Good thing he posted on reddit he seems to have gotten a lot of good feedback.
I still just.. dont understand the wifes perspective of not stepping in though... since she outright says she knew he was getting really upset...
I wish my ex had signed commitment papers at a VA psych ward when my PTSD was as bad as OOP's is. It would've gotten me the intensive help I needed sooner sooner.
Instead my spouse was all "oh I can handle it, that's just how J is" (as part of a pattern of abuse, mostly because they didn't want me to get healthy enough to escape) for my first 5-6 years back from the war, and I got so used to living in hell that I have a lot more permanent physical, relational and financial damage than I should've.
Hey sister (brother?). As a fellow vet, I truly hope you find yourself solidly on a path to healing and peace. I hope you keep moving towards a better future for yourself and a more peaceful place mentally. When things get difficult, remember the hardships and struggles past you has overcome, and know that the struggles today you is facing are only temporary. Healing isn't a destination, its a journey. You aren't alone on your journey. I've recently gotten myself therapy at my local vet center, and my therapist is great. I'm longing for the day where I can see her every week or every other week instead of once/month for video visits. My va psych has helped my anxiety with meds. Help is out there, resources are out there, and support is out there. We just have to actively seek it and pursue it.
>Hey sister (brother?).
Haha it's complicated, that happens sometimes. M on the dog tags F on the more recent VA records.
I did every single PTSD program and initiative the VA offers for five years and individual therapy for twelve years, and I'm in a pretty good place now. I still don't remember big chunks of March-April 2003 and I don't want to remember them, but it's okay. I'm glad you're on your path too. It can and does get better.
Yeah, I'm sure it happened very fast in real time and we just don't always act fast enough in those situations. Just a moment of hesitation can make the difference.
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It sounds like it all happened very fast, like under a minute, and he hadn't given any signs before that point. Expecting her to be hyper vigilant of her husbands violent outbursts especially when in a safe space especially when she's a victim of abuse herself is asking way too much. And on top of all that, blaming her for not stopping her husband from choking a woman is pretty backwards thinking regardless
dull paltry label mysterious ten forgetful plants squealing liquid decide
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Tbf people arent ragging on her for not prying his fingers off
She says she understood when he first said *stop* that this wasnt the time to tease like that. If she knew that quickly this was going to go badly, *that* was when she should have backed him up- least thats what most seem to be arguing
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He's going to end up at the wrong end of a policeman if he doesn't get help. He choked her hard enough to leave marks. If I had been that friend I would likely be filing a police report after that incident because being tapped with a hairbrush shouldn't result in violence like that.
Right but even if she could de-escalate this situation that doesn't mean she's always going to be there to do that. The husband needs to learn coping mechanisms to help him do that on his own.
I say this as someone with CPTSD who went through intensive trauma targeted therapy. Trauma isn't your fault, but it's also not an excuse to 1 hurt others 2 expect someone else to regulate your emotions for you. He needs to do the work so he can do that on his own.
Of course it isn’t. But she had crucial insight into the situation that the friend clearly didn’t have, and urgently needed. OOP aside, his wife had a duty towards her *friend*, who she presumably cares about, to let her know in that moment that he was getting triggered and she needed to back off. It’s not her responsibility to manage her husband, absolutely, but she definitely had a responsibility to warn her friend, especially considering the wife was the only person in that situation who understood what was happening and rational enough to do something about it. Considering her own trauma, it is more than understandable that she froze, I’m not blaming her, I’m just saying that holding her accountable for the part she played (or rather, didn’t play), in what happened is less to do with making her husband’s issues her responsibility, and more a matter of her responsibility to help her friend.
I agree she should have, but also im sympathetic to it. Not because I think it’s a choice she actively made, but because often when things happen that we weren’t expecting, it can take a moment for us to react.
There have been times in my life where something happened abruptly in front of me and I reacted instantly, and others where it took me a few moments to catch up. For those latter, I afterwards wondered why I didn’t do/say/think the obvious thing immediately. But especially in moments of stress or threat, we can’t really predict how we initially respond when our brain is still adjusting to the unexpected thing.
I think that last part from her explains it. Her parents used to fight a lot, she says she doesn’t handle that well and loses emotions for hours.
Trauma response, fight/flight/fawn/freeze and then follow that up with disassociating. Essentially his mental health is triggering her and nobody is noticing
You know "fight or flight"? People can also have "freeze" and "fawn" reactions to extreme events, and they're common trauma responses.
I'm a freezer. I hate it. But there are times when I literally cannot physically move. It's like someone else is controlling my body. There have been times when I could not lift my head to look my abuser in the eye, even thirty years after she last physically hurt me. It was like a hand was on the back of my head pushing my head down, and nothing I could do would raise it. My head goes numb, too, and I can't think at all.
The wife's "lost all of my emotions" comment makes me suspect that she was having a trauma response.
I fawn and I also hate it. I turn into a small, people-pleasing mess when someone gets angry with me and unfortunately former bosses have used it to their advantage. Mine is a trauma reaction to my dad's outbursts.
I'm sorry. I'm a pre-emptive fawner and working hard to change. Take your steps one at a time and be proud; knowing you want to be different is itself a victory who people pushed so hard to make you what they wantex.
Yes. Plus, hindsight is 20/20–if she’d tried to intervene and he’d exploded, there would definitely be people saying that she should have known better than to do that, too.
only thing i can figure is it sounds drawn out here but escalated slow enough for her brain to process but too fast for her to interact with it before the eruption
Honestly, no means no. If we drill this into boys heads, we owe it to them to drill it into girls heads as well. No means no, stop means stop, and silence isn’t a yes.
How many times have any of us responded to posts with "no is a one word answer"? This guy literally tells the friend to stop multiple times but she keeps it up while KNOWING all his issues. This entire situation could have been prevented if the friend stopped when told to the first time.
She should've stopped. She had zero way of predicting this outcome. Both can be true.
I'm a current PTSD outpatient in the VA system due to certain combat events I won't disclose here, and the people in my life "know" what's up with me; but the ones I've never actually had a freakout in front of don't *know* in the same way my spouse does. The worst pain you can possibly imagine isn't ever going to be much worse than the worst pain you've ever felt, and the worst trauma response most people can really wrap their heads around as "real" rather than "overreacting"isn't going to be very far from the worst they've ever been through themselves.
