Sports Therapy

To call my husband sports obsessed is an understatement. He watches ESPN during any free time he has, can spout off random stats of most players from nearly every sport, and for the longest time I wasn't even allowed to touch the remote on Saturdays. Even in the off season, or a night where nothing is on, he watches old games on the Classic ESPN channel.

 

This can get quite annoying when you don't want to hear whistles blowing, shoes squeaking, or cheerleaders cheering 24/7. Even more so when he ends up getting so emotionally invested in each game that he's yelling at the TV when the refs blow a call or a player makes a bad play. Things get thrown. Profanity gets yelled. (Not every time. This is worse case scenario.)

 

I use to really complain about it, a lot.  There were things I wanted to watch instead. He wasn't paying attention to me or our daughter. Stop getting so upset it's just a game.  It wasn't until someone brought up just how obsessed he was, because they were worried, that it dawned on me.

 

Sports is his therapy. It is his way of zoning out/clearing his head. It is his time to forget for a moment what he's been through and what he faces in the future. Why am I trying to take that away from him?

 

So this season, no more complaining. Instead, I'll sit beside him and watch the games and enjoy the time together.

Meet Me

Hi, my name is Amber. I am the wife of a medically retired soldier battling post-traumatic stress disorder. He was diagnosed six months after the birth of our daughter and the years since have been full of depression cycles, isolation, black outs, public blow ups, health issues, hyper-vigilance, and emotional numbing.

Not knowing how to handle a newborn baby and a husband battling PTSD, I did the only thing I could. I went on auto-drive, survival mode, and I stuck my head in the sand. I completely checked out of life and just focused on my baby girl; and for that I lost countless friends and upset family, but most of all I wasn't there for my husband.  

At some point in the three years since, I snapped out of my 'coma', but I didn’t become what I call proactive until an incident involving my aunt. My husband had posted a comment on Facebook as a response to people putting the flag upside down after Obama was elected and she responded that she was completely appalled by his language and preceded to break down his character by judging every action he’s ever done that she didn’t approve of. To make a long story short, she said his PTSD stressed her out and she cut him out of her life.

After that incident I immersed myself into researching anything I could regarding PTSD. While I found valuable knowledge and various therapies, I have to say the most eye opening of everything I read was how people treat veterans with PTSD. I realized it wasn’t just me and my family - it was happening to everyone. I wasn’t the only wife who felt completely isolated from not only her husband, but her friends and family too. My husband wasn’t the only one dealing with the backlash from family, friends, and strangers because they didn’t or wouldn’t understand.

After my epiphany I resolved to do whatever I could to help the families like us and to educate the people who didn’t understand. That is how I ended up here - in hopes that by telling our story and reaching out to other people in similar situations, like you reading this, to let you know you are not alone.