It should have been a day of fun, a
time to unwind and play with the kids before heading back to Iraq after coming
home on emergency leave after his father passed away. The last week had been pure stress and
emotion, and I was hoping to squeeze in just a little bit of family time before
he had to go.
We went to Jump ‘n’ Jive, a place
in Amarillo full of bounce houses for the kids to play on. We did what most parents do with two young
kids: divide and conquer. You take that one,
and I’ll take this one. It wasn’t long
before he brought me our son and said he had to make an important phone
call. He walked outside, and I did my
best to chase them both until he got back.
It seemed to take forever, and I kept walking by the window, pointing at
the imaginary watch on my wrist and motioning for him to come back in. About 30 minutes later, he did, but less than
15 minutes after that, he grabbed my arm and whispered through clenched teeth
that he had to go wait in the car.
I tried to talk him out of it, but it
was like he wasn’t hearing me. He
quickly exited, leaving me to chase two kids determined to go in two different
directions. I was furious. He hadn’t seen the kids since the day after
Christmas when he was recalled back to Fort Bragg. I was the one who had to deal with the stress
of being a single parent while he was away, and he couldn’t even focus on them
for one afternoon! I finally calmed down
and told myself that after being plucked out of a war zone on short notice and
dealing with the funeral details, he hadn’t really had any time to himself to
think, to let it all sink in. I later
found out that wasn’t entirely the case.
What he wasn’t able to verbalize
until later that night was that he just couldn’t handle the environment. The constant whirring noise of the blowers
was unbearable. The children screaming,
darting in and out of hidey-holes, hiding in the shadows, and popping up
unexpectedly was more than he could handle.
He felt like he was on high alert, his heart raced, and he was starting
to sweat. While I understood that it was
a normal reaction coming back home for such a short period with no time to
decompress, I had no idea that it was a sign of what was to come when he came
home for good.
LIVING WITH PTSD
Last week, I wrote about the
symptoms of PTSD, why the body reacts the way it does, and tried to defuse some
of the violent Hollywood stereotypes.
This week, I’m going to focus on what living with PTSD looks like for
many families every day. Hopefully this
will explain why we sometimes do the things we do.
TRIGGERS
There are endless lists of what
sort of things can “trigger” a veteran to become “amped up” or agitated. What bothers one vet may not bother another,
so it’s by no means a perfect list.
Sometimes a certain thing may not bother a veteran until they are
already feeling stressed and possibly exhausted by sleepless nights. Here are some of the most common triggers:
NOISE: Loud, unexpected noises are probably the
number one trigger that affects veterans with PTSD, especially those that can
be interpreted as gunshots or incoming fire.
Fireworks, cars backfiring, slamming doors, dropping something heavy,
the sound of machinery, loud crowds or screaming kids, even if they’re having
fun, can cause a reflex reaction.
I’ll never forget driving back onto
post at Fort Stewart right after the 3rd ID got home from Iraq in 2003. The main headquarters shot off a cannon every
weekday at 5:00 p.m. We were directly in
front of the building, chatting away about something, not noticing the
time. When the cannon fired, my husband
almost put my Chevy Blazer in the ditch.
We weren’t the only ones. Several
other cars also slammed on the brakes or swerved to “take cover”. We made it a point after that not to go near
the front gates at that time of day again.
CROWDS: A lot of veterans with PTSD say they feel
uncomfortable in large crowds. When
going to restaurants, they report having to sit near an exit or with their
backs against the wall with a clear vantage point of their environment. Especially in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, warriors were constantly on guard and were trained not to trust
any civilians. Suicide bombers were
using women and children. They didn’t
know if an old crippled man was motioning for help or trying to lure in
soldiers to detonate a hidden bomb. They
were able to control crowds and do their jobs with their fellow soldiers there
to watch their back. Even back home,
their training tells them to scan the crowd, look for anything suspicious, and
identify threats. Again, some days this
may not bother them, but other days, they can become distracted or even
obsessed with it.
BEING SURPRISED: In war, surprise
is rarely a good thing. Many PTSD
veterans have an exaggerated startle response when they are taken by surprise,
especially if they’ve already scanned the area and didn’t see someone
before. If someone comes up behind my
husband and taps him on the shoulder, even a familiar face, a friend just
wanting to say hello, you could very well see him “jump out of his skin”. The added stressor to this is the
embarrassment that follows.
