Interesting.....I have not been in the military, no combat, no abuse of any kind growing up, but don't touch me when I'm sleeping or just as I have gone off to sleep. My poor daughter found it out the hard way. I had been exhausted after getting home from work & fell asleep on the sofa in the family room......she came up to me & kissed me good night before she went up to bed....I was sound asleep when she did that & I hit her & knocked her across the room.....I had no idea I even did it until I woke up later & my husband told me what had happened. I have always been that way from the time I was a kid. If my parents touched me when I was asleep, I would end up hitting them.

Needless to say, I went up to my daughters room & explained that this happens when I am asleep & get touched & that I didn't mean to hit her & that it didn't mean that I didn't love her.

She was very understanding.....interesting, the next time she wanted to touch me when I was sound asleep, she got a long stick & tapped me from across the room to get me to wake up first, Ah, gotta love the ingenious minds of children. My husband always knew just to stay away from me when I was asleep as my parents & I warned him up front & who knows, I might have punched him in my sleep a time or two that he may have never told me about.

I can understand those reactions after being in combat especially since I experience them without having any good reason for reacting in that way. Sometimes all we & others can do is accept the way things are & learn to live with it & work around the problems.