Sometimes I Feel Like I Am Being Smothered by PTSD

Anonymous letter from the wife of a Vietnam Vet

R.J.S. is 68yrs old. She is married to a veteran who suffers from PTSD since his service in the Vietnam war in 1967.

It suffocates me 

It rears it's ugly head and screams out at me. It's hard to breath. How do I go on? How do I survive? I just want peace and happiness. Something I have realized I will never get in his world. Recently the VA has acknowledged that the wives are suffering too. No kidding. Fifty years is a very long time, more so in the last 17 years. Recently the VA gave us marriage counseling for PTSD. It helped with some of the stresses I had held in for so long. Sad part is, it still controls our life every day.

This sickness is different for everyone who suffers from it. One painful realization was his triggers are silent on my end. I had no idea I caused them sometimes. He expressed that I was the cause of his flashbacks. I go over every bump on purpose when I'm driving. We live on a very rough road. He sees the ship to shore vessel that he was in, in Vietnam. That's my fault. He hates flashing lights on electronics. I have to respond to any message on the phone, that flashes, the minute I walk in the door.

He once duck taped the microwave because the time wasn't cleared and the numbers were flashing. I was watching the news and a mother had lost her son. I mentioned how sad that was. He told the counselor I did that on purpose to upset him. I had no clue. We have to set facing the door when we eat out most of the time. He is sure the feds are coming to lock him up, for the orders he was forced to take in Vietnam.

I live with this every single second of every single day. He panics when we get a VA letter. He is sure they are going to want the money back that helps support us. He trusts NO one. Not even me anymore. The most painful part now is, that our oldest son caused a trigger he has no idea about it. So his father has taken revenge and attacks him at every event. They haven't talked in 2 years of so. He tells people horrible things that are not even true. He has made up things in his mind and rants and raves about them.

Is our son perfect, who is? A while ago he told our youngest son he was a fake and a lier. Now, he accepts him because the VA has finally taken responsibility for his damaged knees. My boys don't deserve this painful hurt. They are wonderful men that I am very proud of. The sad part is I can never fix it. I am there mom and I have no answers. I can't make him love his boys. He doesn't love himself. He says, "They are her kids, men can't have kids, so they are not mine."

My thought is, then he doesn't have to be responsible for the heart ache he has caused them. Someone once said under their breath, "She chooses to live with him." He is mentally ill. He doesn't take responsibility for his actions. Vietnam took the cute, fun filled, happy go lucky fella I fell in love with. He fakes it very well. It took all our dreams and destroyed them. Life's a game and we all must play our part. I feel like it's time to stop hiding what PTSD is like.

He will never forgive himself for the lives he had to take. He feels he needs to be punished. Sad part is, that we are punished too. I feel like it's time to wake up our world, so they will see this ugly nightmare for what it is, painfully "devastating".