You have no idea how relieved I am, and scared at the same time. There was one thought that never crossed my mind through all these years: If he gets help and starts treatment, he will get worse before he gets better. It has only been a few weeks so far, and I can already see it. So many emotions and memories all welling up to the surface at once, and for a man that spent so many years hiding emotion and suppressing the memories, this is very painful for him.
I am not going to get into the nitty gritty of what finally made him get help, that is a private matter, but I will say that for a lot of soldiers it is a lot like alcoholism... they need to hit rock bottom first. He hit his rock bottom. Every time he returned from a deployment he was a little worse, and I believe that losing his father during this last deployment was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Since returning from Afghanistan this last time, and the entire time we have been in Alaska he has been reclusive. Angry. Bitter. Anxious. Every little thing a person says and does will piss him off. He would sit by himself and speak to no one, when he did speak to anyone it was full of bitter judgement and criticism. He would say things and not remember saying them... for the first time I began to fear him at times, and fear for him.
I KNEW that those awful things he said were not true, I KNEW he did not mean them... it does not mean it hurt any less, but I tried to remind myself that this man was not the man I married. The man I married was in there... somewhere... we just needed to find him. It is really hard to help a man find himself again when he says he does not know who he is. Where do you start?
He is seeing a counselor now, he is also seeing a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) specialist. Next week he will start with therapy. It is all overwhelming for him right now, and I am trying my best to try and keep up with all of the appointments. Not only do I have to keep up with his appointments, I have my own appointments, I have appointments for the kids, I have the kids to care for, schoolwork to do, and a house to TRY to keep clean... HOW THE FUCK AM I DOING ALL OF THIS?
I get two days off a week, and those days are not days of rest. I still have to be the strong one. I still have to be the optimistic one, I still have to be the happy one. While he is being negative and fearful I have to be sunshine and rainbows. I want a day of rest... a day to sit around and do nothing. I want time to exercise again, time to blog again. Those are my emotional releases and I have no time for them!
Well... anyway... to conclude, here we go on a roller coaster of emotion and dare I say... insanity? I am going to try to get back to blogging, because whether or not anyone is reading this, it is going to help me. Maybe there is another wife out there going through the same thing and needs answers or just the feeling that she is not alone. I don't know, but for a while, the next blogs I will write will be the unraveling.