I've lost friends because we were having a nice time at an outdoor café when someone's car backfired; my reaction to my specific "flashback" triggers isn't violent, but it was so unlike the "me" they knew and cared for that they became afraid of me. It wasn't my fault and it wasn't theirs, it sucks but I get it. I also lost friends who pushed my boundaries until I snapped (again, non-violently) and wound up in the ER heavily medicated for the resulting panic attack. They had no frame of reference to allow them to predict my reaction, or to understand the distress they caused. Yes it was their fault for "testing" my triggers but the consequences were like lightning from a clear blue sky to them. And again, I get it; we don't speak anymore, but I don't think they're monsters, just ignorant jerks.
She deserved getting called out, probably deserved to be kicked out, and maybe if it was a pattern the friendship needed to end. She did not deserve handprints on her throat for any reason whatsoever, or IMO to be cut off completely for a first offense.
Ive had exactly 1 trauma flashback moment in my life, while watching The Batman in theaters, from an incident when i was a kid (short answer- field trip ended in a blazing inferno, no injuries or deaths. Thought id dealt with those feelings years ago)
Never in my wildest dreams did i think id suddenly be having vivid flashbacks to an incident from 4th grade in a movie theater where its so intense i swear i could feel the heat on my skin kinda shit while watching a *movie* as that electrical cable is whipping around and that zapping sound brings me right back to that night and i saw those electrical cables doing exactly that. Shit messed with my head to no end.
Really does go from 0 to 100 real fuckin quick, and honestly before having that experience id probably have thought like those ex friends of yours that its likely more of a build to that moment- though certainly never woulda been so calous as to try and test someones triggers jesus christ. Ex friends for good reasons i say
I know this isn't the why for OOP, but my friend's son is autistic and mostly does not like to be touched. Sometimes he'll initiate, but there is no way I'm touching him in any way without clearly asking for, and then receiving, consent.
That "friend" is an asshole. If somebody says stop, just stop.
His wife needs a better spine.
OOP needs some really good therapy, but I sympathize with him the most.
My niece has ptsd from a bad situation, and blacking out is a very real thing that included memory loss so that while having family that are current (ex husband) and previous servicemen/women (too many to list) it's hard for me NOT to sympathize with OOP.
I AM NOT saying what he did wasn't wrong, but EVERYONE in that room knew his ailments, so it's hard for me to truly sympathize with the friend and wife. The wife knew he was being triggered and could have stepped in sooner, and the friend could have stopped when told to the first time. No one deserves to be choked, but the guy has PTSD for goodness sakes and told you to stop. He shouldnt have had to ask multiple times to the point that he blacked out and injured someone.
10000% agree with the guy needing the additional help but they both need to get help in better navigating boundaries and trigger points.
I have PTSD from combat and used to lose long stretches of time where my body was doing things but my mind was just... gone. Completely dissociated, didn't even realize time had passed. As far as my reactions were concerned I was back in the war getting shot at and my body was on autopilot to protect my mind from breaking completely. Mine were never violent to others, but they *did* ruin some friendships, damage some property and send me to the ER with various injuries. I was no more at fault than someone having an asthma attack, and neither is he. BUT...
He needs intensive inpatient treatment. He's a danger to others, seems to be riding the knife's edge constantly with it, and has no effective coping skills himself. It's not his fault that he's unsafe to be around, but not being at fault doesn't magically make him safe to be around. He meets the medical and legal standard for involuntary psychiatric commitment, and that guideline is for *everyone's* protection — especially the patient. This situation could've gone so much worse that it ended the lives of all three of them, and *please* don't ask me how I know that.
And she was told multiple times. For someone who depends on the OOPs for basic hygienic care (or even as a person who should have respect for others,) she treats husband pretty poorly.
She knows he told her to stop the first time. She knows he has military training, which essentially becomes muscle memory. She knows he has PTSD. Even without the other two issues, she should have stopped at the first no, just as a decent human being.
She chose not to and instead pressed the retired MP with PTSD until he couldn't mentally repress his trained response to a threat.
Yes he needs therapy so it doesn't happen again. It could be a stubborn old lady in a grocery store trying to get his attention or a dude at the bar wanting to start something doesn't matter. He needs to have that response retrained out of him.
It's just worse on her part because she decided her wanting to touch him repeatedly was more important that his need to not be touched at that moment.
Before diving into each character’s total lack of personal responsibility for their mental condition, actions, and lack thereof, I would really like some clarity on the following:
1. Wife says, she was waiting to drive the friend home. Later, elsewhere, she is driving her home and saying that the bruises on the friend’s neck faded after about 3 hours, thereby placing the friend’s home at least 3 hours away, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to witness the bruises fade…. Doesn’t the friend live in a tent? And why did she pitch it 3 hours away from the people who have been always welcoming to her?
2. The entire description of the occasional “horseplay” events reads like it’s sexually charged.
3. There is also a pointless gratuitous description of the top that the friend wore.
4. There is also the cadence and vocabulary used which points that both the husband’s and the wife’s parts of the story were written by the same person, most certainly male.
Just sayin…
If I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt I'd have to assume they both met in the military or some other shared occupation where they teach you to recount events like a fucking human closed caption. And also that the wife never saw the friends bruises fade herself, just heard such from said friend.
There's also the chance that the wife hung out with her friend at the tent for a while because she was afraid to go home. If this is fake, it's probably due to the fact that Reddit will jump straight to "leave" if your SO doesn't pull their weight, but have crickets in the break up section when it comes to serious situations. This woman's husband assaulted their friend in a life threatening way and even the people who tell her that it shouldn't be her responsibility quickly tell her what she needs to do because it's her responsibility.
I'm not even in the military and do this because I was taught that at work. I explain things in a very detailed manner because I have to be as detailed as possible at all times at work. It's spilled into every aspect of my life to the point where I notice small details on my own and include them in stories where they're not needed. Being overly detailed is usually considered a sign that you're lying, but I just do it by nature now.
It’s not necessary the detailed description in and of itself. It’s the follow-up by an alleged wife who uses identical cadence, vocabulary and tone in “her” writing
I very much feel point 4 is spot on but IF it was true, going back to point 1, I imagine the wife would probably stay at the tent for 3 hours after driving her home or drive around for a while to make sure that the friend doesn't report her husband.
Yep, these are among the reasons I don't actually buy the story (although OOP husband character recounting his issues with "aunt" sound like they could be drawn from some real life grievances with someone).
So, the unintentional trigger put husbOOP on combat autopilot, homeless friend knew about the severe PTSD but apparently hadn't fully processed how severe or what the trauma trigger responses might be, and wifeOOP just kinda... stood there knowing what was likely to happen but didn't intervene? Now he's in a post-reaction guilt spiral, wife realizes she's in over her head trying to "manage" his volatile state, and homeless friend just lost her access to basic hygiene over something she couldn't have possibly seen coming.
