Over The Hump At Last

      As I wrote these blog entries, I was a bit worried that he would be upset with what I was about to publish.  I held my breath as I read each article to him, and to my surprise, he did not get angry but helped with the editing.   After the third article had been published, I asked him if what I had written had upset him in any way.  He calmly answered.

“It hurt to listen to it, and I was a bit angry, but what you wrote was true.  It happened.”

     During these last five months, life has slowly grown brighter, and there is less tension in the air.  Both of us now sleep through the night, and I do not lay awake for hours worrying about what was said yesterday or what question tomorrow will raise his hackles causing him to become quiet and disappear into a book.

“There’s no more adventure in our life.  We need to do something outside the house.”

  During happy hour one night, he calmly made this statement, and I was not sure I heard it correctly.  I just looked at him in surprise, and he went on to talk about the things we used to do.   As we reminisced, I suggested we should set aside one day a week to do something new.  At least get out of the house and meet new people.    

     I quickly read the newspaper to see what was going on in Savannah that would stimulate his interest. For me, this was a breakthrough, and I had to take advantage of it.  His activities for many years consisted of sleeping, shopping for groceries at Kroger and Wal-Mart, and sitting in front of his computer playing games and absorbing the news.  On occasion, he would go with me to play bridge. Only in the last four years has he been writing and actively gathering information on the computer to write his books.  

     I had always wanted to visit the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens, and they were only five miles away from our house.  Several times before, I said we should go see what they were growing behind the large bamboo grove, but my husband just became snarly and disappeared into his newspaper or took a nap.  He really didn’t want to go out of the house.   

 

      Our first outing was indeed to the Botanical Gardens. It was a lovely Saturday morning; there was a slight breeze, and everything was green. The most interesting section was the garden that featured trees and plants grown by the early Savannah settlers. As we strolled along the paths and read the informational signs before the green plants and trees, we learned the colonists who were interested in the production of silk had planted many mulberry trees.  

     We enjoyed a leisurely forty-five minute walk about the grounds before we headed home.  On the way home, he even said he enjoyed himself, and we needed to plan another short outing.   The big surprise for him was that he had done all that walking and he had very little pain in his knees.   

   

     Over the past seven years, he has dealt with the depression caused by his PTSD, the aging process, and several health problems – not great catastrophes, but constant little things such as bilateral cataract surgery, replacement of an upper bridge and fluctuating blood pressure.  I never knew which caused the most depression – the PTSD or the aging.

    

 Rising From The Depths

     Rising out of the depths of depression was slow.  The nightmares had disappeared, but the depression and paranoia were still hanging around and would drag my husband back into the darkness.

     During the first five years after we moved to Savannah, he spent many hours a day sleeping - to bed at 7:30, up at 6 AM, and there was usually a half-hour to two-hour nap each afternoon. When he was up and about, it seemed as though he had to defend himself at every turn, and was quick with a sharp response if I had a question or suggestion about what he was doing.  After writing about the shootout, his snarly retorts lessened

The egg shells were still crackling under my feet.

     After a few months, he slept less in the afternoon, and he looked forward to going to play duplicate bridge on Mondays and Fridays.  As a couple, we have always played well together and still do. However, I was always concerned with how he would react to someone else at the table when there were infractions of the rules.  He would become very quiet or tell them very quickly and tersely what they should be doing, or not doing.  

     In the early part of our marriage, he was happy, helpful and kind. For the past thirty-five years, my husband was not the man I had married, but finally, I saw some improvement. 

Now all I had to do was hang in there.

     He continued to write, and the year after the memoir was published, the first novel was ready to go to the publisher. His smiles appeared more often and his afternoon naps were just a time for meditation and relaxation. 

    

     A year later another novel, Operation Piňata, was published. During that year, we both worked diligently to prepare it and have it available on Amazon.  This was not the easiest thing for us, especially him, as most of the work needed to be done on the computer. Regrettably, we feel we are aging because technology is changing faster than we can assimilate it.  We need to give our publishers, Outshirts Press, kudos for all the help they provided. They were always kind and patient with us.

     A few weeks, after the work was done, we had time to relax, and I finally realized my husband was no longer napping in the afternoon.  When I said something to him, he said, “Yeah, I guess I’m not, and I feel okay.”

     Every now and then, PTSD drops by and fires off a blast of paranoia and depression.  Because I have not noticed a panic attack in the past two years, I asked him about them.  He replied, "I still have them but I can control them."

He is doing a great job controlling his nemesis!

Finally -  The Culprit Is Unveiled

    I had urged him to write, and after we had finished the memoir, he was glued to the chair in front of his computer.   He was now zeroed in on writing which kept him interested in living.   During the six months that it took to get Foreign Service Family Style published, he was busy on a second book, a thriller novel.

     The story just seemed to flow out of the tips of his fingers, and now, he was lost in the book.  It seemed to me that this was just another way for him to hide, but in some ways, it was working.  As I edited what he had written, I recognized much of the action.  I had heard it before when he would entertain friends with his “War Stories,” as he called them.   The genre of this book could be classified as semiautobiographical if there was such a thing.  Many of the actions portrayed were things he had done, observed or had heard from other field agents.

     The odd thing was, he made no outline, nor did he have any idea of how the book would end because he just made up the story as he went along. To add to the oddity, he named his protagonist Joe Garner which had been his undercover name. It appeared to me that he was just reliving many of the things he had experienced.

