Nightmares, Flashbacks, and Sleepless Nights

From the start of mine and Squee’s relationship, I knew about his PTSD. Of course, this was back in 2004, when PTSD was misdiagnosed and often completely missed by doctors who didn’t have adequate training to identify it. We battled PTSD before it had a name to attach to it, when we categorized it as nightmares and flashbacks and insomnia, when we compartmentalized his reactions to minimize the effects, not realizing we were doing more harm than good in his healing. Often, when the cycle would come around to the darkest parts of PTSD, it felt as though things for us were hopeless, and that clinging to a rock in the middle of a raging river would be a more solid foundation that the one we’d created. That helplessness and hopeless feeling was the worst part, standing by his side as a proud wife and watching every moment as he crumbled, and not being able to help.

The scariest part for me came at night. During the day, he could voice his issues, and give insight when he struggled. But at night, PTSD came for him, and would take him from me while he slept. There, in his dreams, he has no quarter, no rest, no reprieve, just hours upon hours of torment and torture and memories that he can’t escape. Those nightmares, he endured almost silently, and had I not been lying mere inches away from him, I never would have known. Until, that is, he started sleepwalking.

He’d had problems sleepwalking as a child but had outgrown it, for the most part, until PTSD found a way to change that too. The first night it happened, I awoke with a start to him standing at the end of the bed, facing away from me and into our bathroom. There was a light on in there, and it cast just enough of a glow that I could see his face reflected in the mirror, clear enough to see that his eyes were closed. Instinct kicked in, reminding me not to wake him or touch him, even though my hands itched to do just that. I started talking, quietly, and he muttered responses to questions asked by others in voices from his past. Still, I kept talking, and I found the words that reached him, and asked him to please come back to bed, please come back to me. Like a small miracle, he heard me. Without ever opening his eyes, he came back to his side of the bed and stretched out, letting out a huge sigh that came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. And he slept, again, if only for a little while.

Flashbacks are entirely different. Sometimes asleep for them but often awake, it is not merely seeing or hearing such horrific things, but instead a vivid reliving of each and every experience that has compounded and culminated in his PTSD. When he’s awake for a flashback, his open eyes see only the sands of Iraq, not the home we have, the children we share. He sees his superiors, his brothers in arms, and even his enemies, when no one stands in front of him but me. His ears are deaf to the voices of doctors, coworkers, and friends trying to help ground him to the present; he can hardly hear over the sounds of war, gunfire, explosions, shouted orders. But somehow, there is the tiniest part of him that can still hear me when I ask him to please come back. This is pretty effective when he has waking flashbacks, night time ones are trickier.

Asking him to come back while he’s having a flashback when he’s sleeping doesn’t always work, and hardly ever on the first try. Sometimes, I repeat myself until the words run together like a mantra, and I watch in fascination as the tense muscles of his jaw relax and his brow smoothes back, erasing the signs that he had been in torment just moments before. Occasionally, whispering my request a few times produces the same results. But he always, always finds his way through the blackness and back to me.

With the horrors they face during sleep, it’s no wonder that so many who suffer from PTSD also struggle with insomnia. I cannot say that if I had Squee’s memories, that I would fall asleep so easily at night for fear of those dreams. When sleeping is difficult for Squee, it is much the same for me, sleeping in fits and spurts long enough to keep from feeling exhausted, even though I’m still tired. Thankfully, Squee and I have the unique advantage of being able to be insomniacs together, because we have no schedule outside of the one we make for ourselves. (All this will change this fall as Siren enters Kindergarten and we adapt to her school schedule.) As strange as it may sound, Netflix and streaming movies these past few weeks have helped curb some of the worst episodes of insomnia that we’ve suffered in years. But still, there comes a point each night that sleep must be attempted, and we prepare for bed and the possibility of nightmares, never knowing what the night might bring.

PTSD Personified

When you think about the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I bet a face swims into your vision. Depending on your own experiences, it could be the face of a soldier, or of an abused child, or possibly you see a glimpse of yourself. I think that most people who live with or close to PTSD often picture the disorder as the face of the person who is affected, but I have long felt that this is completely unfair to the person suffering from PTSD. It is important to remember that PTSD doesn’t define an individual, but is only one aspect of that person’s life. So, while in our first days together, I pictured PTSD as my husband in uniform, gritty and bloody and hardened in a way I’d never seen him, as our relationship progressed I learned to see PTSD a different way.