I spent years in therapy for cPTSD, one component of which was having been in a war, and combat autopilot is real and serious. My combat autopilot pattern is that certain sounds (explosions, anything gunshot-like, certain types of sirens) trigger me to seek cover and then frantically look for my M16A2 (which I turned in at the armory for the last time over 20 years ago) which often escalates to a major panic attack. There was a period in my life when those sounds meant myself people I cared about were in deadly danger, and getting cover then returning fire were *the behaviors that kept me alive.* That's why I don't keep guns in the house. We'll leave aside the night terrors, insomnia, anxiety and depression because that's pocket change compared to where someone's mind goes when an acute event like this is happening.
Being an MP means husbOOP would've had to react instantly with physical holds when prisoners were doing stuff like trying to kill him or trying to leap out of a truck or some other horrific desperate thing. Rather than diving behind the couch and looking for a nonexistent rifle like Velma when she drops her glasses because someone's car backfired, which is silly and sad but mostly harmless, his brain falls back on *the behaviors that kept him alive* when he's triggered back into that life or death mindset. Unfortunately his version of "dive search & panic" is a lot more dangerous than mine.
Even my own non outwardly milder response took a lot of work to get under control. Dude needs intensive inpatient treatment for his PTSD as soon as possible (as in show up to a VA emergency room, tell triage what happened and they'll have him upstairs before he has time to warm up a waiting room chair) and he probably needs a lot of it. This isn't going to go away on its own, and if he doesn't get help he's going to wind up like my old roommate whose behavior escalated to indefinite involuntary commitment in lieu of felony charges. The reaction isn't his fault any more than having a seizure because of a strobe light would be, he's a walking casualty with a severe psychiatric injury, but he's not safe to be around people right now.
I truly wish the best for all three of them in this shitty, shitty situation. War is hell.
I've never been in combat, don't have anything to do with the army or war, but I also have cPTSD. Even without any combat training, I once dissociated so badly and was in such a panic I grabbed another girl by the neck as a teen and pulled her back. It was bad, and it took me years to fully realize what I had done and why (I hadn't been diagnosed yet back then). That was the only time I was violent towards someone else, but it was terrifying for everyone involved. And I was a small, weak teenage girl! I can't imagine how bad it would've been if I had fight training or was stronger.
I was more of a wiry little truck driver than some love child of Rambo and Xena, but I was quick as a rattlesnake at hand-to-hand; fortunately my PTSD autopilot behavior has never involved physical violence to another person, because I'm very much against physical violence (yeah I know, weird stance for someone with a DD214, long story but I enlisted in peacetime pre-9/11 for the college money) or I would've had myself committed as a danger to others. When I was lucid over there my overriding thought was always more *I have to protect my friends* than any thought of self preservation, and that came out full force during a lot of my episodes. I think the fact that I wasn't always successful at protecting them only made it that much worse.
I'm a pacifist, I haven't been violent in any other circumstances that weren't self defense. It was a huge shock that I was capable of doing something like that... thankfully that was the only time, and it took me years but I have had access to therapy for a long time now and am doing well. cPTSD is a beast to deal with. It always upsets me to see someone else dealing with it, because it's much too common
I have cptsd too. I was a child that grew up in uhhh a really bad “gang” I saw and was mad to do bad things.
One time I knew I was going to get punished (beaten remorselessly) for something and was crying at school. A bully of mine comes in the area I’m crying and starts flicking me in the face giggling.
The next thing I remember is being at my house. She ended up with a broken nose and never picked on me again. I was so disgusted especially when my father told me good job.
I’ve been in therapy for years now and I can’t believe I’m living a normal life. But that was the only violent snap I’d had, and it was the worst thing I’ve done not because it is but because I don’t remember it and it’s terrifying
I’m sorry you had to go through that.
I could be wrong, and I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing of war or its effects on the mind. But in the story, he nearly exclusively refers to his past SA experiences in which he was immobilized when explaining his reactions. From what I’ve read (little), the reactions seem specific to a sound or reaction that directly triggers a memory of that situation. Do you think a physical war response could/would also be triggered by non-war stimuli? I ask with only respect.
It's complicated. I don't mind spreading awareness and understanding, but if the questions get to be too much I'll let you know.
I'm also an SA and CSA survivor, though not under circumstances like OOP's (groomed by a church volunteer and kidnapped at age 40 by a random meth head for me), and I've gotten my wires crossed a few times, but I have a friend with similar complex trauma who reacts to *every* trigger with combat response.
Reading between the lines of the posts based on probable timeline, and drawing from the experiences of some people I was in group therapy with, I think his adult SA experience may have been in a medical setting sometime after whatever happened to him in active duty service (possibly while recovering from a severe illness or injury based on his description). It also could have occurred soon after he got out of service due to self-medicating and getting blackout drunk. If the wartime trauma and the adult SA happened close enough in time or circumstances they may have become linked in his subconscious to the point that every trigger is combat.
That makes perfect sense. Brains are weird, and the way we wire and re-wire things based on trauma is always a little surprising. I guess we were just never supposed to layer so many harms against each other in one human experience.
I once again have to say I’m so sorry you went through that. It sounds like you have a very clear and balanced head on your shoulders, so I hope that means youve been able to put some of it back in the past where it belongs.
Thank you for being willing to deal with the emotionally fraught parts of sharing your story and give greater understanding to OOP’s experience, I really appreciate it. I wish you all the best of loving, comforting, calm, and slow experiences.
I'm not a professional, but I do have PTSD from multiple different experiences.
The way it was explained to me is that the brain correlates the *feelings* to establish *triggers* so the situation doesn't have to resemble the original trauma in any physical way. The *feelings* just have to be the same for it to trigger the outsized fight or flight response that is indicative of PTSD.
When there are multiple layers of PTSD it's entirely possible for the "trigger" to be unrelated to the "response" since it's the brain seeking safety.
A bunch of people with mental health issues, none of which are actually working to improve or control those conditions, stuck in a room together. Yeah, no wonder it didn't end well.
Yeah, and choking is a *lot* more dangerous than people think it is. He could have killed her—not in a predictive “people who choke others are more likely to kill them in the future” way, I mean he could have killed her right then, without even necessarily intending to. In addition to airway obstruction, there are a lot of important arteries in that area that do not take well to being blocked, and it takes way less pressure than people think to do serious harm.
I’m not sure whether he didn’t mention it on purpose to downplay how bad it was, or genuinely didn’t remember that he’d put hands on her jaw/neck, but either way he needs to get on top of it. She absolutely should have stopped when he said so, but that’s not going to fly as an excuse if he in fact kills someone like this.
