I have been wrestling with this for a while, mostly because a good friend, who I will call Sebastian (another soldier, and a PTSD survivor), has accused me a couple of times of "enabling" the Wolf's denial of his PTSD as a problem, when I see myself as being supportive. When I challenge Sebastian on where the line is between support and enabling, he doesn't seem able, or willing, to answer me. When I am discussing it with him, I am confident in what I am doing; but, when I am by myself "thinking too much", I wonder.
The conversation arose again last night. There has been confirmation of the rumour we heard about where the Wolf's squadron will be posted upon their return. Now, I know better than to take this as gospel until the day it happens; but I made the comment to Sebastian that it gave the Wolf and I some time to sort things out, since the new posting will be driving distance (for weekends and visits) from where I currently live. While things seem to be on track really well right now, I need to know, for my own sanity, that next time he deploys he will not pull the same crap that happened at the end of September. I honestly don't know if I could survive that again intact. I definitely need to feel secure in that before I start looking for jobs at the new posting!
I then said I need to figure out how and when to have this conversation with the Wolf. I need tone of voice and body language - while I could do it on HTLA*, my instinct is to wait until he is actually "home". Further, I don't feel the need to tell him how messed up I was there for a while after he withdrew. In my mind, that is guilt tripping him, laying more stuff on him that he doesn't need to deal with, and reinforcing his belief that I "deserve something better than the life he can give me, the life of a MilSpouse". I am not sure I can make him see that my pain was cause not by his physical leaving, but by his emotional leaving.
Sebastian says that not making him face the music, and "making him" feel guilty for what happened, is "enabling" him. Sebastian feels very strongly that the Wolf will never deal with his PTSD unless he is pushed to a crisis point, and that I am the one best suited to push him to that point.
I don't feel that guilt is a very useful emotion, and I think encouraging it in someone else is manipulative. I don't want to manipulate. I don't want to be dishonest, either. Sebastian feels that not going for full disclosure is manipulative, because it denies the Wolf the opportunity to take responsibility for his actions and the result of them.
**sigh**
I think this might go back to a discussion the Wolf and I had about honesty. I told him once that I fully expect him to lie to me about things that will stress me out - the specific example, if I remember, was telling him that the proper answer to "our guns are better than theirs" was "Yes, dear", whether it was true or not. I see this as kind of the same way. I see absolutely no good coming out of telling him the complete, detailed truth. I can tell him I was hurt, and I don't think I can do it again, without telling him the degree to which I sank. I don't think it will help, and I do think it will hurt.
So, is that being supportive, or enabling his un-healthiness? When I can sit back and be his friend, his close friend, and the only one he is still in regular communication with, without turning every conversation into a challenge, into something the pokes his psyche - am I enabling his OSI*? Or am I, in my own way, trying to firm up that belief that he is worth loving, that there are people in this world he can count on, who will be there for him, and not turn every thing into drama?
I think I am being supportive. Thanks for listening ;-) As always, your opinions, insights, and comments are welcome.
(HTLA = Home Travel Leave Allowance; R&R for the Americans in the audience.
OSI = Operational Stress Injury {the "official" name for things like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD} )
Put on your body armor and go for a jog. Or, go to the pistol range and fire a few rounds at the target.
ReplyDeleteGlad I could help.
Hmmmm....a difficult task you've engineered my dear. Experience ?? Oh yes I do...mucho, mucho, mucho....where to begin ??
ReplyDeleteAhh the brother...home from Viet Nam and as angry at himself as the rest. he blamed the whole nightmare on his country....then childhood...then cultural background....and eventually severed most of his connections with our Mother. The "hero" is made of common men by the acts of so-called heroism....namely war because its far easier to see oneself being exhaulted for taking up arms to protect the home ... essentially women and children ... from the barbarous invading hordes.... than it is to try and acquire wealth and power from some long arduous trek through society. Didn't you recognize that little American boys go to war to prove subconscious worth issues to themselves?
At a point roughly 10 years after the fact I got him to realize that ...short of taking the initiative to confront his mother in dialogue...he had no recourse to get a better picture of his childhood. When Mom phoned me and asked me what I'd said to him I merely told her the fact...what I'd said. She said that she'd tried to discourage him. I wasn't surprised....she hated war...any kind.
He continued to struggle with self-esteem for years after constantly dialoging with me on childhood issues and their 'marking' his marital trials. When his marriage dissolved in the last years of the century and 911 rolled in....he suffered a major breakdown. After some counseling sessions with a 'psyche' and some hypnotherapy sessions to show him how to resolve the memories.....he came asking questions again. The 1st comment I made was "so bro, ya finally admitted to yourself that your just a self-serving asshole in the human condition did ya??" He stuttered an affirmative reply, a bit taken aback at my seeming impatience because I'd always shown him so much.....but this is 'attack time' and things can no longer remain in the 'soft-sell' profile.
I asked him why he never wanted to listen to all the times I'd warned him he wasn't paying attention by trying to ignore the war by separating it as something different from the rest of his shitty self-perception issues. He tried weakly defending himself with reference to 911 bringing back the brutal war dreams the hypnotherapist commented on. I responded with "there you go again bro, saying one loss is different than another when it ain't for the child who reacts fearfully". I told him his marriage was the true trigger because he couldn't get the behavior of his wife to certify his self-esteem issues. He quietly affirmed the statement saying that a fellow he'd worked alongside for ten years had quietly told him recently he needed to go to Seattle and get tested for PTSD. He did and the results were PTSD. I then asked him what was his profit motive for going in the army in 1970. He said education on their dollar. So I followed with why didn't you request a different placement when you had the chance ? His answer was honest...."I had to go see if it was really that big of a deal." So you see my dear...it is always a question of self-esteem no matter how we try to cover it up by some 'blanket' of socio-political nonsense.
Don't coddle him....but don't be mean to him...just try to help him to see that war, all war is a failure of humanity to just accept the human condition and is orchestrated by those who prove it in their so-called leadership roles.
I'm not sure there is an "answer" but my advice is that you will know when to push him. And generally, when he's away or has just come home is not the right time.
ReplyDeleteReintegration is hard enough, but being forced into a situation you don't want to be in (because you know it will break you or someone else) can really f you up. I speak from bitter experience - on both sides of the coin.