Hello, welcome to Married with PTSD. Um I have started this podcast in hope that other spouses will know that they're not alone in their journey with their husband. Obviously I I'm a wife, so I'm I can tell this through a wife's perspective of the spouse. Um, I don't want people to feel like they're alone. For so many years, many, many years. I felt like I had to go through this battle alone. My husband is a combat veteran.
and um struggles with PTSD. And with those struggles our marriage has struggled because I did not know how to deal with it or how to help him or help myself. And I am just so thankful to have had my mom, who was a great support system and um God, I I mean I got through this with my faith. But I wanna make sure that everyone out there knows I'm not a doctor. I don't have my PhD in this. Um I am just telling you through my life experiences.
um what's worked, what hasn't worked and just just trying to share it out there with you guys so that you don't feel like you're the only one going through it because for so many years I did. And by no means am I sitting here bashing any kind of military um anything because I am proud that my husband served. I'm proud of all the other ones.
it's just hard with to deal with the aftermath as a family. Um and I just didn't quite know what to do for so many years and I still don't and I don't have all the answers but I'm here to share with you what I've gone through. Um, my life started opening up when I started realizing, hey, we we do have a problem. I think I knew that right away. Uh my life started changing when I was open to the public other than just the inside of my four walls of my house.
Uh, I s for so many years you just try to act like nothing's wrong. You're living the perfect American dream. and you just have a great marriage. And that was so far from the truth. Um, we were not living the perfect marriage. And it was just this hidden and the best way I can describe it is just shameful secret. Um, he was hiding it, I was hiding it.
We weren't even truthful to ourselves for many years that this was going on. Um, I just took it as it kinda has a temper and um this is the way it's going to be. And I think uh Throughout the years, oh my gosh, we've been married for many years. Um 12, we've been married for 12 years. And it we are in a good place now, but man, that didn't happen overnight. And I used to think For a long time it was just as um marine.
veterans'cause my husband is a Marine and um as I've opened up to other people and spouses, like I open up right away now and I have heard from combat veterans army spouses and navy spouses and I so I think it's just it's not I haven't tied it down to Marine Corps'cause that was the only branch I knew, that was the only that was my life. And I think it is more of a combat veteran PTSD um
where I have the similarities with the other spouses, not just a certain branch. I do think as a marine marine wife, we have thicker skin. Uh you have to have that. But um with the combat veteran who struggles with PTSD, I don't think it matters which branch. I think that it matters if they were a combat veteran. Um so many of the similarities just uh with the with the anger. There there's anger there and a lot of triggers and I had to figure out
the angers and the triggers and man this was over many years. I wish I could say, Why not I just wrote down on a piece of paper things that are making him mad and all that. No, it was trial and error for many years, but it started getting better when he realized he needed help.
¶ Critiquing the System and Spouse Neglect
And I'm gonna go back and forth through our years of all the things that happened and all of that, but I can tell you that pivotal moment. We have a child, we have a daughter, and she was very young, she was a toddler, and he was just angry and he couldn't tell you why he was angry this particular moment. But
I think he was angry because he waited too long in the drive thru at McDonalds. And by the time he got to our house we were sitting down. I had unwrapped our child's meal. We were getting ready to eat. He was just angry and he picked up the cheeseburger and threw it across the room. And I'm not telling you anything he would not tell publicly. It was that moment when our child was looking at him and I was looking at him.
And his head something clicked like, I need help. I don't even know why I just threw that cheeseburger. But these were the crazy things that I was living through in my marriage. Um that I would make excuses for or cover up for uh constantly. Constantly. And that moment is when he was like, I gotta get help and he started seeking help. And man, there's some more casts podcasts that I'm gonna come out because man, trying to find help
they don't know how to help. I mean mental health is such a It's just it's so broad. I don't even think they really truly know how to help our our men, our husbands with this. Um, we have fought so hard to keep him off m the thousands of pills that they've tried to put at him and and believe me, we've tried, we've tried a lot of the medicines.