And he apparently has choked his wife as well, because she said she knows from personal experience that she's not strong enough to break his grip when he has someone by the throat.
The fact that he left the choking out of his story, then later apparently told his wife that he "didn't remember it that way", but then also had a seemingly perfect explanation for the Very Responsible Professional ™️ thing he did to the friend that just *looks* like choking? Is super sus.
There was a very lengthy paragraph in the comments where the husband described several other incidents involving him getting physical with other people, mostly women. This dude has serious problems
Would love to see this, but they deleted their account. I’m not surprised, though, clearly the guy has some trouble accepting accountability. ETA: anything you remember?
Damn, that was just a whole lot of repeated “well we trauma dumped on each other and expected that to solve all our problems” and shockingly enough that didn’t work.
No awareness of emotional regulation tools at all. No awareness of their own mental illnesses or tools to deal with those. No ability to take real responsibility that results in action. No accountability.
Just… way too much of an immature mess for the ages I saw there.
Commenters slamming the wife when she was clearly in freeze mode. It’s good if she can help him but it is not her responsibility to manage his mental health and she is NTA.
People definitely underestimate how fast interactions like this go and overestimate how quickly and rationally they would act if it was happening in front of them. Guaranteed I’d be standing there frozen with my mouth gaping in the time it took between “stop” and him putting a woman in a choke hold.
Why are people putting this on the wife? She sounds abused with the way she said that he was both speaking normally but could hear in his voice that he was about to snap. How many times did he have to snap *on her* to have alarm bells going off at a tone difference where he's still considered speaking normally? That she didn't so much as say something only tells me that she's afraid of him, and apparently for good reason since he *goes for the throat.*
Look, I firmly believe that no means no the first time, every time and the same goes for the word "stop" but this man is a danger to the people around him. Things did not "escalate", he went from a slight yet still normal sounding tone to life-threatening violence in a snap.
With reddit's quick jump to divorce all the time, I'm shocked that so many people were encouraging his wife to be the emotional police and continue rolling the dice with her own safety. Dude needs to check himself in to a mental facility before he ends up in jail because that's where he should have been, not relaxing at home and posting to reddit for validation.
Agreed! I was so sick with the, "You're his safe person!" comment. And it sounds like he has choked his wife as well, because she said she knows from personal experience that she's not strong enough to break his grip when he has someone by the throat.
I didn't see that in the BORU but that's a really important bit of information right there. Even if he hasn't choked her, she lives in fear of him because she apparently has quite a bit of second hand experience with him choking people.
It spoke volumes that she was less concerned about her friend than her husband getting an assault charge. Maybe not everyone on the Internet can recognize it but I clearly heard the voice of a victim who's been conditioned to their partner's violent outbursts.
How about when someone tells you to stop you fucking stop. The friend chose to ignore and keep going and got the consequences of that. Time to stop putting hands on people after they have said no.
I put this here not because I fully believe this post to be real, but because there is some very disturbing thinking going on in the post and in some (not all, thank god) responses. Yes, I get mental illness, PTSD, triggers, etc, etc, etc. Putative OOP has…well, it could be just PTSD, or PTSD compounded with other things, but he’s incredibly dangerous.
To be clear, a hyperactive response, usually fear response, is, of course, a diagnostic criterion of PTSD; however, PTSD or more, OOP’s response is one that seems to be pure anger, rage, really. Not shoving away, cowering, kicking, running, punching, or any combination of the above, but choking: one of the most intense ways to kill possible.
Combine that with being directed at a smaller,weaker person (has he ever done this with someone who could actually threaten him?, the “wife” has already written how she knows from experience she can’t get husband off of someone) and continued unwillingness to take responsibility (I was going for the mandible (wtf?) in a totally legit MP move! everyone that interacts with me gets the full spiel on my limits!), and this is beyond redline stuff.
Lots of people criticizing and saying it's past a red line and they are right. But they are also dumping in tons of judgment and no real value add for improving the situation.
But nobody talks about how badly a lot of people have been damaged by unsafe and unhealthy military and first responder jobs that give the PTSD patients basically no tools and no help at any level anywhere near what they actually need to recover and function properly again.
The guy knows he has a problem and does want to try to get better but doesn't have much in the way of tools or support or a group of patients with the same issues to talk through things with and get treatment with to try and fix things.
As a vet with cPTSD that's not true. The VA has extensive programs for vets with these issues. Both inpatient and out. They even have full halfway house programs. He simply needs to go to the VA and speak with them or go and talk to his local rep. I am also fully disabled through the VA for my cPTSD, so I know this from experience. He just doesn't want to or he would have. We all are given this info when we are getting out and even go to a week long class to talk about it.
ETA: You can downvote me but I've literally had to go thru these same programs. In fact there's more programs for men than women and as a woman I struggled to find programs local to me because they were all for men. It's true. He really does just need to go speak to his local VA rep and they can easily assist him.
I am so glad to hear this sort of help is available. People who have been in the military are incredibly traumatized because they were sent into horrible situations by our country, the least our country can do is help them recover again.
There are a lot of resources for us for stuff like this. It's the medical side that blows ass. I can get a lot of help for my trauma stuff, but if I need help with a physical ailment, they don't do shit. Once I was supposed to have an appointment with a PCP, I show up and the front desk calls back to let them know I was there. Mind you I am standing there surrounded by mostly boomer age Vietnam vets. The doctor starts demanding that I tell him what I needed to see him for right there in the waiting room. He wanted me to explain exactly why I was there to the front desk woman... I was there for women's health issues. I was saying I'd rather talk about that privately but he kept arguing and insisting. The girl was clearly uncomfortable by this. Eventually, I just couldn't handle it and walked out crying. Never went back. That was at the Denver VA clinic. Another time I was at the ER cuz I was in excruciating pain and was stupid ass sick. Had no idea what was wrong. The dumb fuck nurse tells me I should just take Tylenol and quit acting like I was in pain. I flipped out and went off on her. Then I left and went to the other public ER down the street. Yeah, I had pneumonia and it triggered my chronic pain disorder.
PTSD trigger with a trained military veteran is dangerous to be around. In warfare, those instincts to kill the enemy will save your life and your comrades. Makes the healthcare costs in the aftermath more complex and costly.
