Yanett’s husband had challenges to overcome
Yanett:
My name is Yanett, I'm married to Anthony. He served in the Army in Iraq and in Kosovo. Kind of funny, I did meet him at his sister's baby shower. I knew he was in the service because he told me that he had just gotten out, and he didn't really talk about it as much, like, he's just—I mean, he told me he was in Iraq and he went to Kosovo but mainly he was in Germany. He talked a lot more about Germany than anything. At the beginning of our relationship he did drink a lot. I mean, I was used to, like, being around people who would drink a lot, so it wasn't a big deal at first, I was like “Whatever,” but what I did notice is he would get angry.
I’m a very social person, like, love going out, love having lots of friend and socializing and he kind of was, like, backed away from going out. He finally one day just told me, like, “I don’t like going to new places or couldn’t find places,” he’s, like, “It just makes me nervous,” and like, I had it in the back of my head, the whole “He just got out of the Army,” but I just didn’t really know, and then that’s when he started telling me that any place we’d go, he’s always looking for an exit, where the exits are located and always knows what’s going on around him, and I finally asked him, I was, like, “Have you ever gone to talk to anybody about what’s going on?” And he said, “I’ve tried but it didn’t help.” He goes “I’m not going to do it.”
To me I thought it was just, like, the macho guy, like “I’m not going to do it, I don’t need help.” He's like “I can deal with it.” And I said “Well, maybe you should,” I said, “Maybe they can help you.” That’s when I started, like, researching how Veterans act or why are they acting like this and I kind of would see, maybe. Then I just started seeing, like maybe they start reacting different because of what’s happened, so it started making sense to me, like, why he is the way he is, like, not wanting to go out, not wanting to do anything because that’s his safe place, the house, like, because that’s his area and he knows nothing is going to happen, and so I started understanding, like, that was his comfort zone and the unfamiliar was what made him, like, really nervous, so I stopped pushing.
He started talking to his friends from his unit and seeing how they were and they started talking to him. One day this year he started saying “I’m going to go to the VA,” and I’m like “Awesome!” I was like, “Go for it.” I see that him going to the VA and talking to other people and they’re just talking and he goes, “You know, I don’t mind going,” because it’s letting him talk about things and he goes, some things that he forgot that he’s starting to come back up. I do see him becoming more at ease with going out and more willing to stay somewhere not more than more than five minutes.
With a spouse, I mean, my thing is I was just, like, don’t push it as much because I feel like the more I would push it the more he would just be, like, “No,” but I mean, I would hint, I would say, like, “Hey, like, maybe you should check it out,” or, like, “You know, hey, I was on a website just because I was curious and just, like, look at what I found and give it a chance,” I’m like, “And you’ll see that there are so many other people who are going through what you’re going through.”
It helps. I see it helping him and it never hurts to try. Just that’s my thing is just, at least push it to where at least they try to go and reach out for help, because then they’ll see other people that will be able to help them too.
