The complicatedness of our lives

I blog a lot about me, my perceptions, our lives, etc., but I don't think there are a lot of people who truly get it. We have our ups and downs and twists and turns, just like everyone else. The complicated part comes when you take into account the outside influences. I've blogged about PTSD and I've blogged about it almost impersonally. But, what I haven't said is just how much it affects us. It's not just a mental disorder, it's a way of life. I'm struggling with this right now. Hardcore. My eyes were opened recently to just how much of a hold it has. They were opened rudely, I might say. I used to read the blogs about PTSD and read the accounts of the wives who lived with it and I used to say to myself, "well, that's just not how it works in our house" or "yeah, her husband is a lot worse off than mine" or even, "well, we're handling it a lot better than that". Boy, was I a fool. We weren't handling it, it was handling us.

I refer to PTSD as "it". I do this for a reason. That shit has a motherfucking mind of it's own. I think back on the first bit of our marriage and how happy we were and how none of this ever, ever entered our minds. I remember the night before my husband deployed and I remember crying in his arms. The only thoughts that I had, was "please be safe, come home to me". I never thought "please be safe, come home WHOLE to me". A piece of him and a piece of our marriage was left in Iraq. I fucking want it back. War is a bitch. In more ways than people will ever know.

I always hesitate to state how I truly feel and what's really going on in our lives, because frankly, it's not up to ridicule. And our friends and family like to ridicule and belittle. I use the terms "friends" and "family" in these instances very, very loosely. We don't reach out, we don't ask for help and if we do, we're shot down without even a blink. People just motherfucking suck. Plain and simple. So, we're carry on. We carry our burdens silently. It sucks. And now, I read the accounts from PTSD wives and I think "Yeah, I get that".