                                       He was finally putting them on paper.  

     As the story developed, the locations of the action changed, and he began to search the web for information on different cities, states and countries.  He was beginning to live outside of himself, and during happy hour he talked about all the information he had found and how he was going to use it in the storyline.  I was relieved to see him so enthused about something instead of just sitting around or reading a book.

     Steady writing appeared to ease some of the tension, and I again began to delve into the reason for his depression. He was very hesitant to say anything but finally told me a bit about a shootout in Mexico. I did not push him to talk about it but did encourage him to get back to his computer and let his fingers tell the story.  It took him a month to put the story on paper.    

     I have read articles about people who have symptoms of PTSD and how life threading activities could leave lasting effects on them.  As I read his story, I now understood what may have caused his depression, panic attacks, and nightmares.   The best side of this exercise was his remark when he had finished.  

 

     “You know what.  I feel so much better.  I wish I had done this years ago.”

 

      We worked together to edit the story, and since he did not wish to share this story with the world, we printed a few copies to share with our children and a few trusted friends. Then he went on and completed the novel named Taurus, Taurus, Taurus.  It was published in 2016 and is available on Amazon.

       

Proactive Action Needed

     He stopped seeing the psychologist, and I needed to do something to help both of us.    It was time for me to be proactive.

    I urged him to write, and he responded. 

  “I have nothing I want to write about.”  

    I knew Gordon could write if he had the desire because he had written many reports during his twenty-five years in government service.   I suggested he could write about the places we had lived, and what we, as a family, had achieved and vacations we had taken.  Nothing stirred him to action.

    I finally made the decision to write about my life as the wife of a federal agent and how his job had changed the dynamics of family life.  When I finished my first article, I asked him to read it and was overjoyed when he showed an interest in what I had written and even made suggestions. 
  

 I finally saw a chink in his resistance.    

    To get help with my own writing, I joined a writers group at the Senior Citizen’s Center and hoped that Gordon would also become interested, as he was following me everywhere.  As I continued to write, we talked about how he had been selected for Foreign Service and what he and the family had experienced in Paraguay. 

     The lights came on! And what an idea!  It could be workable; it was confined to a short time-period, there was travel to a foreign land, and experiences with new people and many unusual cultures.  We would never run out of things to write about. 

      I made an outline of things that happened in Paraguay, actually two, - one on family life and one on his work as a DEA agent.  In the beginning, I was the only one writing, but I continued in hopes he would become interested in the project.  

   

     The writers group was not the easiest thing for me. What I wrote was critiqued and often torn apart.  At least that is how it seemed to me.  I would share all of this with Gordon, and we both worked on my rewrites.  I did not push him to go with me as I knew he would probably blow up at the criticism and storm out of the building.  After six months, he did start on his own outline, and he allowed me to read his work to the group, but it was another four months before he finally went with me and read his own story.

     Slowly he became comfortable with the group and quietly accepted criticism.  To my surprise, he became very good at critiquing the other writers and looked forward to the Tuesday afternoon meetings.

   Eventually, with the help of the group, the memoir, Foreign Service Family Style, was completed and published in 2014.  Life at home was a little better, but there was a long way to go.  

 We still had not discussed what had put him into this funk.

 

 www.rayneradventures.com                  Foreign Service Family Style

 

  Why Don’t They Share?

     Over the years, I have tried to determine why my husband would not divulge any of his inner thoughts so we could discuss them. This type of therapy could have been so easy, but he could not take the first step.  I could only imagine that he was afraid I would not believe it; I would believe he was less of a man, or it was just too painful to talk about.  I also knew that for some people the reason could be so deeply hidden the cause of the depression was unknown to them. 

     Whatever the reason, the longer one buries it, the more it appears to affect their outlook on life, and happiness seems to just drift away.

      As I see it, Old Mr. Depression has moved in accompanied by all his friends: panic attacks, anxiety, paranoia, fear, suspicion, sobbing, and uncontrollable anger.

     After we had arrived in Savannah, Gordon’s anti-depression medication was running low, and we needed to find a psychiatrist.   Somehow, I had to get him some help, and I began my search for a psychologist.  My criterion was a male who has been in practice for at least ten years and would work at finding the cause of his depression. 

  The few friends I had made since we moved to Savannah could not help me.  Then I realized my computer may just be my best friend. 

    

     I started my Google search looking for a master’s degree social worker or a psychologist.  Several were listed, and to my surprise, there was information on their background and education, their treatment areas, personal information, and pictures.   I zeroed in on one. In addition to the information on the schools he attended, I discovered he had a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. He had been in practice over twenty years and had also practiced as a Clinical Social Worker.   His treatment would start by taking an extensive history to determine where the problem lay.  He would only recommend a psychiatrist for medication if it were clinically indicated.  Bingo!  I had found just the doctor I was looking for.  Now all I had to do was talk Gordon into going to see him.

     After much discussion, he finally agreed to make an appointment.  During the first two visits, the doctor casually gathered a history of Gordon’s past activities, depression, and medication usage.  I was asked to attend the third session.  As I provided my side of the picture, Gordon became quiet and only added comments to negate what I was saying.  During this visit, I asked if writing about things that bothered him would be helpful.  The doctor agreed it would be and suggested he try it; he did not have to show it to anyone if he did not wish to.

     Gordon kept two or three more appointments and then refused to go.  I was on my own again, and the only weapon I had in my arsenal was writing.