In order to write about life, first you must live it ~Ernest Hemingway
For those who may not have read Part 1, my veteran Curtis and I had just been evacuated from the McFarland fire in Northern California. We were not ready to head home to Missouri and decided to continue our adventures north to Medford, Oregon.
An unfortunate circumstance of marrying someone who served in the military is the chance of running into one of their ex conquests. Although he is reluctant to admit it, there is no denying that women love a man in uniform, and he was well-loved. As Curtis often says, "Don't hate the player; hate the game." Another downside of knowing someone for as long as I have him is that I grew up with quite a few of his exes. That said, I found myself heading to Oregon to visit a mutual guy friend from high school. Our friend "Tom" ended up marrying an ex fling of Curtis. We had all attended high school together and although I was excited to visit our mutual friend, I wasn't fond of the negative emotions that were encompassing at the thought of seeing Curtis' ex, "Mary" again.
You are probably wondering by now what this has to do with the military and why I am writing about ex-girlfriends in a Heroes Thanking Heroes blog. Well, dear reader, it is like this. According to reports released by VA.gov, divorce among military couples is more than 80%, with divorce rates of wounded veterans being higher. Our wounded veterans have experienced extreme trauma, often coupled with a traumatic brain injury. I never served in the military, but I have experience with complex PTSD and a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Irrational jealousy, fear, distrust, and paranoia are symptoms of persons with PTSD and a TBI. Not being able to separate truth from fiction may contribute to the higher divorce rate among marriages of wounded veterans. I have many caregiver friends who report being falsely accused of all sorts of things that are not real. It is challenging to remain patient with someone who has been triggered by an event and is acting irrationally.
I grew up on a religious hippie commune where my father had lots of 'girlfriends.' This was not a lifestyle my mother approved of, and I saw her confidence wilt a little more with every woman my father paraded around. At one point, my mother ended up in a hospital for six weeks due to an emotional and physical breakdown. Even at a young age, I was able to associate the free-love hippie lifestyle with my mother's hospital stay. I cannot explain it, but while I have no issue with ex-wives, being around ex-girlfriends triggers unwarranted insecurities.
I will not bore you with how hard it was to get past the mental block of Curtis's brief fling 35 years in the past. What is important is that I was able to work through a lot of trauma from my childhood with the love and assurance of my veteran and best friend. My job as his full-time caregiver means that I am tasked with gently coaching him down off of the cliff of untruths. I am the one he leans on when he wakes up from nightmares and holds his hand as he fights to remain in the present instead of being sucked under from the past. He could have yelled at me, told me I was crazy and irrational. Instead, he held my hand and talked me off of the cliff of the lies my brain was telling me. There were times when it took all of my willpower not to pack a bag and catch the next flight home to Springfield. I wanted to run away, and that is a feeling that Curtis struggles with nearly daily from his battle with PTSD.
Many of us military caregivers successfully care for others because we have experienced some sort of trauma. We are empathetic because we have had to fight our demons and understand the fear of knowing something is not real but believing it to be real. Curtis and I spent two weeks on the Rogue River near Medford, Oregon. It was a beautiful campground where the back deck of our toy hauler sat out over the water. We enjoyed our morning coffee in peace and spent several days out on the river with our kayaks. Curtis and Tom went white water rafting every chance they got. We had Tom and Mary over for dinner a few times with other friends. I will never be friends with Mary, but that has less to do with her previous connection to Curtis and more with not having any shared interests. We plan to go back to the Rogue River next year but have invited classmates with whom we are both friends. We left the Medford area rested, emotionally closer, and ready for the next adventure as we headed to the coast of Astoria, Oregon.
***Names have been changed to protect the identity
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