As those of you living with someone with PTSD know all too well, it's not easy! You never know when that beast is going to appear over the smallest thing, could be a toy left out or an offhand comment, you just never know. I find that my husband doesn't even notice when he starts being short
and downright mean. It usually comes on fast and without any warning.
Take a quick run to the grocery store for instance, if you don't know exactly what you need and the way to get your trip to the store accomplished in the shortest amount of time possible, you could be in for a very frustrating experience. You could be walking to the produce section, remember that you forgot to grab eggs and suddenly you're the dumbest person alive. I know from experience that he doesn't mean to treat me that way, and he tries to control it but sometimes it slips and it's his way or the highway. So I stop talking and that makes it worse. Once the beast comes out, it takes a long time for it to go away again. And once he's loose, he just gets more and more ferocious, making the people around feel smaller and smaller.
An example of a small thing that happened recently might put this into perspective for someone who hasn't experienced it. We were at the lake the last few days and one night we all decided to make a fire. My friend put 2 logs on when it first started. Apparently it was the wrong time as the fire just refused to get going. Smaller logs were added but it still refused to catch. My husband made a comment to my friend that she was wrong to put the larger logs on when she did because they were at the bottom. Like most logical people, she tried to move them. This pretty much extinguished all the flame and left the coals, oops. My husband got very frustrated and pretty much chastised her for touching it. She admitted to him that she wasn't very good with fires but that just wasn't good enough. He was already frustrated so he abruptly walked away and went to bed. Luckily for me, she has experience with people with PTSD so I didn't have to explain what had happened. I hate trying to explain it to people that don't understand, I think that's the worst part! I have seen people look at us like we have 2 heads, no wonder many sufferers hide most of the time.
I know that my husband hates looking like the biggest jerk in the world, and he often does, when the beast shows up. I can't even begin to count how many times we have had to quickly leave somewhere when a spike comes on. He leaves almost immediately while I am left to say goodbye and apologize for him. I don't even want to know what happens after we're gone, I'm sure there have been many things said over the years. The car rides are either silent or a barrage of raised voice commentary on anything and everything. It usually takes about an hour for that beast to go, longer if you get in it's way.
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