In our early twenties, we did what people without children do- we went out with friends, went to parties, and were around a lot of people who were young, like us, and also, like myself at the time, pretty stupid. (I say this, because now as I’m a bit older, I see how utterly clueless I was on so much. I can only imagine the wealth of knowledge I'll be at 40.) During one such get together, there was a particularly pretty girl, who locked her eyes onto my Squee and kept them there, staring in awe. Admittedly, I knew why. Squee isn’t just a good man, he’s handsome, and he has a devastating smile when he chooses to use it. It melted my heart the first time I saw the corners of his mouth turn up, so I can sympathize with another woman who finds herself lost in the same way. But, only to a point.

The end of my sympathetic understanding came when the interested individual was informed that Squee was, in fact, attached to another, and she chose not to turn her attentions elsewhere. It had happened before, and as usual, Squee shrugged the attentions off and paid the bright eyed girl absolutely no mind, but she persisted. And so, the primal, possessive part of me took over, and she and I had a bit of a confrontation (non-violent) that led her to going home earlier than she’d planned. Not many in attendance noticed, thankfully, or it could have turned into an embarrassing situation for Squee. As it stands, I’m not sure if Squee ever really noticed the whole ordeal. But I did, and that girl’s image became ingrained into my mind, synonymous with something that is trying to take Squee away from me.

Fast forward several years, three daughters and dozens of my girlhood insecurities laid to rest, and my visualization of PTSD has morphed into one, not of a hardened Marine with a mortar tube and blood on his neck, because that was my Squee, but of a red-dress wearing woman who keeps trying to pull my Squee away. She has her claws dug in to him, even though he wants nothing to do with her and tries to ignore her. Because, that is what PTSD does. It tries to come between you and the person who suffers, intentionally trying to drag them away, back to the darkness and those hopeless places where it can be in control.

If you personify PTSD, all that PTSD wants is control. But you know what? Years ago, I wouldn’t stand by and let some random girl take him away from me, and I won’t stand by and let PTSD take him either. So, when PTSD rears it’s ugly head, I see three things: Squee, and me, and the red dress wearing PTSD. And while she might have her claws in him, he won’t give in, and I won’t give up. We’re stronger together than we could ever be apart.

A New Chapter for a New Year

It seems as though it's been forever since I've been able to write on here about the changes that have come to our family. For one, we moved. In October, we moved into a home of our own thanks to the amazing organization called the Military Warriors Support Foundation. Through their program, our family was given the opportunity to be placed in a program under which in three years, we will own our home. And although we moved an hour and a half away from our hometown, I have to say that we couldn't be happier with the move. The house is beautiful, our daughters are happy here, and it has forced us to come into our own instead of attempting to rely on others, something we had done for far too long. In short, this has been life changing.

To make things even better, we were invited to attend the 2013 Coalition to Salute America's Heroes annual Road to Recovery Conference in Orlando, FL for a week. We went with Siren and Banshee, Echo stayed in Tennessee with my parents as she was a bit too young to enjoy the benefits of being around kids like her. Ah, but thankfully, we were not.

The R2R conference changed our lives, in no small way. I spent much of my time in tears, absolutely in awe in the presence of so many heroes and their families. In awe of the incredible people who organized the event, the wives working behind the scenes, and the bravery from servicemen and women who struggle with PTSD and are able to talk about it. I wondered, while we were there, why in the world we hadn't known about the program years before. But then it hit me, that years ago, we wouldn't have been at the same place we are now, at a point in our lives where we were ready for the change, ready to make things better, if not for ourselves then for our daughters. God willing, we will be able to be involved with the Coalition on some level, to give back just some small part of what they have given to us.

And now, we sit here in January 2014, a new year and a new appreciation for all that we have and all that we've accomplished. We allow ourselves time to breathe. We take a slower pace at approaching difficult things, coming from all angles before we find our solution. But mostly, we allow ourselves permission to live with PTSD, to be open about it, to tell others and spread awareness so that we can break through the stigma that so often follows our service members. We have no reason to be quiet anymore, and every reason to shout.

And so, this first blog of the new year is much more than that to me. This is the first blog of a new chapter in our lives, hopefully the first of many. Thank you for reading, laughing with us, crying with us, and supporting us just by stopping by this blog.