Advice for Partner

[lorib01]

Hello,

I need some advice from the experts and it looks like this is the place. My partner suffers from PTSD from abuse that occured about 20 years ago. Although greatly improved their are still issues with trust. I'm constently being pushed away & made to feel worthless and unwanted. I of course feel hurt & angery. We try to discuss things rationally, seem to be successfull for a short time but then it starts all over again. Does anyone have any insite or advice for coping with this yo-yo feeling?

Thanks

Lori

[susan]

Hi Hun. You make me feel guilty about my own partner. I have short periods where everythings rosey and the emotions are great. Then it feels like Ive let my guard down so I look for signs its not right. Some times I push him away- sometimes I want to cling on. I guess the only way is for your partner and myself to address this. And maybe, with time (I push sometimes to test if hell backlash or leave) we will calm and trust. You sound like a lovely person. Just know they do love you. Its just a comunication problem. Susan. x:D

sue

[susan]

Just read this again... dont ever let yourself feel worthless. Say quietly but firmly that this is how you feel. I hope if I made my partner feel really awful, he would explain that he had to leave if I continued. It is a difficult situation. The drowning man cant save the drowning man. Saying that, its fear of losing you that probably makes them push you away. Im 42. A lot of my thinking stems from the time I was eight ...? Take care. Susan. x

sue

[lorib01]

Hey Susan, thanks for your words of encouragement. I'm sorry if I made you feel guilty in my post. I'm sure you can guess that I didn't intend to do so.
I did leave between posting this & now. My partner was not feeling safe emotionally with me there. I'm gone but since the last push was extreamly hurtful we are having problems with trying to figure out how to get the relationship back on track. I'm still in love & want to make this work, I still feel that it can work.
I'm going to alan-on meetings, meditating & some other "me" stuff, but I still feel so empty.

Lori

[Southern_Belle]

Lori,

Is your partner in counseling for his PTSD? If so, I suggest you might attend a session or two regarding this issue. Or, try counseling for this problem as it may be ongoing considering this is a problem that tends to not go away quickly. Since you two have talked about it and you still have these feelings you may need some outside assistance.

Bel

"Our thoughts are our reality"

[lorib01]

Hey Susan,

I know, I suggested that we do that but my suggestions was rejected. No more therapy, apparently hurting me and destroying what was once a beautiful relationship is preferable to getting well.

Thanks,
Lori

Lori

[Meggy]

Hi Susan -
I'm the one with PTSD in my marriage. I've been in treatment but my psychiatrist repeatedly told me he didn't have enough expertise in PTSD. But my feeling was....well to be truthful I had an uncommon for me feeling of security with him so I didn't want to switch. Eventually, lately, he made me switch to a person who specializes in panic disorders, which I thought I do NOT have, wrong, and PTSD.

I thought I had two not "emotional" problems, but "behavior" problems. I was self diagnosing, dangerous stuff that. What I'm finding out is I have such a jungle of emotions all vying for my attention it's going to be hard to sort them all out, let alone deal with them all. My new therapist picked out the two she felt were causing my relationships the most problems, which I disagreed upon at first, my now usual obstinate personality, but she's right I can see now. They also just happen to be the most painful and causing a lot of my other feelings and behaviors. Now I'm wondering, why didn't I see that? But someone here saw it even before the therapist because I posted a lot, told my whole story. Then for various reasons I bolted and ran and erased all my posts. I have a lot of viable reasons why I did that but I think it boils down to - I started feeling way too vulnerable here. Getting help, being listened to, not having someone tell me something stupid and pacifying to make them feel good and me shut up - here? Started immediately helping me, it also was very frightening. I felt terribly vulnerable,emotionally naked suddenly.


