Reintegration so far has been like sitting on a surf board. I am looking down through clear blue water, not expecting any big waves, just enjoying the company. Then a shadow appears under my board and I catch myself wondering whether that black shape is PTSD hiding in reintegration below.
I’ve been afraid of black shapes in the water before. I spent most of my Navy Brat summers in coastal towns with beautiful beaches where summer tends to last four months longer than everywhere else. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year in high school, I was a sunburned haole girl living in Hawaii. I had a $45 hand-me-down surf board and I wasn’t any good at all. But my friends all had surf boards and bubble-gum scented wax, and we all had sand rashes on our bellies and a strange skin fungus on our peeling shoulders. And we had no idea how much fun we were having.
This one day we sat in a flat glassy spot in a neat line, the waves bunching up slowly and slushing out underneath us. We gripped the pointy points of our boards and dipped the backs of them into the water, our legs dangling down and swirling us around. As we talked we squinted for a set, shifting our gaze between the horizon and our own floating shadows on the sand below. It wasn’t particularly clear water, but you could see glinty mirages from time to time in the whiteness of the course coral sand.
Suddenly the boy to my left pointed a sharp finger at the water. I saw a huge dark black fish off my starboard side, its crisp edges contrasting sharply with the bright sand that seemed to glow underneath it. It jerked and he shouted “Shark!” My veins popped and adrenaline made my ears swell with sound. I didn’t know what to do, but my instinct to climb inside of myself proved beneficial; we all sucked our limbs up tight and laid still, keeping every body part out of the water. Portagee Bo gingerly flipped my dangling leash up onto my legs and laid his own face down on his board sideways, looking into my eyes. It reminded me of a murder scene in a movie where the camera does a close up of a dying man just before his eyeballs turn vacant. I was peeing on my board at the time and wondering if sharks smelled pee in the water like they smelled blood.
I feel that way sometimes since my husband got home from deployment. I feel like I’m floating alone off a secret beach. No one thinks to look for me because all my friends believe that homecoming is the magic pill that cures deployment. So instead I spend time glancing at my own floating shadow, imagining that some latent PTSD is lurking below. I go back and forth between the comfort of knowing that PTSD would explain the gap between me and my husband, and the fear that PTSD is not the reason we are still disconnected.
But when I did, it was empty down there. A shiny glint reflected off the sandy floor. My own shadow hovered. But there weren’t any sharks to be found. In fact, there’s a very real possibility it was just a shadow the whole time and not the shark that is PTSD. I may never even know for sure. I just need to catch the next wave and paddle into shore.
Lori Volkman is a deputy prosecutor, mother of two, Navy brat, and Navy Reservist’s spouse living in the Pacific Northwest who never found a challenge she couldn’t sarcazz her way out of. She writes about military reintegration at www.wittylittlesecret.com.
About Lori Volkman
Comments
Well written!
I often wonder if it's not just the soldiers that sometimes have PTSD, but also the spouses. Sure, spouses aren't faced with the visual flashbacks, but what about the emotional flashbacks? The mere mention of "when I deploy again" can send a spouse through the roof.
I love Lori's concept of PTSD as the shadow of a shark in the water–are you afraid of something that is really there, or is it just your imagination? For a lot of people, those symptoms of combat stress that follow deployment are real and they worsen over time. But I wonder if– in an effort to make getting help socially normal–we have scared a generation of military families. Seems like we can't win for losin' here. If we don't publicize the occurrence and symptoms of combat stress, we isolate people and make their problem worse. If we publicize the problem too much, we scare people on a shark-in-the-water level. What is the answer?
Household6, you hit the nail on the head. I have several friends who have seen therapists after their husbands have returned, only to be told that they too have PTSD. To me that seems to feed the issue Jacey describes above (an over-publicized condition that I worry is lurking out there). But it's also a real recognition that there's *something* that we are experiencing and feeling that isn't quite right. It's hard to talk about publicly in a way that respects my marriage, but as I do I realize how "normal" these feelings really are. My hope is that this story helps others peer into the water to see if there's really anything there.
Thank You so very much. I have PTSD as a civilian spouse and it haunts my marriage. PTSD affects so many other people besides for just those military/veterans. I loved the allusion of the shark and the deep,dark water. We can never learn to much about mental health and how to help those we love. God Bless You!
Amanda, RN
21 years of service, and steady rotation with OIF and PTSD has invaded my home. What a sad, lonely, scary place to be. I go to work to function as a normal person. Life has nver been as hard as it has been since the diagnosis of PTSD.
Loving the comparison in this article. Maybe it can people a better insight of the effects of PTSD.