An Iraq Vet Honors an “Invisible Veteran”—His Wife

An Iraq Vet Honors an “Invisible Veteran”—His Wife
Daily Beast
BY BINGHAM JAMISON
November 10, 2013

After overcoming his battles with PTSD and returning from the brink of despair, an Iraq veteran learns of his wife’s silent struggles and how the costs of war have impacted his family.

I got to wear the medals of recognition upon my chest, and all she got was the thankless job of caring for a disabled veteran—an inequity that must be fixed. This Veteran’s Day, while the country honors the bravery and selflessness of our proud warriors who fight for our country, I will celebrate the service and sacrifice of my wife and of all military spouses, people every bit as deserving of public recognition for their service to our country as we vets.

"I was on the floor, curled up in a ball in the bathroom...my four-week-old son was crying in his crib, waiting for me to go feed him, and I couldn't...I couldn't get up."

That was my wife, standing onstage before 500 members of our community, describing her darkest, yet most redemptive, moment as a military spouse and mother of two small children.

On the wooden floor of our bathroom, feeling abandoned by her suffering husband, her “Marine hero,” a man who had the night before checked himself into the mental ward at the VA hospital for life-threatening post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), my wife was paralyzed by fear and anxiety. A tough, energetic, and disciplined woman—Kristen had earned a PhD in educational psychology at the University of Virginia—she was now reduced to frayed nerves, confused and upset that she couldn't just pull herself out of her misery.

Though she didn’t know it at the time, Kristen was suffering from both postpartum depression and “secondary PTSD,” an oft-overlooked condition afflicting thousands of military spouses (and children) whose loved ones are themselves battling PTSD. Many of the symptoms of secondary PTSD rhyme with those of PTSD: social withdrawal; hypervigilance; jumpiness; anger; depression; and—in my case, though not hers—substance abuse.

On that terrible day three years ago, my wife curled up alone on the bathroom floor while I was surrounded by a team of medical personnel in an emergency room, both of us were devoid of hope and in need of a miracle. I learned about God's—and my family’s—love and forgiveness and began to slowly pull myself back together again. My wife picked herself off that floor to care for our young daughter and newborn son, learning about and affirming the depths of her perseverance. Together we learned how to honestly face the burdens we both shouldered from the war.
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