If you met me you'd find a very warm, easy to smile, conversant person. Inside I'm a human time clock ticking how fast I can get away. Not at first. It happens over time,sometimes minutes. I used to be a very huggy person and now I only like physical contact with my pets. I didn't realize I was like that until recently. I adore my husband. He's my soul mate but I refuse to sleep with him. I have a lot of excuses for that too but the reality is, he's too physically close. When someone hugs me I used to give my whole self back in a hug like with my husb or children and now I'm told I avert my head. Don't hold them close, close down, later go into another room. I didn't know that either I just knew I could actually "feel" when someone was getting too close to me. It's a feeling to me of a potentially threatening situation. The avoidance I practiced, and still I didn't know I was like that because I get out, I was among people but my personal physical space is getting bigger and bigger. I don't like physical contact. I used to be the total opposite. I can listen to hours of other's feelings but I developed little "scripts" I recite about my own, it's safer. In fact my hands are sweaty with anxiousness typing this but I want you to see how it feels,maybe help you understand what it's like from this side. I could have never known. I want to be loved, and I want to love - and I do. But that's too simplistic to say "I love you" for me anymore. I'm living in a crowd of all these flashbacks which for me are smells, sounds, fleeting sights, anger, easy tears, fear, and I visualize I've put a tough egg shell around me that protects but it can be broken again too. No one can see or feel all this but me. That's isolating,so I isolate.

We went to couple's counselling because my avoidance with my husb. he was no longer standing. He was getting grumpy and why now I can't see how much of that was my fault, the horrid things I'd do, anything wasn't below me, to avoid intimate conversation or touch? I don't know how I couldn't see it now. I'm not saying I'm all over it. I've just started the journey but I'm seeing someone who specializes in just my problems too, severe PTSD but is there another kind? I wonder if I would have known how hard this is if I would have agreed to start "appropriate treatment". On the other hand I wonder if I didn't have the support I've gotten here first, if I would have started this treatment at all. I've gotten insight, the all importa

[EmmaJane]

Hi is you partner getting any help from any where?

You are certainly not worthless

Feel free to PM me, if you want to talk.

Emma xx

Keep focused, keep positive.

[Meggy]

I forgot to say this. For me anyway this PTSD is tricky business. My memory darts in and out I suppose as it can handle things. But I found out in my first therapy session, after I filled out a mile of forms, that my PTSD started in my childhood and kept building with one unresolved issue after another. I knew I was angry at persons who fondled me constantly, but I also thought why wouldn't I be and if I let go of that anger and wariness, wouldn't that leave me vulnerable again? I feel too like just let it go Meggy, that was years ago, it's illogical to let that still make me feel, however I do. That's logical to me too. Logic doesn't seem to have anything to do with any of this. I felt and to be honest at this early time in treatment still do feel, I'm right. It was two people. One is now dead. The other I haven't been physically around for 8 years and still, I feel vulnerable. For instance I can't stand in a line like in the grocery store for anything. Many times I've dumped my grocery cart full of groceries and walked out rather than stand in line with some unknown lurker standing behind me. Not ONE time have I ever thought that's unusual. I've felt smart. And paniced. When I was in school I'd forego eating until I was a skeleton because I couldn't stand to have anyone standing behind me. I felt like my skin was crawling with their eyes boring into me. I can see now I couldn't even look to see who it was but I know no one noticed it either. I've always been creative with excuses too. I was saving money in school. In grocery stores I get haughty and say I am NOT standing in line to spend good money at a store that won't staff registers enough. I leave! Sometimes it's a little feeling, sometimes overwhelming, but rarely do people know what's going on inside of me because I've gotten so good at hiding it. I've just asked people I've known a long time this week - did you know.....they had no idea. See how good we get at it is my point? The people who fondled me were of both sexes, one man, another was a girl. It's like my skin has extra sensors and if some one touches my back for instance too close to my side by my breast, or too low on my back close to my rear? I'm outta there. I'm going to have a very hard time getting rid of all this garbage. I've been collecting, keeping it all a secret, for a very long time. I still have to get to the point I even want to get rid of some of it.

Meggy