What I Wish My Husband Understood About PTSD
It has nothing to do with mind over matter
“Did you happen to stop for coffee?”
I gave my husband a confused look. He hadn’t asked me to stop anywhere while I was dropping our daughter off at school.
“I messaged you,” he announced, not realizing I don’t make a habit of driving and reading my texts. When I explained that, he asked me if I could go back out and get it for him.
To the ordinary person, this may not seem that big a deal, but I get nervous when somebody abruptly springs things on me. Over the last year, I’ve had a good decrease in my PTSD symptoms because of the schedule I’ve developed, and I get upset when something has to change. I’ve never been good with change.
Normally, after dropping off my daughter, I return to the house where I eat breakfast, spend a few minutes outside in nature, treat myself to a meditation or two complete with EMDR and binaural beat sessions to relax my brain. My anxiety/panic usually peaks in the late morning for some reason, so I try to get myself in a good place before then. Running out for coffee, in my distressed mind, messes everything up.
I went to the store anyway, knowing that a day without coffee is like a day without sunshine for my beloved hubby. Since he works from home, hours would have passed before he could leave to get his own. For the sake of his happiness and comfort, I was glad to get him what he needed.
The store was brimming with people, so I hurried to get in line to pay. A lady walked up alongside of me to pay at another register. She appeared disheveled and angry on first glance. I couldn’t help but remember my husband telling me that somebody had been stabbed at that very store shortly after we moved to the neighborhood, and I felt a little unsafe. I smiled at her anyway with the slightest twinge of concern as I continued my transaction.
“Can I use your discount card?” the woman suddenly asked me in a loud, demanding voice. It was right there on my keychain. Startled, I handed it over without a word so she could swipe it.
That’s where things started to go downhill.
By the time I got back to my car, I was involuntarily shaking. Even though it didn’t make much sense, I was scared to death. In fact, I was so scared that I rushed out of the store, leaving my husband’s paid-for coffee sitting on the counter. I didn’t realize my mistake until I pulled into my driveway.
I felt like crying. Not only was my nervous system betraying me, but my husband was going to be angry that I came home without his coffee. I tried to breathe, but it came out shallow and rushed. I sat in a chair outside for a few minutes to try to get my bearings. I grabbed my headphones and filled my head with calming music. None of it seemed to work.
My husband came out of his office and asked if I got his coffee, and I tried to tell him what happened.
“She startled me,” I explained. “I feel like I want to cry.”
“It doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me,” he replied. “Just go back up the street and see if they held it behind the counter.”
My frustration started to rise, “I just need a few minutes, okay?”
As loving as my hubby was, he had no inkling of understanding my situation. He didn’t see what the fuss was about, and he said I should be brave and “face my demons.”
In the end, I went back to the store where his coffee was waiting, not because I felt better and “conquered my fear,” but because I was so angry with my husband for not understanding me. I felt like he cared more about his coffee than he did about me.
“It’s my fault,” I said to him when I got home. “I was under the impression that you understood that this happens sometimes because I have PTSD, but clearly you don’t.”
I felt alone and misunderstood. I’d been triggered by a random lady in the store, which upset me already, but he definitely piled on and made it worse. Since I know he doesn’t really get it, I didn’t stay mad for too long.
Not that I would ever want another person to suffer, but just once I wish I could switch bodies with him or others who don’t seem to want to listen when I try to explain what PTSD feels like. It’s not like I expect anybody to walk on eggshells around me for fear of triggering me, but I’d like them to know that these triggers can pop up anywhere and for no specific reason. Trying to talk me out of them does no good. I have to wait until it passes, and the most I would want from anyone is maybe a hug and a little space to breathe again.
Even though I’ve come a long way in my healing program, I still deal with symptoms from a severely traumatic childhood and an eight-year abusive marriage as an adult. My body shakes at inopportune times. I have trouble getting in the shower without locking the door behind me because my ex-husband used to burst in on me when we were fighting. I struggle not to get scared and dissociate in traffic sometimes, and I still have flashbacks and nightmares that can put me down for a whole day.
Not only do I work very hard at my program, but I have read just about every book on PTSD in Amazon’s library. I understand the history of trauma and how nervous systems become deeply dysregulated, and I’ve learned the best methods to reverse the damage and feel true balance. My gains have been the biggest successes of my lifetime, but I struggle to explain it all to other people.
Maybe I’m worried I won’t be believed, but that doesn’t bother me the most. It’s the feeling of being “different.” People think that I’m too sensitive, and I find it hard to maintain long-term friendships because I can’t always do what a real friendship requires. Therefore, I spend too much time in my head second-guessing myself about whether I’m doing the right things and whether people think I’m stupid for doing them. I have no bar with which to track my progress, because the invisible line moves all the time, and I have nobody to bounce it off of to see if I’m on the right path.
It can be a very lonely life to suffer from mental illness.
I know deep down that my husband tries to be supportive, but I think it scares him, too. Whenever I struggle with things, he can become very cold and dismissive like he’s protecting himself from whatever I have. He’s not the best with empathizing, but that could be also because he is afraid due to not being able to understand mental illness. It makes me feel like I’m a lot to deal with. Maybe I actually am.
As much as I want to learn about PTSD myself, I wish I could educate other people on what it is, especially when I’m not in the middle of an episode. Sadly, trauma is something that barely anybody gets spared from. As a child, if something bad happens but they live in a nurturing, supportive family, it may not affect them long term at all. However, if a child lives in a toxic family where feelings are discouraged, he or she shoves it all down inside and doesn’t deal with it. If repeated traumas happen and are pushed away, their entire nervous system becomes dysregulated.
A dysregulated person is tuned into their trauma and reacts as if they’re still being traumatized… all the time. They always wait for the other shoe to drop when things are going well, and when it eventually does it affirms the belief that they are no good. The first time a therapist advised me to “love myself,” I almost laughed in her face. I felt I had made so many mistakes due to my mental state that neither I nor anybody else could love me.
Instead, I first learned to love the little girl inside me, the one who had suffered all the abuse, and I made it my job to protect her. I loved her with everything I had, just like the love I had for my own children. When I realized that “the little girl” and I were one and the same, I took the first steps to transfer those loving feelings to the woman I am now.
Not every day is going to be perfect, and I can accept that. There will always be people or situations or even a random doorbell that startle me. I know even bigger challenges are likely in my future as well. I just wish my loved ones wouldn’t freak out every time I get upset or anxious. Those of us who suffer from mental illness could use a little support and an effort to understand.
I may not be perfect, but I have learned to know my mind and body and what is best for both. It may only be in my own timeframe, which others might find frustrating, but when things happen it takes me a little longer to bounce back. I know what to do to help myself now, though, and most of all I know I’ll be okay. It would just be great if I didn’t have to go down that path by myself.
The same thing happened to me yesterday. Not with coffee, but a trigger that caused me to spiral for a few hours afterward. I went on a podcast that the host uploaded on YouTube afterward. People make comments afterward, and I started reading those about my episode. One commenter said I was the worst guest that the host had ever had on the podcast, and that I was self-absorbed. Even though I knew she was a keyboard warrior, I got upset. Those were words I used to hear from my mother, and it took me back. I'm better today, but all day yesterday I questioned if I was a narcissist or selfish, and so on. Thanks for sharing how little acts of aggression can cause a cascade in our nervous systems.
Thanks so much for sharing this with us. You are not alone