’t ever sit comfortably through dinner if his back was towards a door or window.   All of this was easy enough to write off as common.  It’s not like these things were taking over his life so I remained silent about it all, just voices my concerns here and there.  However, as the months wore on I noticed how short a fuse he seemed to have.  He wouldn’t often get upset with me or my son, but with random people and co-workers his anger would zoom from a two to a ten over something trivial.  All the while I tried to get him to tell me about his experiences in Afghanistan and had him share his feelings and emotions with me when he took shrapnel to the neck, but looking back now I see how he looked back on such events with a detached outlook, meaning the fears and emotions he really felt are buried somewhere inside his subconscious. 

After we lost everything in the apartment fire we had, Josh’s stress hit new height causing to have ulcers.  His other symptoms were highly exaggerated as well, including his long bouts of depression and self loathing.  I expressed my concerns of his having PTSD, but he didn’t seem to agree with me.  However, I kept bringing it up until he finally agreed to meet with a counselor on post.  I was so excited about this appointment, thinking my husband would finally get the help that he needed, that I would finally get my husband back instead of this automaton who was walking through his responsibilities in life.  I was sorely disappointed when my husband came home enraged; after he had shared all he had been through between the injury the fire and the miscarriage and had related his symptoms to the counselor, he had been advised to take deep breaths to help clear his head.  REALLY?!!!!! I had tried so hard to convince him to try counseling and now more than ever he felt justified that it was a waste of time.  My husband continued to spiral out of control, taking on addictive habits, lying, and questioning everything we have built our life on to the point our relationship hit a brick wall.  He accuses me of being unable to relate to him and the while still denying the fact that there is a problem. 

After seeing a marriage counselor and long talks about our goals Josh has once again agreed to try a counselor.  He once again replayed all he had been going through and we are now waiting for the counselor to schedule a blood test to find out what Josh’s levels are at before they continue counseling to see if he is need of medication.  I have to admit I am not expecting a whole lot after the last incident, but like everything else I have to have hope.  I guess it all came to a head tonight, which is what inspired this post in the first place.  As of tonight my husband has been home from his deployment for one year and one month, well at the dollar store they had the fun little poppers that bang and shoot the confetti.  My son and I have been playing with them for days and my little one always gets such a kick out of it.  Well tonight we were down to our last one so I had my little man help me shot it off while Josh was coming out of the laundry room.  All I can say is that my husband’s reaction was one of defense and anger.  The wild look in his eyes scared me and I apologized at once.  Over and over again Josh had claimed that such things didn’t bother him at all, but tonight he was literally faced with the falsehood of that statement.  After he had a change to regain his compose he apologized immediately for getting so upset.  I asked him if now he would at least admit that there was a problem.  He finally admitted that there was indeed a problem.  For tonight we left it at that. 

I am by no means blaming all we are going through right now on PTSD, but I know it is a large contributing factor and Josh has admitted that he is not happy.  I just hope he gets what he needs so that we can be happy together again.