Being the significant other to someone who deals with PTSD can be difficult to work with and maneuver around. Supporting your loved one can feel like a mystery at first.
But being able to understand PTSD can help you and your partner both find a way at making the situation easier. Below are 5 things to know.
Your Loved One May Feel Unlovable 
Traumatic experiences mess with the brain and create a very real illness. These experiences can be incredibly scary and impact one’s sense of safety or security in life.
Your loved one may feel that they’re unapproachable and undeserving. They feel like they can’t be trusted or loved altogether. They may need time and attention from you, as well as reassurance and encouragement.
There Are Treatment Options
Some people may not even recognize that they’re experiencing and dealing with PTSD. They feel continually alone and hopeless. But there are professional treatment options to help ease this feeling.
Self-prescribed treatments like alcohol and drugs should be avoided. Therapy and support groups are a much more effective way to tackle this mental health battle.
Your Love May Not Always Be Enough
As much as you may want to support and stand with your loved one during this time, they need to be as willing to tackle it themselves as you are. Those who experience trauma deal with incredibly intense and complex feelings.
They may need more than support from a loved one. Many benefit from trauma therapy in combination with support at home.
Find and Maintain Self-Care Activities For the Both of You
Being wrapped up in trauma recovery can be incredibly consuming and exhausting. Taking care of yourself is just as important as your loved one taking care of themself.
You need to prioritize your mental health just as much. It can be incredibly easy to get sucked into a cycle of guilt, anxiety, and depression yourself.
As someone close to a person dealing with this extreme situation, you must put in a conscious effort to take care of yourself, too. Being able to identify triggers for both of you will go a long way.
Always Be Encouraging
It can significantly help your loved one to feel encouraged during both recovery and relapse. Encouragement and positivity can help loads.
The time and energy needed for recovery from PTSD is a lot to deal with day in and day out. Being able to find happiness and hope will help both of you see it is possible to heal. It doesn’t have to feel like defeat.
Encouraging your partner to consider therapy, medication, self-care, and opening up about the issues helps promote healing. For someone who may feel hopeless, isolated, and unlovable, encouragement will go a long way. It can impact the situation in ways you may not imagine. So be encouraging.
At the end of the day, know that it will take a while for recovery to really make its mark. Healing from PTSD is a process and can be overwhelming. Patience, positivity, compassion, and focusing on healing your mental health will ultimately be the guiding post to full recovery and rejuvenation.
This can be a lot of work. PTSD has a way of creeping in and out of people’s lives. Being able to understand PTSD and how your partner carries it will always help the situation. The process isn’t perfect. But finding a way to make breakthroughs and progress is a huge deal. Find ways to do it together, and continually move forward.
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