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Originally Posted by Open Eyes
I am sorry, from what you share it sounds like his ptsd can get down right crippling for him. Unfortunately, the average person can be very dismissive and can invalidate what is a genuinely horrible and confusing mental health challenge.
It’s bad enough that someone was badly traumatized in their past, but if ptsd is triggered to surface, it’s actually traumatic and confusing to the person suffering. No one chooses to suffer with this form of mental illness. And one person can have it worse than others who develop it. And it’s not just bad memories, instead the entire body carries this challenge throughout the nervous system. A trigger can cause a person to go into hyper vigilance and produce too much cortisol where the person can experience a lot of muscle tension and pain.
Some individuals become addicts as a way to escape symptoms they do not know is trauma related. There are individuals that get sober only to now have to learn that they are struggling with ptsd. This adds more challenge to learning how to live their lives sober.
Yes! Canibus is often used to help with the crippling ptsd symptoms. However, this is something that should be overseen by a professional. The level of THC is controlled and reduced. Buying street marijuana is bad because the weed being sold now can have very high levels of THC and that can end up damaging the brain and contribute to a person experiencing acute psychosis.
I think it’s important the rest of the family gets counseling, it is not easy to live with and it’s important to understand that it’s not the sufferers fault.
The fact that your daughter has come to you with concerns means she should be seeing someone to help her understand what she is witnessing and advise her on how to best protect herself from being traumatized by what she is witnessing and can not control.
It’s only been two years since his break down. And to make matters worse we have all been expected to deal with a pandemic that has significantly changed how we live and interact.
Also, depression can be brutal with acute ptsd as it’s mostly coming from real exhaustion. When it comes to working, it’s important to find work that is not stress producing. Your husbands therapy should be helping him identify key types of triggers so he can learn to avoid these situations moving forward and regaining a sense of being able to be productive.
My guess is that your husband probably doesn’t even know all his triggers. Yes, he may need to go slowly while exploring that in therapy.
I think you are sensitive and caring and you don’t want to add hurt to your husband. However, you do need to learn how to protect your own mental health. It may be helpful if both you and your daughter see a therapist together. Your daughter needs counseling, her approaching you with concerns means she is being affected and is very concerned for you. Teenagers do not have enough life skills to navigate this kind of challenge. Your daughter
Is most likely afraid and confused and deserves to have understanding and help so she doesn’t end up traumatized.
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It’s been almost four years since the breakdown. My daughter is in counseling and I am positive that is why she voices that she wants to be apart from him now. Me knowing it’s not his fault is what’s kept me by his side. I’ve known from the start about his trauma and abuse, it’s the first thing he told me probably. That’s a reason I endured a lot of bad behavior towards me, and my dad was the same way. He was diagnosed with ptsd when I was maybe 15, and then bipolar. My life revolved around my dads problems when I was a kid, and my life revolved around my husbands problems in the same way. The level of emotional pain and abuse I have endured from these relationships is not healthy at all. I don’t even think I was aware I had agency until I went through almost a couple or few years of counseling starting right before 2015 I think. At the same time I was going to college and then getting a job to be financially secure on my own.
My daughter is already traumatized, that was unavoidable from the breakdown, the inpatients, his talk of self harm. And as I found out recently from her, a lot of things he would say and do around her that I had no awareness of because I was at work. Since she tells me those things now, I addressed them with her (plus her counselor helps her although daughter is absolutely sick of talking about him there because it’s another place her life is taken over by him), and I’ve addressed things with him (separately of course) to the degree I can.
My daughter is not concerned for me I don’t think. She just wants to be apart from the behavior and was trying to appeal to me via talk of divorce and healthy relationships. She was/is mad at me (frustrated) for being in an unhealthy relationship. She thinks his illness is no excuse, and she thinks he could improve things but that he stubbornly won’t.
I was diagnosed with ptsd as well and I’ve had a lot of complications from it but I mostly manage it by way of wanting to be “good,” especially a good mother. My husbands values are focused on nonconformity, passion, creativity, monogamy.