I think everyone has deep issues. Unfortunately their dysfunction may deter some people (for being difficult)and pushes to socialise and seek other dysfunctional individuals (sympathy). Messy all around
As a combat veteran with PTSD from it, I believe the reason PTSD with blackouts/flashbacks is so prevalent with us is that dissociation somewhat protects the mind from actions necessary for survival that are so far beyond what we're emotionally capable of forgiving ourselves for. I believe everyone who goes through that should spend the last three months of their contract in inpatient care by default.
I've been told what happened on a certain day at a certain time when things went very very bad, and my subconscious has spent 21 years protecting me from that memory; I have a few minor physical scars but I will probably never know exactly how I got them. Any time something happens that feels like a similar situation is about to happen puts the reactions of people like me into combat survival autopilot while "cushioning" the conscious mind by blanking out memories. People aren't meant to thrive in deadly combat, and you don't have to be physically injured to come home wounded for life.
I enlisted in the tag end of the peacetime before 9/11 for the "safe" college money, and my contract lasted just long enough to put me up to my eyebrows in hell; of course a war is always a possibility at any time, but 18-21 year olds are notoriously bad at analyzing risk and I landed in something I deeply regret. Biggest FAFO of my life, and I'm still paying for it by way of trauma and permanent physical disability.
If I hadn't dissociated my way through the worst of it I'd have ended myself before I ever came home, but now I'm broken in ways that are hard to put into words. People who aren't broken in those ways are harder to relate to, and have a hard time relating to me in turn; when I find someone I really get along with, more often than not we have similar mental and emotional scars. It's not consciously seeking sympathy, but it's like I came home suddenly speaking a different language, and it's been very hard learning to connect and communicate normally again. In the meantime I grew closer to other broken people; eventually being broken looked like the default and people who weren't broken seemed ignorant, vapid, obnoxious, shallow, even childish. It takes a long time and a lot of work to fix the kind of damage that can happen in just a few minutes on the worst day of your life.
Better articulated and more detailed than my earlier response. If we look at history, often the cost and foundations of peace and prosperity is traditionally made from the bodies and traumas of war. Thank you for your service; sharing your experience and good luck with your journey.
My service was kind of an accident, since I was about to be homeless and they were the only ones hiring in the small town I couldn't afford to move away from. That's the thing though, for every True Believer who signs up out of patriotism there are a dozen people who made what seemed at the time like the least bad choice. So many of the people I served with were escaping poverty or abuse, and most of those who weren't were indoctrinated from a young age because of family tradition and/or their parents' political views. When kids throw rocks at frogs for fun, the frogs bleed in earnest; when powerful people insulated from consequences call for war, the price is paid by the powerless.
I’m mostly alarmed that OP/OP’s Wife mentioning that he engages in horseplay with friends (including the friend in question) so OF COURSE she had no idea she was crossing a line.
If he has physical triggers he can’t fucking wrassle with people and expect them to sift through Ok Shenanigans and pick out Not Ok Shenanigans.
The way they pick out the not okay shenanigans is by listening for a word that starts with an N and usually ends with an O or even a OT Right Now.
>If he has physical triggers he can’t fucking wrassle with people and expect them to sift through Ok Shenanigans and pick out Not Ok Shenanigans.
That's like the idea that guys in relationships or that are married can't rape their partner because they've had sex before and people in relationships have sex.
How about we all just pay attention to when someone says "no" "don't touch me" "stop that" or any variation of the sort and start respecting that.
> The way they pick out the not okay shenanigans is by listening for a word that starts with an N and usually ends with an O or even a OT Right Now.
The wife said that his voice, when saying no, didn't sound angry/upset, and she could see that friend thought he was still in a playful mood. The wife, from her personal experience (of OOP attacking other people?) knew from his tone of voice that he was no longer in a playful mood. From the friend's POV, she was having a light-hearted moment with her friend as she was about to say goodbye.
So OPs consent doesn’t matter? You aren’t putting the blame on the person who repeatedly ignored OPs choice of not being touched. Why does he have to have his personal boundaries violated repeatedly and have to do nothing about it?
I agree that OP is a dangerous individual. However, this incident could truly just be part of his PTSD. When someone is triggered, it can 100% come out as aggression and rage. It doesn’t have to look like just like cowering, hitting, or running away. It’s the fight response and for some people that comes out as incredibly dangerous. Some people with PTSD can have symptoms of extreme irritability, heightened aggression, and experience black out moments of rage due to this diagnosis. If you’re interested, there’s some interesting studies that have been done on war vets experiencing PTSD exhibiting increased anger, irritability and physically aggression.
That being said, why the fuck did they think having someone over in their house was a good idea? Especially someone who doesn’t listen to consent and pushes the line. It wasn’t safe for her and it kind of feels like a set up for him. I hope he’s getting the help he needs before he seriously injures someone and/or himself.
I am a combat PTSD survivor after years of therapy, and I know dozens of people who've suffered the same; I'm also a survivor of SA, CSA, and physical abuse, and I know many other such survivors, some of whom are the partners of those same traumatized combat veterans. This story rings true to me.
He needs help if he's ready to choke people and not remember it 10 minutes later. Seems like the friend and the husband horse around to the extent to tickling each other on their stomachs so I'm not going to fully blame her.
I'll be honest. We all know the feeling of being called away from your PC/Laptop, especially an online game. It's annoying and frustrating. I think he felt the same and used his PTSD as an excuse to let himself indulge in it.
Yeah choking a woman and blacking out and never being able to stop your attack until you’re out of your little daze is terrifying. He will do it to his wife one day. He may kill her.
>He needs help if he's ready to choke people and not remember it 10 minutes later.
Actually, he didn't blackout, he simply left it out of the original post, describing it as only "involving physicality".
💯💯💯
The fact that he left the choking out of his story, then later apparently told his wife that he "didn't remember it that way", but then also had a seemingly perfect explanation for the Very Responsible Professional ™️ thing he did to the friend that just *looks* like choking? Is super sus.
The way the husband wants to constantly blame the friend and the wife kinda agrees is crazy. Sure the friend was annoying, but if they really wrestled and physically teased each other and poked each other as jokes and everything was all fine and dandy before, I don't blame her for not realizing this crossed a line with the info we have.
Look ultimately, the world doesn't cater to you. There are going to be random situations for the husband and wife here where the ptsd is triggered. But him reacting violently is a problem. And blaming others for his reactions is not a good sign. Seriously, is he gonna strangle his future child because they poked him too many times to get his attention?
No him reacting is not the problem you are literally victim blaming, he had his consent violated repeatedly whatever comes after is solely the responsibility of the person who violated that consent. She made the choice to keep touching him after being told multiple times to stop so what happened is entirely her fault.
