‘We Have PTSD’: Wife of Veteran Shares Experiences

‘We Have PTSD’: Wife of Veteran Shares Experiences
By ABC News
Mar 31, 2014

This post by Blair Hughes originally appeared on www.warriorsandwives.com

I am the wife of a Iraq veteran with PTSD. For some, like my husband Jonah, the anxiety is so overwhelming and debilitating that we are considered “housebound.”

Oh, you noticed I said “we?”

Yes, that’s because I have PTSD, too.

I have a condition known as Secondary PTSD.

After three deployments and 10 IED blasts, my husband has several other injuries and I am his full-time caregiver. As a caregiver, I with him pretty much 24/7. I have adopted a constant sort of vigilance in order to predict and pre-empt my husband’s PTSD behaviors. Knowing the symptoms and his reaction to “trigger situations” inside and out is key to our survival, so much so that many of these symptoms become my reality, as well. Anxiety, extreme discomfort in crowds, hyper-vigilance and isolation just to name a few.

We try. We really do try to go outside our comfort zone. But when we do we often have a massive, far longer than normal, recovery period. A simple trip out to eat at an uncrowded restaurant, during a super slow time often results in the need for an afternoon in bed. If we do happen to venture out on a good day, during “normal” shopping hours, it’s very likely we end up two steps back from where we were.

Often, we have to use grocery delivery services. We pay for Amazon Prime (thank God for their Two-Day shipping!) because during a bad spell — when you just cannot leave the house for days at a time — sometimes you still need toilet paper.
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