When the side effect of making them angry. Well, that's what we're trying to avoid. Why would you give him something that makes him the side effect is making him angry? Like these things aren't making sense to me. Yet this is what the VA is is telling us will help. I'm here to tell you it's not helping. Ask the spouse. Um and that's why I'm creating this podcast. No one's asking the spouse. And yes, I know the VA is there to help the veteran.
and only the veteran. But man, as spouses, we're our number one priority is to help that veteran. That's the veteran we love dearest to our heart. We would like nothing more f for them to be okay. Um I wish they would help a start asking us, like, no, that medicine isn't working. This is what's happen this is what my family, my children are witnessing. Um, but those questions aren't being asked. Uh it's a quick fix and they're hoping that it works.
And it's not. It's failing them miserably. And the people that are paying the price are the people that are closest to our veterans. It's their families. The ones that they love the most are the ones that are paying the price the most.
¶ Building Community and Shared Resilience
So that's why I'm here to share my stories and hopes that if you are going through this, please know that you're not going through it alone. When I started opening up, I didn't even realize the two women I work with that I one of them I've worked with for years. goes through the exact same struggles and here we are completely being quiet about it. Number one,'cause we're trying to act like nothing's wrong. And number two, uh, it's a hush hush society. We don't talk about our
combat veterans with PTSD in their mental health. They don't want to look weak in that in that sense. Um, and it when I did open up to my friends, who I love to this day dearly, they're my friends. They want the best for me, they could not understand the struggles I was going through. the anger and all of the other mishaps that were happening. Like they would just be like, I would I would leave. You need to leave. Well, that wasn't an option for me. And I...
got to the point where I just stopped telling them stuff. I d was embarrassed because of the reactions that I was getting and they weren't trying to be mean or any of that. They I could just tell they had no idea where I was coming from. Or what I was talking about. So I stopped communicating with them. And so the only person I'm talking to at this point is my mom, who is incredibly supportive of my marriage through its ups and downs. And I am so thankful for that.
But I that's all I had. And she was trying her best to understand you know, the things that were going on. But I mean, she really didn't know either. It wasn't until I opened up uh to my w a very good friend. I would almost call her a mentor. She was like, Hey, I have another friend in this building and I and I think she's going through the same things. I think you need to reach out. Well, I didn't for a very long time until I'm hitting to a rock bottom place. Rock bottom.
And I I reached out to her and thankfully she was like, Yeah, let's have dinner and I did and I was so nervous about even communicating the fact that I had this craziness going on in my house and it turns out so did she. Um, and then uh we kind of formed a bond and then
as my husband started getting help and was more open about his p his PTSD, I could become more open and start talking and found out there was more spouses. And so now it's not Whenever we meet a military, someone new, a veteran, I'll say I immediately go to their spouse and say, So, how are you doing?
And of of course it's always good and then I say, Oh, well ours isn't this is what we just went through last week because it's not perfect. We haven't worked out all the kinks, but we have strategies now. Um and then slowly they start to come out and tell a little bit about theirs. So I know As um spouses married to PTSD, we are not the only ones. It's just so hard to find each other.
But we have similar stories. Um, and that is why I just wanted to hopefully share some of my stories of of things that I've gone through, um, things that have worked, things that haven't. And maybe have some of the people that I meet along the way, they can share theirs too. Not only just my stories, but their stories. Because it just makes me feel um a little sense of peace when I know there's others out there that I'm like, okay.
This is happening in other homes. Okay. I am not the only one. I am not crazy. Um, so yeah. These are what the pot podcasts are gonna be like. I might have just a topic like, hey Food is a trigger for my husband. Let's talk about that. Um And just some things that go through. But number one, I I don't cover for him anymore. We have we I'm very open. He is very open. We have PTSD in our home. And um
It is what it is. We have good days and bad days. We used to have good months and bad months. I can honestly say it's come down to we have good days and bad days now. We have I have a husband who has worked so hard at realizing he has this going on in his life and trying to help himself while at the same time it helps the family. So I'm thankful and blessed for that. Um
And, you know, I'm gonna talk about some of our those bad months that we had, or then then it won't trickle down to bad weeks. But we still have bad days. Please don't get me wrong, we have bad days. But we get through them. I get through them, we move on, and tomorrow's another day. And I hope that some of you out there can relate to my life, my story, and we're gonna we get through this adventure together.
And I look forward to sharing my stories and having some people on to share theirs as well. And I will see you or you listen to you another day.