Anyone with knowledge of PTSD or trauma

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Hello. My partner has PTSD or c-PTSD - I am not sure which but he got it from on going and pretty horrible trauma a couple of years ago. At the time we were just friends, but I was around /supporting him when it happened so I know it was pretty bad.

To anyone who knows about this can they please tell me:

1. Is it normal to direct anger / negative emotions at the here and now? I feel like he is blaming our happy / lovely life and ruining objectively happy times by blaming feeling bad on something relatively innocuous while he seems unable to blame or feel anger at the events which caused the actual PTSD. Is that something he is choosing to do, or is it part of it?

2. He says he can't feel joy and he experiences a lot of fatigue and aches and pains. There's no medical reason. He blames things around him for this, but I knew him years before he had PTSD and he was fine then so I know all this started at the time of the trauma but he won't really acknowledge that. Again, is that part of it?

I am trying not to get angry, but I have been so loving and so supportive and it gets me down that I feel like the lovely life we have, so in love, keeps getting blamed for things which happened when I wasn't even there.

I think he loves me very much, but despite many, many conversations where I have asked him to acknowledge the obvious - which was that he was fine before the trauma - he can't do it. He just keeps saying we need to change something in the here and now to make him feel better, and yet this never works.

He won't get professional help. He acknowledges he has PTSD and it traumatised. He has got much better since we started seeing each other as before he was having full blown flashbacks and so on, but these things have lingered for a year now and I am starting to question my own sanity.

He's self diagnosed but he had fitting symptoms. Flashbacks, feeling everything is unsafe, flashes of rage. If we have even a minor disagreement - a noise like a cough from me gives him a flashback. Those symptoms settled significantly over time.

What I'm saying is I knew him a long time before he had the abuse and he wasn't sick all the time. I was his friend for many years before so I observed him become sick during the traumatic situation so I feel frustrated he can't connect the two.

I'm not saying we have a perfect relationship, I'm saying there's nothing objectively horrific about his current situation. He has a safe relationship. Kids are fine. Money is fine. He has a big promotion. But he says he's unable to feel joy and every day is a struggle and his only happiness is me.

I want to stress 90% of the time he's lovely, but this seems always underlying and stress sets him off with physical illness. The fatigue limits our life. It's like the abuse aged him but he says it's because he doesn't like where we live.

A typical scenario would be that we wake up on a cuddly morning and a noise from a motorbike will set him off and he will get a rage sayingbwe have to move because of the noise.

In terms of opening up to a therapist I really don't know. He's opened up to me and told me everything. It was honestly horrible what he went through.

He says he feels like he just wants to forget it and not think about it and look forwards. I think he feels huge shame around it, not least as his abuser made him feel it was his own fault.

He says he feels if he opened up to a therapist and they gave sympathy that he thinks the dam would crack and he'd completely lose it and not be able to work and his life would be over.

We do work on things to treat the symptoms like acupuncture, massage, mindfulness and he's happy to do that but he just doesn't want to open Pandoras box.

From my side I love him but it's hard living with it. Not because of the symptoms, but because of the symptoms being directed at our life. For example the noisy street I live on. And rationally I can't process this.

How is living on a noisy street going to make you physically ill, have asthma, fatigue, rage, inability to feel joy - it's out of proportion with objective reality.

Living on a noisy street is not comparable with being hit / blackmailed/ stalked/ psychologically abused in my rational mind.

Sorry I am rambling this morning. I think it's begun to affect my own sanity and make me question my reality.

Objectively, I know what happened to him. I did a questionnaire on abuse and he was being severely psychologically and emotionally abused, significantly physically abused and in subtle ways sexually.

Objectively I know he was fine before and saw him get extremely sick and become notably better after getting completely out of the situation. Backbat that time

He really needs help. It's normal to be scared to look at it, a good therapist will develop trust before diving straight in.
With PTSD it can be incredibly difficult to see then and now, something is keeping him triggered so he can’t move on and all his feelings are very real.

Sorry...accidentally clicked too soon.

Back at that time he was treated by the doctor for extreme stress / a breakdown and wasn't able to function normally in day to day life. Now he is better.

But he keeps being so insistent that everything is bad now because of his job / noise / the general political status of great Britain that I'm starting the question my own sanity and wonder if he's right.

He seems to want to downplay the past, and if I remind him of something he almost acts like he didn't remember. The entire time is foggy and he's blocked a lot out.

