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Today is National PTSD Awareness Day. Anybody that knows me knows a couple of things. One being that I am a pretty verbal (with my fingers) advocate for Veterans that suffer from a certain mental health condition. They also know that I have a nasty little monster that lives in my home. His name is Combat PTSD.
With it being National PTSD Awareness Day, it's only fitting that we do our part in contributing to this subject. The thought of awareness sounds great in concept, however it really doesn't accomplish much besides making your social media profile like like you actually give a care if you are nice enough to post about it. You see, most people that love and support someone with PTSD know that monster all too well. We don't need awareness. We know he's all too real.
However, unless you've seen him, you really have no idea what he is. Or what he looks like.
For everyone, the PTSD monster looks and acts a little differently. Sometimes he likes to drink. A lot. Other times he's "handy". And not in a good way. He likes to scream in the middle of the night. He can have wandering eyes and no moral compass. Almost universally, he also has a tendency to like to be alone.
He tells lies too. Lots of them. However, he's not the loudmouth kind of liar. It's rare to catch him in the act. He whispers in the ears of sufferers and says the most unthinkable things.
YOU WOULD BE BETTER OFF DEAD.
He likes to say that. A lot. 22 dead Veterans a day attest to this. However, there's hundreds of thousands that have heard his voice and we know he's whispered in their ear.
Those that live with and love a person that lives with this monster inside of their head knows he's all too real. We see it in their eyes. We hear it in their voices. We watch it in their reactions. To sounds. To smells. To situations. To imaginary threats. To real threats. To almost everything.
You see, a person who lives with the monster that is PTSD isn't like the rest of us. That monster has him on constant alert. The monster won't let him sit in public where he can't see the door. Or let him fall asleep with the doors unlocked. And forget about driving through the city with the windows down. The monster never sleeps until the Veteran is dead. Or gets help.
Many of us that live with the monster live in fear. We aren't afraid of our Veteran like the media would like to have you believe though. It's a totally different kind of fear. We fear what the monster is whispering in our Veteran's ear again. We fear that he will never go away. We fear that we will have a breakthrough in our loved one's mental health only to have the monster come back. Full force and ready for a fight.
Like a cancer that has beaten remission, the PTSD monster can be relentless.
One of the hardest things that Warrior Lovers have to deal with is the truth. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty. We KNOW that the monster can appear to be gone but in all reality, he's just in hibernation mode. He's waiting for the right trigger to come back and give him strength. All he needs is a little persuasion.
However, those of us that live with and love someone with Combat PTSD like to fool ourselves sometimes though. Any time we see lots of good days, we want to believe that these will last forever. We start putting demands on our Warriors that are seemingly normal.
Take out the trash. Fix the car. Wash the dog. Get a job.
The monster is sneaky though. He lies hiding in wait for us to start presuming that the healing is over and that we are normal couples that live in normal households. He likes for the scab to almost fall off by itself before he comes back out in a rage. It is only then that we know that we were fooled again. The monster was never gone. He was just sleeping.
WE KNOW THAT IT WILL NEVER BE OVER WITH ONLY AWARENESS.
WE KNOW THAT WE ARE IN FOR THE FIGHT OF OUR LOVED ONE'S LIFE.
For more information on PTSD and how you can not only be aware of it, but HELP those that are suffering, you may visit the Wounded Warrior Project's webpage here. Take an extra look at their "Wounded Care Network" program that features state of the art, intensive PTSD treatment programs that actually work. We have a good friend that attended and he said it saved his life. It might help save someone you love as well.