Tbi: More Than a Brain Injury, It’s Relationship Damage

For starters, it gets very intense through the rehabilitation, because as my husband soon found out, rehabilitation makes you feel like a child. You have to relearn the basics, memory habits, study skills, how to pay attention and block other stuff out. He kept saying his was going to quit because it wasn’t doing any good, but with some convincing, he stuck with it, with some pretty good results.

Another thing is that Joan had Roland, a psychiatrist. The rest of us do not have that training, and we keep hoping our loved one will return to us the way they left us, and it is emotionally devastating when that doesn’t happen. It is so hard not to see the symptoms, the lack of interest in you and your children and everything else in life, the depression, the intense rage over nothing important that takes about a minute for him to regain control of, and withdrawal from friends, family, and hobbies that used to make him happy. When he’s a jerk and you just want to knock some sense into him, you just feel horrible because it’s not really him, it’s a symptom.

For those of us who love our wounded warrior, its a constant struggle to keep from hating yourself when you get angry and from blaming him when forgets a birthday, an anniversary, or doesn’t kiss you for a month because he’s so tired from his rehabilitation that he comes home and just goes to sleep until its time for him to get up in the morning and go to work. It’s hard for him to believe himself a man because he feels so weak and worthless, but no matter how hard you, his therapists, and doctors try to convince him he is anything but, he can’t help how he feels, and the culmination of all this is very destructive to your relationship.

This is one reason divorce rates are so high in military families. Deployments change people, and not just the one who’s deployed. Families learn to live, and even thrive, alone when their soldier deploys. It’s a matter of survival. People can change so much in a year’s time, that when the soldier comes home, they see their families functioning without them. It’s very difficult for everyone when Daddy comes home, especially when he comes home changed.

There is hope. Rehabilition for a TBI can be like an old dirt road filled with sharp turns, mud puddles, and holes that you can fall and break something on if you’re not careful, but at least its not a dead end. There are a number of resources out there to help both soldier and family members, all you have to do is look and push through it. It takes a strong person to be a military spouse.

You survived a deployment, maybe even more than one, and you’re soldier did come home, allbeit changed. Many others would gladly change places with us if they could just have their soldier back. Honor who they are, what they and you have sacrificed, and just be as supportive as you can be, but also make sure to take care of yourself. If you are stressed, you’re soldier will be stressed, and you will make it harder on the both of you. Take the time to relax, both together and also on your own.

Make date nights, schedule that two hour bubble bath. Whatever it is that you need to do for you, do it, because it will end up helping you both. Part of the rehabilitation is also rebuilding your relationship. You have both changed, so it may help to start dating again. Go through those awkward first dates. Find out your likes, dislikes, etc. Get to know the new yous and build your new relationship. Sometimes we have to let go of the past and look to the future, and this could very well be one of those times.

I’m not perfect, and we’ve made our mistakes. Once I stopped mourning the loss of the man I married and started trying to build a stronger relationship with the man who came back to me, things slowly began to improve. It just takes time, patience, and a whole lot of understanding, and you can make it work.