Spotlight on : Our Caffeinated Life

My real life best friend and deployment buddy Bexxx has started sharing her experiences as an Army Wife and the after effects of deployment on a family. Please check out her blog, Our Caffeinated Life.






bexxx and I on our soldier's homecoming day!

Progress. Oh wait...

There hasn't been much progress on the solo therapy (ST) and couples counseling (CC) front. Once a week we go to CC and sometimes we take microscopic baby steps in the right direction. Mostly though, it's a totally emotionally draining experience that leaves me with a migraine and wrecks the rest of my day. Our counselor is through the VetCenter and I'm very lucky that they accept me since I'm technically "just a fiance".

The Army doesn't normally recognize you unless you're a wife. I think that's complete bs, since I've been with my soldier for 6 years. I'm the only person that has EVER been there for him, and I know so many other girls are in the same situation and aren't recognized.

Well, this "just a fiance" happens to know the ins and outs of PTSD and TBI, and somehow I doubt that a piece of official paper would change that. I deal with some really difficult things with my soldier which is why we go to therapy, duh. Let's see. . .

Well, first up, there's anger. Hawk has the most unrelenting road rage I've ever seen. He doesn't even have to be the one driving. He'll start off cussing and at the end of his episode, he'll have punched the dashboard (hard!) half a dozen times, almost ran off the road, accelerated to 100 mph to make sure the other guy sees him flip them off etc. He'll weave through traffic screaming at the other cars. He doesn't care if I'm in the car or not. I don't even want to know what he's like when I'm not with him. And it isn't just road rage. We can't go out like normal people because if someone rubs him the wrong way, he will fly off the handle.

Theres the constant zoning out. He can't hold a conversation with anyone. Least of all me. I always find myself apologizing for his rudeness and bending over backwards to include him in conversations. It's draining, so we don't visit others much, or have people over. (Not that he'd mind since all he does is play video games all day and rarely leaves the house.) But more than that, it's killing our relationship. I speak and he doesn't acknowledge me. He never makes eye contact, just stares at the wall. If he does talk he stops mid-sentence and then won't talk again for hours. No matter how much I work with him.


He drinks. A lot of them do. He's an asshole when he drinks too, and that is the time he's most likely to have flashbacks.

I really hate the flashbacks.

He is completely irresponsible. He wont do ANYTHING around the house. He wont even take care of his dog who he loves SO much. He can't handle money anymore because he blows it all, or loses it. It's a struggle to get him to do anything other than warm the couch and xbox controller. I pick up the slack, like I've been doing for the past 19 months since this Hell that is my life began.

Silly me, I thought the deployment would be the hard part.

Next up: Memory loss! He can't remember anything. ANYTHING. I have to write every last little thing down on a huge dry erase board because his memory is shot. He can't remember the last time he talked to his parents or his daughter. Hell I have to make him call his daughter, not that he ever has anything to say to her. I have to feed him topics (ask her about school, ask about her dog, summer camp, whatever). We'll go to a restaurant and he forgets what he likes there. We go to the movies and in the amount of time it takes to get from the car to the ticket booth, he can't remember the name of the movie. He forgets EVERYTHING. I have to remind him his brother's wife's name. Or his other brother's daughter's name. It's always something. He either gets mad at himself and shuts down the rest of the day, or he acts like he's fine while he forgets where he is.

There is so much more, but it's such an everyday part of my life, I honestly can't tell what's normal and what isn't anymore. I forget that not everyone lives like this.

Therapy is supposed to be helping all this. We've been going for 2 months, and honestly things are worse now. Our last CC session I cried for 2 hours and finally walked out. The counselor is not trained to handle PTSD, and she and Him just twist my words and talk in circles. This isn't teenage depression, it isn't simple relationship problems. These are our life problems

And I'm not bitching because I can't handle the responsibility. But who the fuck wants it? When is enough, enough?

Balance

Well, my last post was venting. I was having the worst week ever and I had to get that out. Things are ok most of the time. Living with a Combat Veteran is a unique experience, I have to say. I've only known him as a Veteran. I met him just months after he returned from Iraq the first time. We lived peacefully for 4 years and then he left again. We are both working to find balance, and that is challenging in anyone's life. Everyone has problems, I know, so I try not to feel so bad about ours. My Soldier is a really good guy. He's a FANTASTIC Father and a fun person to be around and I appreciate that. His problems are serious, but there is more to him than that and I try to remember that in our dark periods.
We had a great weekend! We had his daughter and niece (both 7) and stayed busy from sunrise to sunset the past 3 days.


Niece! She calls herself Spongebob ha



He lets the girls get away with murder ;)




Our Niece and my Step-daughter

So, thankfully we are finally getting the chance to enjoy our summer!

Readjustment reality

I don't blog much. Obviously. I used to and I really love blogging. It's easy to mold your posts to what others expect from you. The thing is, the reason I started this blog is, I need an outlet. I started it when my Fiance was in Iraq. He's been home now for 4 1/2 months so here's what I've learned.

