Living with ptsd can be exhausting at times and some people have it worse than others. A person can be very sensitive and may be so sensitive that they isolate and withdraw. Sometimes a person experiences triggers they themselves don't know what actually triggered them and they can end up suffering for an hour to an entire day even, even a couple days. This tends to be why people who suffer from it can get angry. I suffer from it myself and the word that tends to describe it pretty well is frustrating leaving a person frustrated. Another word that describes it well is "intrusive". One of the constant questions someone that suffers from it has is "why can't I just like I used to?". What makes that worse is how so many respond with "just statements". People tend to respond with "just ignore, don't allow, and let it go, you need to JUST LET IT GO". What these individuals that respond this way fail to realize is how someone who struggles with ptsd, which can in some be extremely crippling, is they are constantly already telling themselves to JUST and the frustration tends to come into play when they continue to suffer even when they SO DO NOT WANT TO.

Honestly, while you may care for this individual, you cannot fix him and he will be working on trying to manage his condition most likely the rest of his life and he will experience days where it can be a bad day and he just needs to be alone until whatever is triggered in his mind slowly eases up. In all honesty, if you spend a lot of time with someone who struggles with it, you can get secondary ptsd yourself. If you sit and think about it, what you described experiencing with him on the phone? Well, if you continue to experience that you can get to a point where when you talk to people on the phone you can actually begin to anticipate some kind of challenge. And you can definitely get to the point where you want to avoid talking to him on the phone completely too.

One of the things when it comes to someone who suffers from ptsd is that often the person is actually a nice person too. The problem is that the person was often repeatedly abused or traumatized to the point where it affected them causing them to become very sensitive. It's not only human beings that can develop ptsd, it's also animals as well. You can actually witness it in a dog that was abused where if someone approaches it to pat it in a friendly way it can crouch and shiver believing it's going to be hit. I have worked with horses that were hit and became very sensitive and head shy. Actually, I have pony that I took out constantly and I taught him to be comfortable with having all kinds of children on his back in all kinds of places surrounded by all kinds of things including noises and to be ok with people walking next to him on the opposite side of where I am leading him to hold their children, some of which can be very handicapped. I was at a function and as always told people there to take away all balls and bats or any object that can accidently hit this pony. Unfortunately, we had to walk by this above the ground pool and I had asked that the children not be in it splashing around as the yard was so small I had to walk by it. There was an older boy in this pool that I asked to keep other children out of the pool. In this pool floating on the top was a HUGE ball. Well, this young teen suddenly decided to throw a punch at this huge ball and it ended up hitting this pony right in his little head. It really frightened him and he backed up and just about sat down and my husband who was handling him got two fingers caught in his halter and broke two of his fingers. From that time on this pony CHANGED where I watched him gradually become AFRAID of anyone on that side of him, of pools, bouncy houses and to this day I have to work around the FACT that now this pony has fears and feels unsafe of things that I spent so much time helping him feel safe being around. Well, I put a lot of time into training my ponies, people really have no idea and tend to think ANY pony can do what I do with it. I am constantly paying attention to anything that can happen that can suddenly change my ponies from feeling safe too. Yet, people do not even realize that and often choose to do very stupid things. Well, now I have a pony that has fears and NOW I have to work around that problem just because someone chose to do something stupid. That is how the brain can be affected when even an animal experiences something that catches them offguard and traumatizes them.

Anyone can experience something that can overwhelm them, experience a tremendous sense of powerlessness that can forever change them even when they don't want that to happen. What I found interesting is observing how this pony who has a brain the size of a walnut gradually grew afraid of all that he experienced in that environment. He remembered there was a pool there, he remembered there was a bouncy house there and even though he had seen those things a thousand times and never cared, suddenly he cared and felt very frightened. That is how ptsd develops in the brain be it animal or human.

I have been working with a new therapist that explained to me that in an effort to find out what part of the brain is affected by ptsd, they discovered that when someone is exposed to something that can be a trigger, they can now see the area of the brain that is the most active. The area of the brain that is the most active is the amydala and the back of the brain when someone is exposed to a trigger and there is little to no activity in the frontal part of the brain. A person that is triggered is NOT really consciously deciding to experience a trigger, that conscious area of the brain is not what is active. That is what MOST people fail to understand when they respond to someone with "just ignore or just statements". That is what someone who suffers constantly asks themselves as well, "what is wrong with me, why can't I just like I used to?".

Before I developed ptsd, I had no problem going out and eating at noisey crowded restaurants, well, after I developed ptsd, to my horror when I went out to celebrate mother's day with family at a busy restaurant, I got so uncomfortable I had to get up and quickly get outside and I was so embarrassed and confused as to why I was experiencing that. I used to love Chrismas shopping, well, again when I went to do that I ended up getting overwhelmed and found myself needing to get out of that store I was in, that was never like me to be that way.

The brain is very complex, there is still much we do not understand about the brain too. What may not bother one person can be something that another person can be very sensitive to. How one person learns can be different from how another person learns, and how one person experiences emotions can be a bit different from how another person experiences emotions. We tend to assume everyone is supposed to learn the same way, feel the same way, but that is being obtuse as just as we are all somewhat different looking, we can be somewhat different in how we interact with life itself.

So, what do you do with this boyfriend that clearly struggles so much? The only thing you can do is respect his challenge and understand that he is probably sensitive in ways you will never quite understand yourself and in that you cannot really change or fix him either. I cannot change what my nice pony experienced that caused him to now really doubt being safe around certain things. All I can do is be kind to him and do my best to work around the fact that something did happen to him where now he gets uncomfortable in ways that had not been a problem before for him or me. Something very traumatic happened to me too, it has changed me and I try very hard to manage it and be kind to myself when I have a bad day and don't really know what triggered it, or if I do, I just work on doing my best to be patient with it until it passes. It can get very lonely and I am sorry for anyone who is challenged with it and some have it way worse than others.

One thing I do know, is people are studying it constantly and trying to find ways to help those who suffer with it so they suffer less and can manage it better.

You seem like a nice person, you are caring and genuinely want to understand this boyfriend so maybe you can interact with him better. People read about ptsd and think they know more, but it's not that easy. As I mentioned, one person can have it worse than someone else, and that person may also have other challenges like perhaps a learning disability on top of that as well. So, recovering and managing the challenge can be different for each person who struggles with it. In all honesty, when it comes to human beings, there is really no "one size fits all" .