Determination....

Don't ever give up if you still want to try....

I know easier said than done...its very hard to be the one that feels as if you are the only one trying...because then everyone tells you that you cant make things work on your own. So do you keep trying? This is a question I have been asking myself for a while now. How can I try if I am the only one trying? IN a relationship...YOU CAN'T. You can sit idly by and wait, hope and pray that they decide they want to try to. But what kind of life is that? How do you get thru this and still come out the happier person? For me I have done my best to work on myself. There is no doubt in my mind of where I want to be. NONE WHATSOEVER. So as I have been thinking about this lately, I have been asking myself what about me? Dont I deserve to be happy with myself and the decisions that affect my life? The answer is yes. I DO! AND I WILL! I have started a personal journey, one that I know is going to have some struggles, some mountains that I will have to climb. I am up for the challenge. Because at the end of the day if I am not happy with myself, who is there to blame... ME! I have let other people walk all over me and allowed my thoughts and feelings to not be accounted for. I have allowed my thoughts to mirror other peoples opinions of me instead of thinking about myself. I have allowed myself to be torn down, both mentally and emotionally. But whose fault is that. MY OWN! I have learned alot in the past few years about myself, even moreso in the last few months, maybe down to the last few weeks. I have wiped my tears and put my big girls panties on when I still felt like I NEEDED to cry. Crying is cleansing for me, but because someone else wanted me to stop, I DID. So I have held on to the hurt and negativity, and anger, frustration and sadness. Why because my actions were affecting someone else and they didnt like it. So I packed them up, put me and my feelings on hold because someone else couldnt handle me. I think as wives and mothers, we all do that..I think that it becomes even more of an obligation if you are a caregiver to a veteran. We dont ever want our children to see us hurt or angry. I know as for the children that I care for, they have been thru enough in their short little lives, I dont want to add stress to it. I dont want them to worry about life issues, bills, groceries, arguments between mom and dad...etc etc etc.SO I try to cry in the shower or while they are at school if I need to cry. When you are the wife of a veteran with PTSD, or a TBI, or better yet both....it becomes a little more difficult, especially if they have memory issues. Because if they are the ones that have caused the hurt and then 5 to 10 minutes later dont even remember it....then how can you not pack it up... because there is a fear there that if you tell them what is wrong, then 1. they feel bad, or 2 it recreates the anger that caused the feeling in the first place and it multiplies. Sometimes its difficult to know which one is headed your way, so when you hear them coming you suck it up, run to the bathroom and wash your face and come out smiling. Is it difficult....UM YEAH!!!!!!!!!! But they didnt ask for these injuries... they asked to serve and protect their country! And they DID! Now they are being treated like trash. I was reading thru my husbands records last night on ebenefits and half of the information that they have on file is wrong. They still have him married to his EX. Mind you we have been married for 6 years and have changed this 100 times if we have changed it once. They have him only in theater for 1 month...he was there almost a year. then they have him in a different base than the one that he was even in. His counselor wrote in his notes that we were split up and then the next note that we were still continuing the process for divorce. Crazy stuff that he never said to her. It truly makes me crazy! He already has a bad memory so if he were to be asked about this stuff, he may not even remember the appointment much less what was said in it. When we were looking back at his rating records, it plainly contradicts itself saying that they were only searching records from his first enlistment in 1993, not his deployment of 2003. So they state there were no records of his injuries or that he was even deployed....REALLY! GET THE DATES CORRECT... we have only given them to you a THOUSAND times! The only reason that he even remembers half of the stuff that happened to him is becuase he has to take himself back there every time we actually are able to be seen in the VA.In one of the reports his counselor writes...will see patient more frequently...she has seen him 1 time since then, both subsequent appointments were rescheduled to a later date. We are now into the end of April since the beginning of May. When we were there in October, she advised us that she wanted us to be one of the first ones seen by the new Pysch doc coming in that would be there within the next week and that she would see us back the day after Thanksgiving... She knew then that he was on very rocky ground. We never heard anything except that his appointment with her(counselor) was being changed to Jan....and we didnt get an appointment with Pysch doc until MARCH! Then when we seen the DOC, he proceeded to tell hubby that he seemed fine to him... ok well could you actually talk to him and allow him to tell you how he is feeling as he cant sit still, legs constantly moving and stuttering as he speaks, and eyes moving constantly because he is so agitated. Really he is just fine... Thanks... lets tell him that how he has been feeling since Sept is totally fine. Reguardless of the fact that he is NOT sleeping, CONSTANTLY agitated and extremely depressed, is super angry and I have taken the brunt of it. Thankfully. I am so very thankful that no matter what happens, he is able to hold it together to move away from our children to have an angry outburst. However our children are picking up on the memory issue...as our daughter promptly told him where to turn the other night going to the softball field...just in case he had forgotten she said. But as far as the anger they dont see that. They dont hear it... They do see his bad days where he forgets stuff, they will go behind and turn the water off, or the light off, or shut a door, check the washing machine when they hear it to make sure there are actually clothes in it. They will check the oven after dinner, its the little things that is difficult. If he is leaving by himself, we set the GPS, just in case. We have a daily life of lists. We all have one so that Daddy doesnt feel bad for needing one. At least that is why our daughter asked for hers. These lists include every day household tasks that most of us take for granted... Taking medicine, taking a shower, brushing teeth, who to call with the numbers, what business needs to be handled and places that we need to go. Some days we have really good days and we dont even need the list, and then there are some days that we cant survive without them. We do them EVERY SINGLE DAY, so that if there is a question of memory in the middle of the day we can refer. If we need to have a serious conversation about finances, or the kids, or something that NEEDS to happen then we do so by email or text message so that I have a defense when in 30 minutes he doesnt remember a conversation! Anyway...enough ranting tonight...this is totally not where I meant to go with this blog...but its where I ended up... so I will say again...Dont give up if you still want to try! I love my husband to the end of the earth.... I am determined to get him thru this!