For what it's worth, one of the reasons I put off therapy for so long was because the idea of having to divulge everything to a therapist felt exhausting and harrowing. The plus side to EMDR is that you don't need to give all the details, they don't need the minutiae of it, they need trigger points and a little information around it; it's one of the main reasons I gave it a go, I would never have and if I'm honest, never will, be the kind of person who benefits from talking therapy, and that's ok to recognise.

As far as the therapy making it temporarily worse, it sounds like you're both at your wits end anyway. From personal experience it didn't make me noticeably more unstable, I was just very tired for the rest of the day after the session, and a bit anti social beforehand. If the EMDR is working, then the patient shouldn't feel worse after the second session at least, as the trauma will begin to be 're routed' into the right part of your brain.

I think part of it Is trusting a therapist. He Says the only person In the world he's ever been able to trust is me.

He just feels unsafe in the world.

Thanks @daisyjgrey he sounds similar to you. I will broach EDMR. Its just hard when he genuinely believes the solution is to move house or change jobs.

This is my experience of a family member with PTSD. Won't acknowledge the link so won't get help.

I don't know how you can make someone help themselves. It's very sad. Other than say you can't continue because it's ruining your life too.

I also think if we hadn't been friends years before (he always had feelings for me but I was with someone else) and a bond established before this I don't think he'd ever have had another relationship.

His relationship with the abuser was relatively brief and he wasn't in love, but this person dismantled him psychologically.

Partners do not have to act as a rescue and repair facility for broken people. The only person that can repair/make them better is the person themselves. You do not need to damage or destroy your own mental and physical wellbeing because of his.

It seems to me that you have a choice :

Put up with it knowing he won’t get help and this will negatively impact on you or…

Don’t put up with it, so either he gets help and it makes things less difficult for you, or you exit the situation.

I don’t like the comments he’s made that you’re the only good thing etc. That’s coercive controlling and manipulative.

I would urge you to think of what is best for you, separately from what will be good for him. Put your own needs first.

I think for a long time I was so angry with what had happened I refused to accept it had effected me (and continued to) in any way. I was so angry that I had to commit all this time and energy to getting better from something which I never wanted to happen in the first place. I was very resistant to doing the work needed to get better, because I felt like I should just be able to be better now. I felt horribly alone even with those who loved me dearly, as well, because I felt like they could never understand my pain. It's taken years of work to get to the place I'm in now, and still something random can trigger me and I end up spending a whole week afterwards holding myself back from the edge. And I hate it that that person years later still has an effect on my life in any way. I felt like because it wasn't my fault what happened it shouldn't be my responsibility to fix it. But that's not how that works. The trauma isn't my fault, but my recovery from that trauma absolutely is my responsibility. And I don't get to drag anyone else down with me, if I'm being an arsehole because I'm not dealing with my issues, I'm still an arsehole. This is one of the reasons I'm single because I'm not in the right place to be in a relationship right now, I won't do that until I'm in a place where I am in a place to give something to someone else, not take something from them. Of course you are where you are, you don't have to break up for him to get better but you do have to stop taking on his issues. His trauma is neither your fault nor his recovery from it your responsibility. You're just a grown person trying to have a relationship with another grown person, who is not behaving like one right now. If I were you I would tell him he needs to get help or your out. It won't be an easy road, but I believe you are a very compassionate person who has capacity for a difficult road with this person so long as you know he is on a road and not just stagnating. To move forwards is everything when things are like this, but you can't push him or drag him, you can walk beside him but he needs to be walking already. He needs to generate his own momentum or he will be stuck in this quicksand of despair forever.

How old is he? And how long have you been in a relationship? I'd say apart from the ptsd, it's perfectly normal to develop aches, pains etc in mid life has he had a blood test for deficiencies? Also sorry if I have misunderstood but it seems like only a couple of years have passed since the trauma which isn't that long at all and if so maybe he isn't ready to face it yet and you may just have to accept it. I had EMDR at age 45 after suffering all my life. But it was my own choice not because someone else wanted me to.

I did a year of CBT for my Depression before starting on EMDR for my PTSD with the same psychologist. The important thing is to not argue about what is making his life horrible now, what his diagnosis is or what specific therapy he needs now. It is very common to have Depression plus PTSD so him saying it’s life now that is making him unhappy could be true and be on top of the PTSD.

Step 1 Should be getting him to the GP and referred for psychological assessment.

