The Other Ones-PTSD

We all have a purpose, sometimes it just takes someone longer to find it!

So my daughter and I were talking on FaceTime earlier today. And she said something that really hit me. She said “that it was you that did everything to hold our family together and get us to where we are”.

When you feel like you don’t have an identity

What do you do?

When you have spent so many days, weeks, months, years just trying to hold your family together

When you have walked across so many eggshells, just to keep some sort of peace in the house

When you have held in every emotion from those around you

When you have given so much time and energy to see them smiling and “stable”

When they get to a point where the good days outweigh the bad days

When there is no more work to be done, no more eggshells to walk on, yet so many emotions to hide.

What do you do?

How do you find yourself again?

Does that person even exist anymore?

This is one of those hard moments when you are one of the other-ones. I know I should take my own advice and write everything down in my journal and get everything out but sometimes I just hold it all in because it’s just easier sometimes.

The Holiday Season- During this time of year it can be difficult for those that have PTSD. You want to know who else has a difficult time? Yes, it’s the other-ones.
Picture it, your family is invited to let’s say a Christmas party. Your person said yes they would be there. Of coarse it is not that simple for the other-one, we now have some questions. How many people are going to be there?
Honestly, the how many people question is the main question as crowds can be a trigger to some. Other questions are Food?, Drinks?, alcohol?, white elephant gift?, etc.
so the other-one gets the side dish prepared, gets the white elephant gift wrapped (sometimes your person will do this), and makes sure you have everything needed.
The real worry begins when you get to the party. Sometimes everything goes great and there are no issues. I love when this happens! Yet, sometimes little things happen and you’ll do your little check in with your person and they are looking anxious, they are standing in a corner, or they are away from the crowd. When this happens, you go and talk to them to see what your next move is. Sometimes they just need a minute and can go back and join the crowd and sometimes it becomes time to leave.
If it’s time to leave, they may head straight to the vehicle and the other-one will have to say the goodbyes, gather the kids, and head out. It can feel embarrassing, it can be easy to blame and be upset with your person, but don’t lash out at your person.

This is the time to have extra patience with your person. Also have some extra patience with yourself. Just breathe and try to enjoy the time that you do have being away from the house with your person and your family.

I know that this was originally posted for Fibromyalgia but this spoke to me.

I am always saying this is our “new normal”. The “new normal” has changed quite a few times throughout the years.

We as the “Other Ones” didn’t cause this, can’t cure this, can’t avoid this, can’t ignore this, can’t outsmart this, and we can’t control this.
I feel like we do manage this, we learn about this, we accept this, we help to minimize their reactions, we figure out the triggers, and we love them for who they are now in the present.

Welcome to your “New Normal”!

#1
You ever get the feeling that you are living with two different people who share a body?

This is something I have always said to myself and told our kids throughout this journey. I have my husband and I have my PTSD husband, just like my kids have their Dad and they also have their PTSD Dad.

A few weeks there was an instance with our daughter, now 21 years old. I won’t go into details on what happened, but the outcome was she finally saw what I have been saying. Yes, it took her a long time to realize what I had been saying to be true. BUT because she finally saw it, so many things in the past now made more sense to her.

The reality is, that during an off moment PTSD has the upper hand, it’s hard for the one diagnosed and sometimes harder on the Other-Ones. Depending on the issue, the ones diagnosed sometimes don’t even remember what happened, yet the Other-Ones will remember everything, everything said, every reaction, and every word.

Do you deal with living with one person that has become two separate people? How do you view this? What are your thoughts on viewing it this way?

Hey Y’all
Yes I’m still writing my book, but I have decided to change the layout. Instead of just writing the story of being an other-one in order from beginning to present, I would like to write the book filled with stories, occasions, and instances when being an other-one came into play. All of these will be in no particular order.

As my goal is to get my story out there as a way to help others just like me, I also want to create open conversations about this topic.

I want this to be a safe place for everyone. I know how it feels to have so much to say but keeping it to myself out of fear over what the reaction would be. I want you to comment on, like, and share my posts. What I will not tolerate is negativity or disrespect.

As we are all one of the other-ones, we are also on different parts of this journey.

Now that we got all that out of the way, On to the stories…

What year did everything change for you?

A few weeks ago I had a Happy Heart moment!
I was having a conversation with someone and the conversation ended up on Military Service and PTSD.
I was able to share some things that made this person take a second look at how she handled some situations. I was able to share with her all about the grieving process for who her person was, along with the hopes and dreams they shared about the future.
PTSD changes not just the person that was diagnosed, but everyone around them.
Sometimes no matter what, people separate, but some learn how to react, how to spot the triggering things, how and when to talk to their person on bad/off days, the list is long. But there is always a chance.
I just had to share how having conversations with others makes my heart happy.

I’ve spoken about good days and bad/off days.

Well yesterday was a good day for my husband.

Time for a short story-
A few days ago I sent out a message to someone’s wife asking if her husband was stationed at a certain place in a certain timeframe. Trying my best to not seem like some weirdo for sending this random message to her. 🤣
Yesterday she got back to me and I was so thankful. That message led to my husband having a 2+ hours long phone conversation with a brother that he has not spoken to since about 2006, pretty sure it made my husband’s day, week, month, and year!!


Sometimes it can take years to find that certain person that has been on your mind. This brother was someone that my husband deployed with 2 times. This brother was someone that throughout the years was also searching, hoping to find my husband. To say my heart was happy is an understatement, my heart was bursting for both of them as they spoke about the past and learned about the present while filling in all the in between years.

This is so true… what do you think?