They tell you to wait, and to be supportive. They don't tell you that you can be 110% fucking supportive and you won't get much back.

They tell you that the readjustment period can take up to a year. They don't tell you that there's just a slight chance you'll even be together after the first year back.

3 couples I know from Hawk's squad have broken up and another is headed there. A squad only has 13 people in it. We make the 5th that despite my best efforts, may not be together after the first year.

Hawk was in Iraq in 03-04 when the fighting was really bad there. He went through a whole lot there. 40+ confirmed kills. Some with just a knife. Some with a truck, some with guns. That just the confirmed ones...

I met him when he'd only been home for 9 months. I thought he was dealing with it ok. I've since learned he hides everything.

He has PTSD from the first deployment and suffers from TBI as well. He never got any counseling and that was a mistake. Now that he's home, he goes to solo counseling at the Veteran's Service Commission. I suspect he lies to his therapist since he isn't getting better. We also do couples counseling once a week. It's going nowhere. He gives her lip service and then nothing changes. The after effects of this deployment have destroyed our relationship. We're supposed to be getting married in October, and I'm not even interested anymore. He's volatile, angry, has memory loss, lies constantly about the dumbest stuff.

He was supposed to go back to drill last month. (He's a Reservist) and he found a way to get out of that. He never got his post-deployment physical and mental eval and they're blowing up my phone trying to get him to come in. He's oblivious. Can't be bothered. Nobody tells you it will be like this.

Memorial Day doesn't mean BBQ and Beer to us

Growing up, we never celebrated Memorial Day, but we didn't celebrate anything. Not even Christmas. My Mom was Native American and Irish, with veteran relatives going back to the Revolutionary War. My Dad's Father was a highly decorated WWII Veteran, he did 2 tours and earned multiple Purple Hearts in the process. I never go to meet him, he died before I was born. My Dad's brother was in the Army in Vietnam. It changed him. He was "shell shocked" which is modern day PTSD. Long story short, our service members sacrifice everything up to and including their lives.

My Fiance and I have been together for almost 6 years. When we met, he had just got home from a year in Iraq. He is an Army Reservist and has been in for 10 years. In March of 2009 he left again, this time for 400 days. I was left here to keep the homefires burning. And that I did, but I also learned what it truly means to be a military family. These deployments are the hardest thing I can imagine ever going through (and I have had my share of tragedies)

We had to fight to save our life we had created. We succeeded but it changed EVERYTHING.

I am lucky that my Hawk was able to come home from the War twice. I know that there are countless men and women that never made it back. Many more will not. We don't cookout and drink on holidays like this one. We remember the fallen and are grateful that we did not lose everything. It's easy to look at those pictures of flag draped caskets and imagine my soldier in their place. When I say grateful, I mean shaking, crying, grateful. My soldier is my life, I can't imagine a future without him. Those that we have lost, and the families they left behind, we are honoring them today. Happy Memorial Day

Such a great song

I am nearing the end of a 400 day deployment. My Hawk will be home in abut 6 weeks and honestly, I dunno if I could take any more than that. I am back in school which is GREAT. I had to take a semester off and I missed it so much! I'm taking an interesting Medieval British Lit course and also an Early American History course, so Im surrounded by romance poets and war. Story of my life haha. Anyway I have always had an obsession with sad music. Mournful Irish ballads to current lovesick, heartbreak country songs, I love my despair. The new movie, "Dear John" based on a Nicholas Sparks novel has made this song the focus of it's commercials. The story is about a soldier and the girl that waits for him at home, so I identify with the plot. But I also LOVE the song.

New and Improved Ray Bird ;)

SO, I got my hair cut today. I cant exactly describe the relationship my hair and I have. In a nutshell, I was raised by hippies, my mom didnt cut her hair for 30 years and therefore I was not allowed to cut my hair until I was 18. Not kidding, I know its freakin' weird but it is what it is. So over the past 6 years I have been slowly losing the length. This year I cut a foot off, including 5 inches today. It's the shortest I've ever had it, obviously and it's taking some getting used to. I've always been known for my super long hair. It's my thing. However, I am a new woman and I need a new THING! After 11 months of living through this wretched deployment, 2 years of school and more life changes than I can count, I am not the same person anymore. I am independent, mature and professional. I needed my exterior to reflect that, so he I am! On a not so narcissistic note, my Hawk was given the new position of company commander today and his first mission as leader is TOMORROW!! It's a big responsibility and a huge step in his career. I'm so proud of him, he has come so far this past year too! It was so funny today as he told me how nervous he was that he might mess up tomorrow. He is the best soldier I've ever met. He takes his oath very serious and he is just intuitive about his job. In contrast, in civilian life hes like a big kid, as easy going as a human can be, and such a helpful kind man. Good luck to you Hawk, you got this!