There is so much that I want to say as a spouse of someone who suffers from PTSD, someone that has on more than one occasion done the selfless act of deploying to a war zone, someone that has put them self on the fighting line time and time again....too many times to count. PTSD is one of the things the returning military may have to face and may battle throughout the rest of their lives based on things they saw, lived through, or heard while overseas. Yes, I am fully aware that it does not take being in a war zone in order to be diagnosed of PTSD, but there is something about being shot at, using weapons in order to keep yourself and the ones around you alive, being on a FOB with mortars, RPG's, and other things going on all around you for a year or so straight that makes the forms of PTSD different. It breaks me down to see the man I love not sleep most nights, jump at sounds that make no difference to most people, constantly watching his surroundings, skeptical of people and places, no longer finding the joy of going out in busy, crowded places.....oh, how I could go on and on with the "small" things I have witnessed. When my husband enlisted, of course we knew about the pure and simple fact he would deploy at some point, but we we never told how he would deploy and come back a different person, how the smiles would be lost to the war. How he would no longer find pleasure and joy in the things he use to. It is like the war took my husband and sent home a man that I have had to get to know more and more each time he goes over. It has also made each of us cherish the time together and see the importance in life.
Why do people often make the comments that the ones being deployed chose this life? I mean, don't we all choose the lives we are in for the most part? I mean, you do what you have to and you make the best out of it. Or, at least, that is what we try for. No matter what life has handed us, good or bad, we try to make the best in every situation. So, for the comment about choosing this life, to me is ridiculous and I, for one, am so tired of hearing it! This life that we have choose for us and our family is what helps to keep the draft out. Regardless of the reasoning, it is never a bright idea to tell someone or their families they "chose" this life. Especially when you are too much of a coward to do it yourself. Yes, I have earned my right to speak freely. I did try to enlist a little over four years ago and was turned down by MEPs for a medical problem that leaves me life dependent on medication and there is no way the doctors would give me a waiver to go through basic. So, I did try, unlike so many others who think they can say whatever they feel at any given time.
People, no matter what a person chooses, no one should make such a rude statement when it comes to PTSD. This is a terrible disease, and until you have either lived with it or stood beside a spouse who suffers from it, you have no idea! Even as a spouse, there is so much I to this day still do not fully understand. And I never will because I wasn't there. But, I do know what it is like to send my husband away and watch him return a different man, one that I have to get to know, yet one that I love more and more with every passing day. I just wish the recruiters had warned us before hand about the changes we would face. Even after all these years, I wish we had known more when he enlisted. Would it have changed anything. No, not at all. It would have just made us in a sense better prepared for this life and the challenges and obstacles that were to come.
There is so much more I want to go on about, however it is getting late. I am going to bring this topic to a close for the night and possibly pick back up on it later.
