Stress and depression really make an impact on everyone

It has been three and a half years now since my husband has returned from Iraq. When he first came home, we were all overjoyed to have him not only back, but in one piece. Things were really great for the first few months. We reunited and spent alot of time together to make up for not seeing one another for almost a year.

Slowly things became not so pleasant. It started first with my husband not wanting to attend family events. He went, but was always short when anyone tried to engage him in conversation. As time went on, he spent less and less time with my daughter and I. He would disappear to play video games or spend time on the computer when he was home. He would scowl and bark orders at the little 6 year old girl so happy to see her daddy home. He would avoid conversation with me unless he had to talk to me.

This went on and built up for months. It became worse and worse in such small increments that we really didn’t notice the large impact it was having on our relationship. It became normal to ask him once to attend a family event and leave it at that, or to shuffle my daughter off to go play out of daddy’s sight. It became normal to no longer have someone who wanted to touch you (let alone have sex with you). Life became normal to act like my life was perfect and happy to everyone and to pass off my husband’s behavior as “oh really, I must not have noticed that”.

Finally after two years or so he decided to make the appointment at the VA and talk to the doctors. He discussed his feelings of suicide, the desire to want to harm random strangers for entertainment, and his fear of common objects resembling IED’s. My husband was diagnosed with PTSD (Post- Tramautic Stress Disorder). They put him on some meds and recommended that he come back for regular check ups. He followed through with all of hte doctor’s orders, but only felt slightly better than he had been.

Over a period of several months they finally got him into a drug concoction that seemed to have doen the trick. For the first time in almost three years his head was clear, the malicous thoughts that plagued him were gone. he realized how bad he had acted and treated my daughter and I. He finally began talking to me and letting me into the world he had shut me out of for so long. We spent alot of time discussing that past few years. He asked me why I never said anything to him about his behavior. I explained to him that he was so unapproacheable during that period that I just wanted to avoid an argument and I kept hoping he would “snap out of it” at some point. I told him that the bad attitude he expressed to me not only affected me, but I then expressed it upon my daughter by being short tempered with her. The poor girl got hit from both sides when it came to her parents. After the discussion was over he looked at me and asked me to marry him finally.

We had been together for eight years and always joked about getting married and me being the “next future ex-wife”. We both had been married previously to people that had other interests in life than we did. I said yes and the planning began. We decided to look at the calendar and set a date. We wanted to get married soon because an outdoor wedding was something we both wanted and it was already the start of September 2007. We had three weeks until our wedding. My husband was against the whole big wedding idea; personally I could have cared less either way. We told my mom and his mom of our plans and begged them to kept it a secret. We invited our famlies. They were sent invitations to attend a cook out at my parent’s house. A week before I called my best friend and told her what we planned and she graciously agreed to stand up for me. We surprised everyone when they arrived and realized they were at a wedding. We didn’t want gifts or having people all dressed up. It was our day…and man were we happy.

About two months after we got married things slowly started to slip back in the old routine with my husband. I have worked really hard to not pass on the “side effects” to may daughter. My husband has also been working hard to keep himself close to the family. He gave up going to pharmacy school to get a degree in engineering instead. He realized that he needed to be at home to rely on the support system of the family in order to make it through.

He is in such a state of depression that he rarely eats unless you put the food in front of him, he showers when you remind (which I do…yeesh), and hardly sleeps. He is the complete opposite of what he was when we first starting seeing each other. I hate to sound demeaning, but living with him is like having two children: an elementary school aged child and an over-grown teenager with a rebellious side. He takes it all well and also knows that he needs this type of support to keep going.

The depression takes its toll on all of us. While he feels the physically pain it causes, the bad emotions that arise from it; my daughter ana I feel our fair share of it. Luckily, I have an awesome little sweetheart that knows what dad is going through and now does what she can to not only help him out, but she helps me as well. With my husband’s school schedule and work schedule he isn’t home much and therfore rarely helps out around the house. Even without his busy schedule he hasn’t been much of a contributor to the household duties since he returned from the desert. Everything has fallen on me to handle:a from paying the bills, to cleaning, laundry, shopping, yardwork and cooking. While it may sound like I am whining…throw in working full time and transporting the daughter to her appointments and activities. It leaves little time for me and I have run myself ragged for some time now.

So while some who is depressed feels the brunt of the side effects associated with the condition, so do the family and friends they have. The best suggestions I can give to anyone who knows someone like that is to help them out where ever you can. Give support in any form they will accept. Sometimes they need to talk to someone and just babble (sometimes their family needs a gentle ear as well) and sometimes they need to be pushed for they help they need. I imagine often what it would be like if my husband had gotten some help sooner. Would it have made a difference if I had pushed him to see the doctors sooner? Would my family have a better opinion of my husband and not think he’s become some cocky, arrogant SOB that thinks he’s better than them. They don’t understand all the things that have transpired over the last few years and therefore have pulled away from him. Some of our family understands the true details of our lives. It just makes you search for peace and happiness so much harder.