I’ve also learned through the years
that when my husband is alone in a room that I’m about to enter, I need to
cough, clear my throat, or tap on the wall to announce my presence in advance
so he doesn’t turn around and startle when he sees me mere feet from him. It also doesn’t help that he sustained mild
hearing loss from repeated blasts. We’ve
also had to teach our children that you don’t sneak up on Daddy. Most normal families don’t usually have to
have that talk with their children.
ON THE ROAD: There are two things my husband hates about
driving: debris on the road and inconsiderate drivers. While most people could probably agree with
the last one, it is particularly disturbing when you have PTSD.
Road debris was another trigger
that took me by surprise. We were
driving to Amarillo one day shortly after he returned home, and he nearly put
his truck in the ditch to avoid hitting a styrofoam cup in the road. He jerked to the side out of reflex, and for
a split second, I thought we had blown a tire.
He apologized and explained that debris in the road in Iraq could mean
an IED (improvised explosive device).
While I haven’t seen a reaction that intense again, I can still see him
tense up any time there is debris in the road.
He’ll still do all he can to avoid it, but the knee-jerk reaction has
tapered down dramatically.
As for inconsiderate drivers, you
would think this would be plain old common sense for all. Unfortunately, this is not always the
case. People who tailgate, purposely box
him in, cut him off, or are just plain aggressive will kick in that instinct to
take evasive action. You never know that
the other driver is dealing with. This
goes for civilians, too. I think
everyone has heard the stories about people with such horrible road rage, they
brandish a weapon or follow the other car when they exit the highway. This is not just a veteran problem. Please, be courteous on the road.
SMELLS: The first sign of PTSD I
ever saw in my husband was triggered by a smell. We had moved from Fort Stewart to Fort Bragg
at the end of October. With the holidays
and going home for Christmas, we didn’t get every single box unpacked right
away. My candles were one of the boxes
that collected dust for a few months, and one day when I was in a hurry, I lit
one without dusting it off first. It had
that distinct burnt hair smell. My
husband retreated to our bedroom so abruptly, it caught me completely
off-guard. I followed him to find out
what was wrong, and after almost an hour of trying to get him to talk, all he
could say was “I can still smell it.” He
then broke down and told me about a car bomb that killed four of his men at a
checkpoint. The New York Times
would refer to that incident as “the first suicide attack on United States
soldiers fighting in Iraq.” He had never
told me about it until that day.
Some veterans report not being able
to tolerate the smell of fire or diesel.
Just like the scent of your granddad’s Old Spice or your grandmother’s
chocolate chip cookies can take you back to warm, happy memories, scents can
take warriors back into the scariest moments of their lives.
CERTAIN DATES: Many veterans also report feeling more “amped
up” or emotional on certain dates or times of the year, especially if it
involved the loss of a friend and fellow soldier or the date of personal trauma
or injury. On the anniversary of the car
bomb, you can pretty much bet that we’re not going anywhere. Some wounded warrior organizations have
coined the term “Alive Day” for the day a soldier survived a horrific
injury. Some say it is a day to be
celebrated. For most of the wives I talk
to, it’s a day they dread each year because it usually means their husband is
on edge for days, sometimes weeks leading up to that day.
Again, this is not the complete
list of triggers, just to ones we personally deal with the most often in our
everyday lives.
AFTER THE TRIGGER
Once the limbic system of the brain
(the fight-or-flight reflex) is triggered, the body will react by preparing the
body to act, and act fast. Adrenaline
starts pumping, heart rate increases, and the mind becomes sharp and begins to
work overtime processing every little thing in the warrior’s environment. This is what we refer to as being “amped
up.” As explained in the previous
article, the one emotion that seems to bubble up the fastest is anger. Anger keeps the soldier alive on the
battlefield, but is not particularly helpful back home.
My husband, Will Montgomery,
explained “When you get “activated” or “amped up”, you automatically get angry,
even if there is nothing to be angry about.
Then you start looking for things to be angry at, because it
makes no sense to be amped up and angry for no reason.”