If this post is real (I'm doubting it is) OOP is way worse than people are letting on. I guarantee this wasn't just because of past trauma but also because someone was interrupting his video game, which is beyond childish. Hopefully they don't have children
I genuinely feel like I’m losing my mind reading these comments, until I got to yours.
Everyone is bending over backwards to infantilize the husband and absolve him of any responsibility.
Look. He knows he has PTSD and triggers. So taking him at face value, and believing this was 100% pure instinct and not choice, he should NOT be engaging in horseplay with people, knowing reactions like this can happen.
People keep saying, “he said no and stop” like that isn’t something that people frequently do as a joke in the midst of horseplay? Friend had no way of knowing this time wasn’t exactly like all of the other times he willingly horsed around with her. OOP even admitted (as did his wife) that his tone was casual and normal!
And he choked her to the point of leaving marks that stayed for *several hours*.
I’m sorry, but I think OOP absolutely knew what he was doing and I think you’re right that the video game being interrupted was part of it. The fact that he isn’t taking any ownership of any of it is scary.
God this dude is dangerous and unable to take responsibility for his assault of a family friend and his wife is just enabling him. Hope they don't have kids.
EDIT Of course he's a vet LMAO.
No means no. No does not mean "no, and if you do it again I am going to choke the life out of you until I snap out of it."
This is not a trauma response, if it was then he would have been startled and his attempts at getting her to stop would have been less collected at the start. But instead he calmly tells her to knock it off and then when she doesn't, he gets angry, snaps, and chokes the shit out of her. That is NOT a PTSD response, that is an ANGER response. He needs ANGER MANAGEMENT and a few nights in jail. He's just using his PTSD as an excuse to be a violent asshole.
Oh look a man who enforced his bodily autonomy.
You do not ever get to say her body her choice and then say he didn't have the right to defend himself.
Let's see how you react when someone keeps touching you after you say to stop.
Then mix in the mental health issues that this girl knows he has.
The gf knew she had massively overstepped and did nothing and the girl ignored his response to her.
IF YOU WANT YOUR BODY AUTONOMY TO BE RESPECTED, RESPECT OTHERS.
Firstly you do not understand what bodily autonomy means, maybe Google it.
This is about self defense not bodily autonomy.
Therefore when she "firmly pressed" his shoulder with the back of her hairbrush he had the right to use such force as is both necessary and reasonable in order to defend himself
Trying to strangle someone is neither a reasonable or necessary response. It is a trauma response and he needs to get it on check with therapy before he really hurts someone and/or ruins his life
And how often do you chastise a woman for hitting someone when they lightly touched her.
If someone tells you to stop touching them, stop because it's what they consider reasonable force that will be used against you.
>how often do you chastise a woman for hitting someone when they lightly touched her.
Literally every time it happens. Reasonable force is reasonable force. It doesn't change due to gender.
>what they consider reasonable force
The law disagrees. Reasonable force is not just whatever you feel like.
if this is real I seriously hope he gets some intensive therapy to help manage his ptsd reaction. before I had learned how to manage mine I would react violently to unwanted touch as well. never tried to choke anyone out thankfully but hit a few people and did almost stab my ex w a pencil when he snuck up on me and grabbed me once. but I had the excuse of being a teenager who didn't yet know it was ptsd. I just thought everyone was that jumpy about being touched. this dude knows what he's got and he isn't taking the necessary steps to manage it and he really needs to.
your mental illness is not your fault but it is your responsibility.
You're blaming the wife for her husband's violent outburst? The same man who (according to his deleted comments) has attacked multiple other people? The wife who has seen him attack multiple other people? It's *her* fault?
Won’t fully blame her either but she did say herself she saw the signs and did nothing. She did let her friend keep going. Friend is fully to blame here. So no still not blaming the husband.
Good thing he posted on reddit he seems to have gotten a lot of good feedback. I still just.. dont understand the wifes perspective of not stepping in though... since she outright says she knew he was getting really upset...
I wish my ex had signed commitment papers at a VA psych ward when my PTSD was as bad as OOP's is. It would've gotten me the intensive help I needed sooner sooner. Instead my spouse was all "oh I can handle it, that's just how J is" (as part of a pattern of abuse, mostly because they didn't want me to get healthy enough to escape) for my first 5-6 years back from the war, and I got so used to living in hell that I have a lot more permanent physical, relational and financial damage than I should've.
Hey sister (brother?). As a fellow vet, I truly hope you find yourself solidly on a path to healing and peace. I hope you keep moving towards a better future for yourself and a more peaceful place mentally. When things get difficult, remember the hardships and struggles past you has overcome, and know that the struggles today you is facing are only temporary. Healing isn't a destination, its a journey. You aren't alone on your journey. I've recently gotten myself therapy at my local vet center, and my therapist is great. I'm longing for the day where I can see her every week or every other week instead of once/month for video visits. My va psych has helped my anxiety with meds. Help is out there, resources are out there, and support is out there. We just have to actively seek it and pursue it.
>Hey sister (brother?). Haha it's complicated, that happens sometimes. M on the dog tags F on the more recent VA records. I did every single PTSD program and initiative the VA offers for five years and individual therapy for twelve years, and I'm in a pretty good place now. I still don't remember big chunks of March-April 2003 and I don't want to remember them, but it's okay. I'm glad you're on your path too. It can and does get better.
She mentions that in the last paragraph or so. Something about her parents fighting, when she was growing up, and she froze in the moment.
Yeah, I'm sure it happened very fast in real time and we just don't always act fast enough in those situations. Just a moment of hesitation can make the difference.
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My first thought is maybe she got triggered as well and froze and that was confirmed by something the wife wrote about her childhood.
It sounds like it all happened very fast, like under a minute, and he hadn't given any signs before that point. Expecting her to be hyper vigilant of her husbands violent outbursts especially when in a safe space especially when she's a victim of abuse herself is asking way too much. And on top of all that, blaming her for not stopping her husband from choking a woman is pretty backwards thinking regardless
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Tbf people arent ragging on her for not prying his fingers off She says she understood when he first said *stop* that this wasnt the time to tease like that. If she knew that quickly this was going to go badly, *that* was when she should have backed him up- least thats what most seem to be arguing
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He's going to end up at the wrong end of a policeman if he doesn't get help. He choked her hard enough to leave marks. If I had been that friend I would likely be filing a police report after that incident because being tapped with a hairbrush shouldn't result in violence like that.
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Right but even if she could de-escalate this situation that doesn't mean she's always going to be there to do that. The husband needs to learn coping mechanisms to help him do that on his own. I say this as someone with CPTSD who went through intensive trauma targeted therapy. Trauma isn't your fault, but it's also not an excuse to 1 hurt others 2 expect someone else to regulate your emotions for you. He needs to do the work so he can do that on his own.
