[thunderbear]

It's been months since I've posted. My husband's uncle committed suicide in June on our sidewalk. My husband found him. We were separated at the time.

My thing is now, my husband has developed PTSD from finding his uncle. They were raised up like brothers. They were each others only friend. And H seen him in the most grisly, gory, tragic way. Not only that, his aunt committed suicide last June and 5 weeks later we found his grandmother (who adopted him at 3 days old) dead from a massive heart attack. Then his only uncle he had left died suddenly from an aneurysm just 6 weeks after he found his uncle on the sidewalk.

Now, he's being awful. I understand PTSD makes you say and do things that you normally wouldn't or that you don't mean, but he was like this before. He just blames on his mental state now. The whole reason we separated because of his abusive ways. But now, he does the same thing except now it's his mental state doing it. He threatens suicide all day. He accuses me of trying to make him do it. He threatens my physically. He calls me a *****, the C word and a *****. Tells me he hates me. Tells me to "pack my ***** and get the ***** out" then won't let me leave. He asks for advice from me because he knows I have PTSD and have dealt with it but as soon as I start giving him advice, he starts yelling and throwing my past mistakes up in my face. I told my friend yesterday that I was probably going to divorce him and got called selfish and a terrible person. I don't know what else to do. Even at this very moment he's picking a fight with me. He has been yelling at me since he woke up an hour ago. It's triggering my own PTSD and panic attacks. I can't afford my meds because he let our insurance lapse while we were separated. So I've been out of meds for a month now. My stress is so high, I'm dissociating.

I'm at the end of my rope. I have nothing else to give him. He refuses to go to the hospital. He refuses any help. But he complains he doesn't have anyone to turn to.

Admin/Mod, if you need to edit for triggers.

[Skeezyks]

Hello thunderbear: I'm so sorry for all of the misery both you & your husband have had to endure. I can't even imagine how this must feel. It is so sad that your friends called you selfish & a terrible person when you confided in them. I'm afraid I don't really have much to offer you here. Ultimately I believe, you must take care of yourself. It is certainly understandable that your husband would be emotionally distraught, under the circumstances. But he is also being verbally abusive, if not physically so. And he's refusing all help. To be completely honest, reading what you wrote, I fear for your safety, as well as your husband's. From the sound of it, though, you cannot save your husband from himself. Please do what you need to do to save yourself...

[thunderbear]

Today, he has been better at his words toward me. But he's still refusing the hospital. I've tried to tell him about mindfulness and how it helped me. But he refuses that. I really don't know if it's suicidal, depression with anxiety or grief or all three causing this. He said he's scared of the thoughts. Which, is a good thing because I know when I was suicidal, the ideations didn't scare me. They comforted me. It's just very stressful here. I try to not get offended by what he says and I try not to lose my temper but it's really hard :'(

[WibblyWobbly]

Not to scare you, but you should be worried if he says he's scared of the thoughts. I've been suicidal in ways that both comforted me and scared me. I have PTSD, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, so I've been through the wringer with my moods. I had a very long depression that ended in a suicide attempt that I was at peace with. I have also had moods where I felt very agitated and suicidal. After I calmed down I was scared because I knew I wasn't in my right state of mind and that I could have committed suicide impulsively. It's the impulse that is scary. If your husband is experiencing impulses it's a dangerous state to be in and hospitalization and medication would be the way to go. He may benefit from a mood stabilizer and that might also reduce his nasty outbursts towards you. (Not a doctor, just an experienced patient)

[ChipperMonkey]

If he is threatening suicide he needs to be hospitalized. If he is refusing to go on his own, its time to call the cops and get him committed. Yeah, this sounds like I'm being a hard @ss, but suicide is not something to be taken lightly. EVERY threat must be treated seriously.

And, you need to put yourself first. If he is this unwell and not willing to help himself, there is nothing you can do. He is a sinking ship and taking you down with him. If anything, he is being the selfish one....can you see that? He has no right to take you down with him. Its total BS for a friend to say you're being selfish for leaving him when he is being an abusive arse. I don't care what the disorder is, that doesn't give him the right to treat you so horribly.

We aren't responsible for being traumatized or developing PTSD, but we ARE responsible for our own healing. If we can't even help ourselves this much, then I don't think we deserve to have others in our lives. That is, trauma/PTSD doesn't give anyone a free license to be abusive toward others. (Clarification....symptoms such as flashbacks, dissociation, and other things that we can't fully control aren't what I'm talking about.)

[Open Eyes]

These major traumatic losses were not very long ago. What is taking place with him right now is that he is decending into the PTSD. He is talking about suicide because he wants to end the pain he is feeling, I am sure it's overwhelming. He is expressing a lot of anger towards you, but you are just there for him to vent the anger out towards. He is not seeking help because he most likely feels that no one can help him with this. He probably cannot even articulate all the emotional overwhelm he is feeling, at this stage most just can't put it into words.

He has to get help, he could snap and end up going into a rage, even a white out rage that he can't stop. You don't deserve to be on the receiving end of that either.

He has to release the anger, but he needs to do it in the right setting with a professional, not someone like you who can end up getting hurt.

You are seriously walking on eggshells with this man who may blow up at anything you say wrong even though you are trying to help him. Him asking what to do is saying he really is lost in the stage of PTSD he is in, and he is probably going to get worse, even feed into it unknowling simply because he is so raw right now and has no idea "why" he is struggling so much.

It just has been so recent, it was a lot all at once so it is no surprise that he is having such a hard time and is overwhelmed, so much so that he is talking about suicide because he wants to end the agonizing stage he is in right now.

It is important that you tell him that his suicidal impuses can come in waves, but he needs to pay attention because they can come in like a wave but they do receed and go away. He needs to know that this is because he is overwhelmed right now and in time this part of the PTSD will ease up. When you talk to him about getting help, you need to impress on him that someone who specializes in PTSD will give him ways that he can help himself so he can slowly learn what is happening so he doesn't feed into it and make it worse, but instead learns what is happening and how he can help himself better.

He has to understand he has an injury, just as if he broke his leg and needed to see a doctor to fix it, so does he need a PTSD therapist to help him heal from this too.

[thunderbear]

He's no longer talking about suicide. Now he's directing his anger towards me. The other day he head butted me so hard, I thought for a couple days that I had a concussion. He's pulled chunks of my hair out and he's threatening to tell his whole family that I'm a slut. He keeps telling me I'm not doing what he says although I am. He woke me up at 3am and asked if I wanted coffee. I told him no thank you I'm tired. He yelled at me. Called me a who're. The day before yesterday he made me pack my things but chased me thru the house and said "One of us ain't leaving this GD house". Then that night he cornered me while I was bathing. Triggered me so bad that I threw up in my bath water. Right now he's yelling. And saying that I'm disgusting and not worth being married to.