This is where warriors and their
spouses can face the most problems.
Until they both realize that the anger is a result of a trigger,
feelings can get hurt and marriages can start to unravel. Part of many treatment programs focus on
recognizing the true reason for the anger and finding new ways to deal with the
triggers and the reaction to them.
LEARNING TO ADAPT
Wounded warrior wife Tammy M. of
Texas said, “The biggest change our family had to make because of PTSD was the
ability to change at any given minute.”
Most veteran families dealing with
PTSD can agree. It’s hard to commit to
future plans because they never know what kind of “day” their veteran will be
having. Sometimes they will have every
intention to do something, only to be triggered and need to make an early
escape, or cancel altogether. We learn
to plan for every possible scenario, and always, always, always have a backup
plan. Sometimes, that means the veteran
may need to stay at home while the family goes without them. It’s hard on everyone, especially when they
feel like they are being judged for not being there.
Jim G. of North Carolina was a Navy
Corpsman who was injured during his third deployment to Iraq. He says the hardest part of living with PTSD
is feeling alone and secluding himself.
“I avoid fun, people, and crowds
because I don’t want to get anxious or angry,” said Jim. “This means that I don’t get to spend time
with my wife and daughter like I used to, which I miss a lot.”
Jim’s wife, Alishia, agrees. She very often will deal with her daughter’s
activities alone, and admits that mostly they stay home to have some form of
family time together.
“It has become easier to not do
anything than to have to deal with the consequences of him being so on edge,”
she explains.
A common practice among families
dealing with PTSD is to try to avoid known triggers if at all possible. The Fourth of July is a big topic of
discussion in many PTSD groups. Some
choose to stay home and try to drown out the noise with music or movies. Others choose to leave town and go to a place
where there are no fireworks, or a place where they can be in control of them
so they aren’t taken by surprise.
This year, my husband really
struggled with fireworks. He was coping
pretty well until one day when he went to take the trash to the dumpster, and
as soon as he opened the back door, a big and extremely loud mortar round
exploded above our backyard. We spent
nearly the next week out of town at a family farm in Wheeler County, away from
the noise. We didn’t want to be the
“cranky neighbors” who called in to complain about fireworks, something we
would have otherwise enjoyed had it not been for PTSD.
He tried his best to ignore it the
rest of the time, and he would take our daughter to her week-long TEXAS
performance in the canyons. At least
their fireworks were choreographed with music so he knew when and where to
expect them. We thought we had made it
past the stress until someone started shooting off big fireworks after 1:00
a.m. on July 6th. He was livid
and was amped up for the next few days, especially because he really hadn’t had
a decent night’s sleep in over a week.
Over time, most spouses become
acutely aware of their veteran’s triggers and can easily spot their “tells”
when they begin to get stressed out. It
can be the way they look, a change in pitch or volume when they talk, or the
need to be alone and have some space. We
watch for these signs, sometimes even spotting them before our spouses realize
they are beginning to project them.
Wounded warrior wife Heidi W. of
Nevada says the best way she can help her husband sometimes is to give him
space.
“I created a space for my husband
that he could escape to when he needs to step away,” she said. They also established a code word so he could
let her know he needs some alone time.
Sometimes the hardest part as wives
is having to learn to not ask questions and let it go, at least for the time
being. Before I really understood how
his PTSD affected him, I would follow my husband from room to room, begging him
to talk about what was bothering him, which only added fuel to the fire. It’s a give and take. Wives have to learn to let them be, and
husbands have to learn that we are concerned and still want to talk about it at
a more appropriate time.
No matter how far along in
treatment the veteran is, there is almost always worry about triggers. As Cheryl G., wounded warrior wife and
advocate, says, “PTSD is manageable, [but] it is always there.”
“He is constantly battling it
everywhere he goes,” she says. “It is
manageable, but it isn’t always easy.”
I’m amazed at the number of people
who have already contacted me following the publication of the first
article. People have shared stories,
requested more information, and even told me that because they shared the link,
a friend or family member opened up to them about the problems they were having
with PTSD. This is the reason I’m
doing this series. Thank you all so much
for helping spread the message to those who needed to hear it.
Always remember:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
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