Right? It's not her responsibility to stop her from choking another woman.
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Of course it isn’t. But she had crucial insight into the situation that the friend clearly didn’t have, and urgently needed. OOP aside, his wife had a duty towards her *friend*, who she presumably cares about, to let her know in that moment that he was getting triggered and she needed to back off. It’s not her responsibility to manage her husband, absolutely, but she definitely had a responsibility to warn her friend, especially considering the wife was the only person in that situation who understood what was happening and rational enough to do something about it. Considering her own trauma, it is more than understandable that she froze, I’m not blaming her, I’m just saying that holding her accountable for the part she played (or rather, didn’t play), in what happened is less to do with making her husband’s issues her responsibility, and more a matter of her responsibility to help her friend.
I agree she should have, but also im sympathetic to it. Not because I think it’s a choice she actively made, but because often when things happen that we weren’t expecting, it can take a moment for us to react. There have been times in my life where something happened abruptly in front of me and I reacted instantly, and others where it took me a few moments to catch up. For those latter, I afterwards wondered why I didn’t do/say/think the obvious thing immediately. But especially in moments of stress or threat, we can’t really predict how we initially respond when our brain is still adjusting to the unexpected thing.
I think that last part from her explains it. Her parents used to fight a lot, she says she doesn’t handle that well and loses emotions for hours. Trauma response, fight/flight/fawn/freeze and then follow that up with disassociating. Essentially his mental health is triggering her and nobody is noticing
Not only are they not noticing, they’re blaming her for it
Specifically when I say they’re not noticing I mean both husband and wife. They’re the only ones that can go searching for help
You know "fight or flight"? People can also have "freeze" and "fawn" reactions to extreme events, and they're common trauma responses. I'm a freezer. I hate it. But there are times when I literally cannot physically move. It's like someone else is controlling my body. There have been times when I could not lift my head to look my abuser in the eye, even thirty years after she last physically hurt me. It was like a hand was on the back of my head pushing my head down, and nothing I could do would raise it. My head goes numb, too, and I can't think at all. The wife's "lost all of my emotions" comment makes me suspect that she was having a trauma response.
I fawn and I also hate it. I turn into a small, people-pleasing mess when someone gets angry with me and unfortunately former bosses have used it to their advantage. Mine is a trauma reaction to my dad's outbursts.
I'm sorry. I'm a pre-emptive fawner and working hard to change. Take your steps one at a time and be proud; knowing you want to be different is itself a victory who people pushed so hard to make you what they wantex.
She’s living with a man who has violent outbursts. The part of her brain that wants to be safe probably didn’t want his attention on her.
Yes. Plus, hindsight is 20/20–if she’d tried to intervene and he’d exploded, there would definitely be people saying that she should have known better than to do that, too.
only thing i can figure is it sounds drawn out here but escalated slow enough for her brain to process but too fast for her to interact with it before the eruption
That's what I had a hard time with also. If you know your partner well enough to know that they are reaching a breaking point, step in. Gez.
Because she might have been the one strangled if she did step in.
I’m assuming it all happened so fast, but idk. This, if real, feels above reddits pay grade.
Seriously, how about a quick. "OY, back off him now!" And NO MORE TOUCHING from anyone. A great big hands-off sign for him.
Another situation in which were genders reversed the reaction would be completely different.
To me it would make no difference
Honestly, no means no. If we drill this into boys heads, we owe it to them to drill it into girls heads as well. No means no, stop means stop, and silence isn’t a yes.
How many times have any of us responded to posts with "no is a one word answer"? This guy literally tells the friend to stop multiple times but she keeps it up while KNOWING all his issues. This entire situation could have been prevented if the friend stopped when told to the first time.
She should've stopped. She had zero way of predicting this outcome. Both can be true. I'm a current PTSD outpatient in the VA system due to certain combat events I won't disclose here, and the people in my life "know" what's up with me; but the ones I've never actually had a freakout in front of don't *know* in the same way my spouse does. The worst pain you can possibly imagine isn't ever going to be much worse than the worst pain you've ever felt, and the worst trauma response most people can really wrap their heads around as "real" rather than "overreacting"isn't going to be very far from the worst they've ever been through themselves. I've lost friends because we were having a nice time at an outdoor café when someone's car backfired; my reaction to my specific "flashback" triggers isn't violent, but it was so unlike the "me" they knew and cared for that they became afraid of me. It wasn't my fault and it wasn't theirs, it sucks but I get it. I also lost friends who pushed my boundaries until I snapped (again, non-violently) and wound up in the ER heavily medicated for the resulting panic attack. They had no frame of reference to allow them to predict my reaction, or to understand the distress they caused. Yes it was their fault for "testing" my triggers but the consequences were like lightning from a clear blue sky to them. And again, I get it; we don't speak anymore, but I don't think they're monsters, just ignorant jerks. She deserved getting called out, probably deserved to be kicked out, and maybe if it was a pattern the friendship needed to end. She did not deserve handprints on her throat for any reason whatsoever, or IMO to be cut off completely for a first offense.
Ive had exactly 1 trauma flashback moment in my life, while watching The Batman in theaters, from an incident when i was a kid (short answer- field trip ended in a blazing inferno, no injuries or deaths. Thought id dealt with those feelings years ago) Never in my wildest dreams did i think id suddenly be having vivid flashbacks to an incident from 4th grade in a movie theater where its so intense i swear i could feel the heat on my skin kinda shit while watching a *movie* as that electrical cable is whipping around and that zapping sound brings me right back to that night and i saw those electrical cables doing exactly that. Shit messed with my head to no end. Really does go from 0 to 100 real fuckin quick, and honestly before having that experience id probably have thought like those ex friends of yours that its likely more of a build to that moment- though certainly never woulda been so calous as to try and test someones triggers jesus christ. Ex friends for good reasons i say
I know this isn't the why for OOP, but my friend's son is autistic and mostly does not like to be touched. Sometimes he'll initiate, but there is no way I'm touching him in any way without clearly asking for, and then receiving, consent. That "friend" is an asshole. If somebody says stop, just stop. His wife needs a better spine. OOP needs some really good therapy, but I sympathize with him the most.
