Late night/Early morning

Here it is.....4:15 in the morning and I'm wide awake.  It's becoming a nasty habit, this staying up til all hours of the morning.  It started the night before last with a really bad migraine.  I had taken our daughter to see Frozen and after we came home I noticed a bit of a headache creeping in.  I figured it was the usual holiday headache.  I don't know about you, but holidays usually bring about a headache at one point or another.  I think it's because I want the holidays to be perfect and I try too hard.  Eventually the stress gets to me.

Anyway, I laid down with a slight headache and when I woke up about an hour later, it was a full blown migraine.  I ended up sleeping on the cold floor in our very small bathroom next to the toilet.  I felt like my head was going to explode out of my eye socket.  If you are unlucky enough to experience bad headaches, you know what I mean by that.  Anyway, I was in there on the floor for hours.  Hubs came in after I'd been in there for awhile bringing me two excedrine migraine pills and some pepsi to take it with.  I was so thankful!  I was able to lay back down and sleep well and when I woke up at about 1am the migraine was much better.  Only problem was, then I was wide awake and I stayed awake until about 5am.

The next day, Thanksgiving,  Hubs and the kids left to go to my inlaws and they left EARLY so he could be there in time to watch the Packers on tv.  I was going to go, I really was.  Hubs took one look at me and told me to stay.  I got some much needed sleep and tackled a massive paper that is due on Monday for class.  However, I missed out on all the yummy food and family times which was a bummer.  My Thanksgiving meal consisted of Snickers ice cream, some taco dip and Pepsi.

So here it is, late at night or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it.  I cannot sleep.  I fell asleep earlier on the couch and woke up around 2am and now I'm up.   This is not a good cycle I want to get into.....Monday morning that alarm clock is going to be going off and it's going to be tough for me, I can tell already.

So why can't I sleep?  Maybe too much going through my head these days.  My mind is filled with all the things on my to-do list.  Things like:  getting out all the Christmas decorations, finding a tree, finishing up my paper, making sure Hubby gets to his appointments this week, making sure my daughter gets to her OT appointments.  Then I'm worried about how she's doing.   Is she adjusting well, will this OT help with her issues?  What about my son?  He still isn't talking much and the speech path will be here this coming week to help him.  Is he making progress?  I just want my 2 year old to talk!  I can't wait to hear him say "i love you"

I need to remember to breathe.  I can't do everything at once and I need to remember that.  It's hard though.  Maybe I'm up this late because it's the only time I can really process things without being interrupted.  I don't know. 

Sleep......come to me

We'll always have Paris

Things are tough around here.  The household has been under a lot of stress this fall with our daughter's         issues going on and with stress building up from PTSD.  I honestly don't know what the future holds these days.  The other night hubs and I had a fight.  It started out small, but don't most start out that way?  I was in the laundry room which is in a part of the basement that isn't finished.  Hubs opened the door and threw a huge handful of clothes at me.  I was already having a bad day, and that just irritated me.  I knew he had no intention of doing any of that laundry.  I told him so, and he smarted off and started throwing toys in the room too.

To make a long story short, I open handed slapped him across his chest when he picked up a tray of toys to chuck in there.  I lost it.  He has been going into rages lately and been throwing things.  For example,   he recently got mad and threw a wooden spoon across the kitchen breaking it in half.  When he picked up that tray I thought, "oh no you don't!".  I told him to stop but my words mean nothing and instead of walking away I slapped him.

I hate that I did that.  I don't want to be that person.  He hurts me with words so I hurt him with my hand.  I don't think so.  That's NOT RIGHT and it CANNOT happen again.

Who have I become?  What has become of our marriage?  I am so sad all the time, and I have no patience anymore.  I cannot remember the last time we kissed or hugged or the last time he said "I love you" without me saying it first.  When we first got together, we laughed a lot and had so much fun together.  I honestly cannot remember when we last laughed together.

It's coming up on Thanksgiving.  Almost a decade ago I became engaged in Paris on Thanksgiving Day.  That was the best time I can remember having with my husband.  I felt like the center of his universe.  We laughed together, seeing the sights of Paris and exploring together.....Without any inkling of the struggles that lay ahead of us.  I still remember riding the bus and seeing Napoleon's tomb with him and viewing Notre Dame.  We only had a weekend and the highlight was him proposing under the Eiffel Tower after dinner.  When we left Paris we said someday we'd be back.  Maybe for our 20 year anniversary.

Now, I am not even sure we will make it to our 20 year. Heck, I'm not sure I'll make it to my 10 year anniversary.  That makes me heartbroken.  When you get married you get married for life.   You promise for better or worse, sickness and health.  But what happens when that person you married seems to have become a completely different person.  I feel like I'm in mourning for what could have....what SHOULD have been.