I also wanted to ask about the physical symptoms. Before all this he ran marathons. Now he can hardly take the bins out. He gets achy joints, bad chest, headaches, a feeling of just being sick or swollen. This has improved dramatically over time but it's still bad. No medical reason. We find an anti inflammatory diet helps.

The timelime is:

Abuse began - he got IBS within a few weeks of it. Abuse lasted about four months.

On exiting the relationship the extreme stalking began as well as the carrying out of various threats. She more or less tried to ruin his life.

After two months of that he got severe panic attacks, then disassociation, then very severe depression. He began drinking extremely heavily as a coping mechanism.

That's when the fatigue started, then over the course of a year as he healed and stopped having panic or less obvious depression, the physical symptoms grew.

II therefore connect the two, but he doesn't.

I thought I would unravel too, end up in hospital etc, but I didnt. Going through EMDR and psychotherapy with a good trauma specialist changed my life. I felt afraid but was sick of feeling like your partner does. A good therapist will not let him go into the scary place.

I had EMDR therapy for ptsd.
It is amazing the memories are now fuzzy and I feel no emotion when I think of the events which caused it. Have a google for a good therapist! It worked after the first time he did it. You need sessions to evaluate before they do the EMDR but it is incredible.

@Foodbanksshouldbeobsolete that sounds very likely to fit with how he feels.

I am just trying to understand what's going on here. We are mid 40s. This isn't just aches and pains, it's debilitating :(

He needs to get help and a diagnosis. I don’t think the type of talking therapy he’s scared of is even recommended for PTSD. I would personally tell him to go to a psychologist discuss his symptoms and possible treatments. He doesn’t need to fo
into great detail. Some treatments like CBT concentrate on the problems in the here and now and not about the past. It’s possible he’s depressed too?

You also ask 'How is living on a noisy street going to make you physically ill, have asthma, fatigue, rage, inability to feel joy - it's out of proportion with objective reality'

Getting chronic illness is absolutely par for the course with PTSD. I got diagnosed with asthma and IBS when I was unwell. His body is is a hyper aroused state from lots of triggers and as such cannot process them. I think you should go read 'The Body keeps the score' to understand this.

Okay, I will discuss with him and pass over all the helpful information. I think he's probably coming to a point where he realises he has a problem and that it's hurting me.

He is two years out from the end of physical abuse but the abuse continued long after he left. Its been about six months since we last heard from the abuser who stalked us both.

We had to move to get away from her and thus he's blaming where we moved to for his illness and saying we need to move again.

I think he probably has mild depression but in perspective of 2 years ago when he cried all day and couldn't get out of bed he's made huge progress. Which he acknowledges.

I think he just can't understand why he feels ill and can't feel joy so he thinks it's stuff around him

Just as he's determined his issues are in the present; you're equally determined they are in the past. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

There are lots of people with experience of abuse and depression who find it helpful to move house or area or change jobs. Changing external factors isn't automatically an unhealthy response. They might have realised other options aren't as stressful for them. My relative with PTSD did access counselling but they also moved to a different house in a different area. They obviously blossomed and relaxed with the move.

Your DP should go to his GP. He doesn't have a diagnosis and it would be helpful if he did whether it is depression or PTSD. But you need to decide your own boundaries. You don't need to be with someone who makes you unhappy, regardless of the cause.

You should probably speak to a counsellor or support group for you. You are both stuck in negative patterns. You want him to be happier whilst refusing to consider what he says will make him happier - changing job and moving. Meanwhile he refuses to consider what you think will make him happier - trauma counselling. In the meantime you are both stuck being miserable. Life is too short.

@ThisisMax thank you. This is really helpful.

@DaisyQuakeJohnson yes, I don't deny he'd feel better if we move to the countryside and he worked less hours. What is difficult is the feeling he is calling our life inadequate instead of acknowledgement that his capacity for things has been materially changed.

@DaisyQuakeJohnson it's not that i refuse to consider what he thinks will make him feel better. Its that I worry quitting his dream job is a sad sacrifice because I know how much it means to him . We have children (University age) to consider and it's not as simple as emigrating willy nilly and I've agreed to it but can't live every day being told he's miserable or sick without him addressing the root cause. I compromise by offering to move to the country but he can't cope with a commute. I am supportive but this is a happy time- we're in love, we're buying a house, we're doing good and it's actually horrible if the person you're doing it with can't enjoy it