Marriage Counseling or PTSD Therapy?
Today David joined me for group counseling. In order to determine what we need to focus on in therapy (PTSD therapy or marriage counseling), he needed to decide on what was more important to him. Because PTSD therapy is so intense, we could not do both. In marriage counseling we leave the session angry and upset with each other because of everything problematic in our marriage that we discussed. In PTSD therapy I would need him for support, and we couldn't be constantly angry with each other. The therapist pulled out her PTSD manual. She flipped to a page of diagrams and showed it to David. The diagram showed a list of signs for PTSD.
They included:
- Avoiding reminders of the trauma
- Intrusive, upsetting memories of the event
- Feelings of intense distress when reminded of the trauma
- Intense physical reactions to the reminders of the event (nausea, muscle tension)
- Inability to remember important aspects of the trauma
- Loss of interest in activities and life in general
- Feeling detached from others and emotionally numb
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Irritability or outbursts of anger
- Difficulty concentrating
- Guilt, shame or self blame
- Feelings of mistrust or betrayal
- Feeling alienated alone
- Physical aches and pains
I have all of those, and David knew it too.
Without thinking twice, he determined PTSD therapy is more important than marriage counseling.
He said he would be willing to stand beside me for the next 12 weeks.
