Break time is Over

I'll skip the lame excuses for my hiatus this time. Suffice it to say, I just got busy. Mind you not in terms of gettin buzzzy :-(

I promised at the end of my last post to take some time and talk about what life is like in a Post GWOT PTSD family (enough acronyms!). This one is easy..

It blows huge A$$

Sorry mom - I know you hate it when I swear but at my age the failures are no longer considered yours so just deal with it and love me for who I am.

Besides - this is my secret identity (sadly neither Pink or Scarlett J with or without Jello will ever know who I am)

Anyway, back to the topic. Living in a PTSD family is like living on the razor. One day you slide left and one day you slide right. Either side can be good or bad and life hanging on to the middle cuts you right between the toes. If you happen to fall in the middle its a big razor up the a$$ so you have to learn to fall to either side but never straight down.

Most days, I try to balance it just right and I'm successful. The laundry gets done, the herd gets fed, and BBG says she loves me before she falls asleep irregardless of the drugs on board. On the bad days, life goes down in one of about four different ways:

1) BBG is feeling physically ill and struggling to make it through the day and the kids are being jerks and I am unable to put humpty back together again (Bad), 2) BBG is OK emotionally, but is physically ill and I am running thirty seconds behind everything that happens. Its been going on for ten days or so and I lose the will to fight another losing battle and I lose my cool. I'm a man so I lose my cool in a stomp around the house three year-old temper tantrum passive agressive sort of way (Very bad), 3) BBG is doing fine but I have not yet recovered from # 2 and carry on (Verry Baddd) and 4) My personal favorite - something triggers BBG's PTSD in a bad way (burnt barbecue, dogs, crowds and very loud noises are the worst offenders - I'll leave it up to your imagination why). She is pissed off, cranked up, ready for war and the smallest issue with previously mentioned grommets sends her through the roof. They in turn have learned to react to these days by behaving exactly like mommy and the spiral steepens. (razor up your butt kinda bad day)

We talk openly about these things because we are trying to keep ourselves and BBG sane. We also talk about it because we don't want to become one of those statistics I frequently post about. I think this is helping but lets be honest...

If you're standing in the tracks as the train comes at you, knowing it doesn't do any damn good. The only way to not get run over by the train is to get off the damn tracks. Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?

I think someone nailed my shoes down

TIA

Earl