Effects of a Post-traumatic Stress Disorder marriage
Somewhere during the 1980s, Post Traumatic stress Disorder has been recognised as a clinical diagnosis by Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-lll) published by the American Psychiatric Association. Back then, it was considered specific to war veterans but now evidence claims that unresolved trauma can be manifested as PTSD in rape survivors, people with childhood abuse and accident survivors too along with veterans. Veterans speaking of unseen wounds of the war are considered less than heroic by the general population. As a result, the unacknowledged wounds transform into nightmares that aren’t always exact replays of the event, instead are the replay of the emotions like fear, helplessness, and sadness that they felt during the event. Precisely, it is war within themselves that never says cease.
While PTSD comes with some unique challenges, how does it feel like to maintain an intimate relationship or a family with a PTSD sufferer?
Many people with PTSD are incapable of maintaining healthy relationships. Be it partnering or parenting. We can attribute this failure to inadequacy of feeling emotions, easily getting terrified, anxious, and looking at the entire world as a potential threat. They are almost detached, shut down and checked out. They can’t even feel sorry for their loved ones. They are constantly enraged may be because they have pent up fight energy and unresolved grief still left in them. Repetition compulsion drives them to unconsciously seek out relationships in adulthood that tend to re-enact the abusive and abandoning dynamics of their past trauma. For PTSD sufferers, it becomes difficult to deal with everyday life because they have hidden their soul in a dark corner, so it doesn’t have to face the dangerous world of the trauma yet again.
PTSD marriage effects can be isolating and devastating. A marriage with a PTSD partner means to destitutely watch them relive the trauma that haunts them day and night, and then helplessly watch them try to drown those memories with any substance at hand. It means to hear the sharp words and venomous tongue, get subjected to domestic violence yet not let yourself down in the hope that they will recover any moment. To watch them simply isolate themselves and get absorbed in some “escape” behaviour, such as watching mobiles, watching the news, while also engaging in some obsessive / compulsive behaviours.
It also means to watch your children being ill-treated or abused for no obvious reason, walk on eggshells around them everyday and teach children to follow suit. It is to experience repercussions of extreme anger erupting out of nowhere but have no time to take cover and no way to extinguish the fire. Simply. It is a hell on earth. It means to frequently anguish yourself by imagining what your life might have been like if they haven’t developed PTSD. Marriages with PTSD partners not only are abusive but are one-man shows where the PTSD patient denies responsibility for anything regarding the family or children because they need to deal with their own demons on a daily basis.
Over a period, the partner cannot remember how it feels like to experience true joy or happiness because there is always a cloud of sadness at home. The partner always tries throughout the years to offer PTSD persons activities and occupations to elicit a glimpse of ‘happiness’ in them to no avail. Though people with PTSD cannot make true friends, on a superficial level, they can go out and talk to strangers at lengths anywhere. People who don’t know, think that they are great achievers. Then they come back home and isolate themselves for hours without a kind word or deed meant for the family. Since the actual trauma of the PTSD sufferers is always hidden, the grief becomes insidious for their partner. The most unfortunate outcome of being with a PTSD partner is the manifestation of secondary PTSD symptoms that add insult to the injury. They slowly start avoiding close relationships since they are constantly occupied with family affairs. When they choose to stay with it for the long haul it is even worse as they need to sacrifice their children’s sanity as well. Unfortunately, there have been cases where children grew up to be depressed, anxious, psychotic and diagnosed with secondary PTSD in such families.
Nevertheless, there is treatment available for PTSD as it is a psychological injury and not a mental illness. Mental wellness and rehab centres have innovative programs that are tailored to suit your clinical requirements. Help is just a click away.