I don't know what the future holds, but at least we'll always have Paris.  That is a memory I will treasure forever.

my daughter has an anxiety disorder

 Have you ever seen those depression medication ads on TV?  The ones where they discuss how living with depression affects everyone around you?  Living with someone who has PTSD definitely affects everyone in the household and while I'm an adult and can deal with the roller coaster of emotions (most of the time!), my babies are not adults. They're just that......my babies.  A recurring nightmare/worry I have is that living with someone who is often mad, agitated, or withdrawn will have lasting negative affects on my children.

Parenting is hard enough without having to throw that in the mix. For the most part, I think my kids are dealing with it okay.  My youngest is just a toddler and I don't think it's really affected him much at all yet.  Hubs is around our son more than I am, since I work outside the home and go to school and he stays home with him.  Hubs does well with him.

He wasn't always so involved.  When our daughter was our son's age she was living with her dad when he was at one of his lowest points.  She was there when we went through the medical discharge of the Army and the subsequent "Hell Year" when Hubs wasn't receiving any assistance from the VA and was self medicating with alcohol and herbs.  She was in the home when he kicked in doors to yell at me, and she witnessed him punching walls in frustration.  My worry about her well being and psyche living with that turmoil is the largest reason I decided to split from my husband.  For over a year I lived in my parents basement and he lived with his parents and our little baby girl was shuffled back and forth on weekends. It worked out in the end.....the separation forced him to take a good look at himself and decide if he wanted a family or not. It was due to that separation that he decided to seek residential help at the VA. 

However, I worry that all that frustration and stress has had it's affect on my oldest child.  My baby girl suffers from anxiety and has developed really poor social skills.  It's been such a struggle with her lately.  At our whit's end, we enrolled her in a day treatment program to help her focus on her anxiety.  You see, my little baby girl has become a picker.  She picks her skin, leaving open wounds on her arms, legs, and thighs.  In addition to that, she also has some anger problems to address and it's been a real challenge living with her these last few months.

I think back.....when she was two, and Hubs was deployed, I had her evaluated for early speech.  She didn't qualify.  In addition to not qualifying (she was close), the evaluators also said she had great social skills and was advanced.  So here it is, half a decade later, and she's gone from having advanced social skills to having very poor social skills.  Is it my fault?  Is it because she saw her dad suffer in those early years after he returned from war?  Did she witness all the yelling, anger, and sadness and somehow internalize it into this?

I know I can't beat myself up over this.  There's no way to reverse time and do things differently.  I did what I did because I thought it was the best at the time for all involved.  But it still hurts.  And it still sucks...

betrayal

Like many veterans, my husband often speaks of how his fellow soldiers are his "brothers".  These men  went through hell together and have an inseparable bond.  No one gets it, like a fellow brother.

Imagine the hurt, the incredible sense of betrayal then that happens when one of those brothers turns on another.

It's no secret my husband has severe PTSD.  He is not always the nicest guy in the world, that's for sure.  However, he by no means deserved what he got about a month ago from a fellow soldier.....Not just any soldier, but one who my husband had always considered a close friend and confidant.  This fellow solider is still active duty and allegedly suffers from PTSD too.  In fact, he had talked to my husband about his struggles in the past.  This soldier is married to a foreigner and they have children together.  The wife of this soldier liked to put things on Facebook.  Comments that often spoke about how great her country was and often in a passive aggressive way, smacked on the U.S.

Now, this lady lives on US soil, her kids are half American and her husband is a United States Soldier. My husband and I chose to ignore her pictures she posted with shrewd comments and her rants on American healthcare and such.  I get it.....I get frustrated with my country too but excuse me....It's MY country and I can talk crap about it if I want to.  You, someone who won't give up their own citizenship to their country and is a foreign visitor simply CANNOT.

One day about a month ago, this wife posted some comment about the US and her country.  My husband finally had had enough and shot off a comment back.  His "brother" started giving my husband crap.  Her husband rightfully so defended his wife, which was fine.  However, he then started attacking my husband where it hurts.....with his PTSD.

This "brother" called my husband lazy and told him to get a job.  My husband was stunned.  I took the computer and wrote back that shame on him for saying that.....That he obviously does not understand PTSD if he thinks my husband is lazy.

"Maybe you have voices in your head too,then" was the reply.  I couldn't believe it.  I'm usually pretty calm, but I was about to go ape shit crazy on this guy.  How dare he be so rude and so clueless about PTSD when he himself has said he suffers from it.  My husband, in a rare moment of calmness, took the laptop and simply wrote, "we're done.  Thank you".

It tears me up.  My husband was simply defending his country against a person who was constantly smearing it.  The other soldier then hit way below the belt.  This other soldier is also studying to be a reverend.....or he was.....not sure if he still is.  I sure hope not.  The church does not need such a hypocritical ass leading congregations.

Perhaps this other soldier was simply putting on a show for his wife.  Maybe he was in denial and felt that by attacking my husband he was distancing himself from PTSD.  Whatever the reason, that soldier is now dead to my husband.  He will never forgive him for the words he said.  I don't blame him.