Too many times what happens is they come home, cover the scars they carry easily while they are treated to their favorite meals, welcome home parties and spending time with the people in their lives they care about the most. Young soldiers want to hang out with their buddies. Servicemen/women want to spend time with their kids and spouses. They want to get back into the "normal" world they always knew. The problem is, for some, that normal world is feeling as foreign as the world they just left.
Sometimes it just takes time to recover but other times, time is not their friend. You may notice days, weeks or months after their return, they are doing things, saying things totally out of character for them. You may notice they seem to zone out while you are talking to them, they drink more, talk less and suffer from nightmares. Somehow we manage to forget where they were and what their lives were like away from us. So we make excuses.
Parents, after knowing them all their lives, being there since their first step, will look at their veteran son/daughter, and wonder why they are acting the way they are. They will see the changes and get angry, feeling frustrated, Jack and Jill came back from the "hill" with buckets filled with woes. They want them back the way they were but as they wait, as they get into arguments, if they are dealing with a PTSD veteran, that kind of response only adds to the problem.
A spouse has the same issue going on. They want them back the way they were. They wish, hope, wait, wonder what magic words to use to get their husband or wife to return to the way they were before. Time is now the enemy. Frustration builds. If the issue is PTSD, it is also time lost when they could be healing, waiting allows PTSD to gain more control over them.
If they come home with drastic changes in their personality, you will be the first to notice, but if you don't understand what PTSD is, you don't know what you're looking at.
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on December 14, 2009
You need to understand what they dealing with. The sooner they get help, the better. If you love them, if you don't want them to leave then help them heal. With any other illness, you'd make sure they go to the doctors for help. This is not just an illness, it is a wound. It is a wound to their soul and can claim every part of them. Fight for them. If you watch the following video and suspect they have PTSD, then get them to go for help. If you are wrong, you have one less thing to worry about but if you are right, you may have just saved their life. Understand that changes after trauma are something to worry about. Be their advocate as you have been with everything else in their life.
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 11, 2009
PTSD is a wound. They may wish to be the way they were before. You may wish they were the way they were before. All of what they were is still there behind a wall of pain searching for a way to come out from behind it. Help break that wall down so they can get out. Stop wanting and start doing. Learn what PTSD. Heaven knows they need you now!
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