Holding down the fort - Day 1

I'm alone in my house with my two kids, the dog, the cat, and the bunny.  My husband has left for his 6 week adventure in the PTSD unit at a local VA hospital.  It's not his first stint in the joint, rather his 3rd.  He goes about once a year and it does help, for awhile.  Although, he hides his symptoms well and his social worker finally saw how he really can be and how badly affected he is in recent sessions so we're hopeful that he'll get more out of it this time.

  Part of me is happy he's gone because, let's be honest....being with someone who is severely depressed and anxious as well as mad at the world is not a happy place to be.  The last few weeks have been really, really hard.  He's been extra moody and snippy and he hasn't wanted to do anything with anyone.  His life has been sleeping in til noon, watching tv on the couch under a blanket all day, and staying up until the wee hours of the night just to wake up and do it all over again.  I breathed a sigh of relief once he was on his way because I knew he was going somewhere where he'll be safe and taken care of, and there will be way less stress around here.

It's time he go.

I will miss him though.  The kids will miss him too.  I know our daughter especially will miss him.  Last year Hubs told her that he was going to the North Pole to help Santa and the elves.  He did it to protect her so she wouldn't be burdened with the knowledge that her dad had to go to a special place for help.  However, after he left last year, it was really hard to keep up the charade to her.  I realized soon in that it's better to tell her the truth.  She deserves that.  So this year, I started prepping her early on.

"Daddy's going to go see some doctors that will help him feel better".

"Dad's going to miss you a lot, but he's going to be a better dad"

It is still hard.  He's been gone a whopping 10 hours and already she's asked when he's coming home.  He can't come home the first weekend there, so he will miss Easter.  Yes, he'll miss our son's first Easter.  In a way, it's fitting.  He missed our daughter's first Easter because he was deployed so I've done this before.
It sucks, but I'm praying....praying really hard, that maybe this time, he'll get some real help.  Help that just won't carry him through for a few months or a year tops, but help that will really touch him and help him face the demons head on and win.