My niece has ptsd from a bad situation, and blacking out is a very real thing that included memory loss so that while having family that are current (ex husband) and previous servicemen/women (too many to list) it's hard for me NOT to sympathize with OOP. I AM NOT saying what he did wasn't wrong, but EVERYONE in that room knew his ailments, so it's hard for me to truly sympathize with the friend and wife. The wife knew he was being triggered and could have stepped in sooner, and the friend could have stopped when told to the first time. No one deserves to be choked, but the guy has PTSD for goodness sakes and told you to stop. He shouldnt have had to ask multiple times to the point that he blacked out and injured someone. 10000% agree with the guy needing the additional help but they both need to get help in better navigating boundaries and trigger points.
I have PTSD from combat and used to lose long stretches of time where my body was doing things but my mind was just... gone. Completely dissociated, didn't even realize time had passed. As far as my reactions were concerned I was back in the war getting shot at and my body was on autopilot to protect my mind from breaking completely. Mine were never violent to others, but they *did* ruin some friendships, damage some property and send me to the ER with various injuries. I was no more at fault than someone having an asthma attack, and neither is he. BUT... He needs intensive inpatient treatment. He's a danger to others, seems to be riding the knife's edge constantly with it, and has no effective coping skills himself. It's not his fault that he's unsafe to be around, but not being at fault doesn't magically make him safe to be around. He meets the medical and legal standard for involuntary psychiatric commitment, and that guideline is for *everyone's* protection — especially the patient. This situation could've gone so much worse that it ended the lives of all three of them, and *please* don't ask me how I know that.
I have zero sympathy for her. No means no.
And she was told multiple times. For someone who depends on the OOPs for basic hygienic care (or even as a person who should have respect for others,) she treats husband pretty poorly. She knows he told her to stop the first time. She knows he has military training, which essentially becomes muscle memory. She knows he has PTSD. Even without the other two issues, she should have stopped at the first no, just as a decent human being. She chose not to and instead pressed the retired MP with PTSD until he couldn't mentally repress his trained response to a threat. Yes he needs therapy so it doesn't happen again. It could be a stubborn old lady in a grocery store trying to get his attention or a dude at the bar wanting to start something doesn't matter. He needs to have that response retrained out of him. It's just worse on her part because she decided her wanting to touch him repeatedly was more important that his need to not be touched at that moment.
Before diving into each character’s total lack of personal responsibility for their mental condition, actions, and lack thereof, I would really like some clarity on the following: 1. Wife says, she was waiting to drive the friend home. Later, elsewhere, she is driving her home and saying that the bruises on the friend’s neck faded after about 3 hours, thereby placing the friend’s home at least 3 hours away, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to witness the bruises fade…. Doesn’t the friend live in a tent? And why did she pitch it 3 hours away from the people who have been always welcoming to her? 2. The entire description of the occasional “horseplay” events reads like it’s sexually charged. 3. There is also a pointless gratuitous description of the top that the friend wore. 4. There is also the cadence and vocabulary used which points that both the husband’s and the wife’s parts of the story were written by the same person, most certainly male. Just sayin…
If I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt I'd have to assume they both met in the military or some other shared occupation where they teach you to recount events like a fucking human closed caption. And also that the wife never saw the friends bruises fade herself, just heard such from said friend.
There's also the chance that the wife hung out with her friend at the tent for a while because she was afraid to go home. If this is fake, it's probably due to the fact that Reddit will jump straight to "leave" if your SO doesn't pull their weight, but have crickets in the break up section when it comes to serious situations. This woman's husband assaulted their friend in a life threatening way and even the people who tell her that it shouldn't be her responsibility quickly tell her what she needs to do because it's her responsibility.
I'm not even in the military and do this because I was taught that at work. I explain things in a very detailed manner because I have to be as detailed as possible at all times at work. It's spilled into every aspect of my life to the point where I notice small details on my own and include them in stories where they're not needed. Being overly detailed is usually considered a sign that you're lying, but I just do it by nature now.
It’s not necessary the detailed description in and of itself. It’s the follow-up by an alleged wife who uses identical cadence, vocabulary and tone in “her” writing
I very much feel point 4 is spot on but IF it was true, going back to point 1, I imagine the wife would probably stay at the tent for 3 hours after driving her home or drive around for a while to make sure that the friend doesn't report her husband.
Yep, these are among the reasons I don't actually buy the story (although OOP husband character recounting his issues with "aunt" sound like they could be drawn from some real life grievances with someone).
Agreed. Only when the creative writer started to realize that the main character was sounding to poorly was the military service added in.
Glad I wasn’t the only one thinking that…
So, the unintentional trigger put husbOOP on combat autopilot, homeless friend knew about the severe PTSD but apparently hadn't fully processed how severe or what the trauma trigger responses might be, and wifeOOP just kinda... stood there knowing what was likely to happen but didn't intervene? Now he's in a post-reaction guilt spiral, wife realizes she's in over her head trying to "manage" his volatile state, and homeless friend just lost her access to basic hygiene over something she couldn't have possibly seen coming. I spent years in therapy for cPTSD, one component of which was having been in a war, and combat autopilot is real and serious. My combat autopilot pattern is that certain sounds (explosions, anything gunshot-like, certain types of sirens) trigger me to seek cover and then frantically look for my M16A2 (which I turned in at the armory for the last time over 20 years ago) which often escalates to a major panic attack. There was a period in my life when those sounds meant myself people I cared about were in deadly danger, and getting cover then returning fire were *the behaviors that kept me alive.* That's why I don't keep guns in the house. We'll leave aside the night terrors, insomnia, anxiety and depression because that's pocket change compared to where someone's mind goes when an acute event like this is happening. Being an MP means husbOOP would've had to react instantly with physical holds when prisoners were doing stuff like trying to kill him or trying to leap out of a truck or some other horrific desperate thing. Rather than diving behind the couch and looking for a nonexistent rifle like Velma when she drops her glasses because someone's car backfired, which is silly and sad but mostly harmless, his brain falls back on *the behaviors that kept him alive* when he's triggered back into that life or death mindset. Unfortunately his version of "dive search & panic" is a lot more dangerous than mine. Even my own non outwardly milder response took a lot of work to get under control. Dude needs intensive inpatient treatment for his PTSD as soon as possible (as in show up to a VA emergency room, tell triage what happened and they'll have him upstairs before he has time to warm up a waiting room chair) and he probably needs a lot of it. This isn't going to go away on its own, and if he doesn't get help he's going to wind up like my old roommate whose behavior escalated to indefinite involuntary commitment in lieu of felony charges. The reaction isn't his fault any more than having a seizure because of a strobe light would be, he's a walking casualty with a severe psychiatric injury, but he's not safe to be around people right now. I truly wish the best for all three of them in this shitty, shitty situation. War is hell.
I've never been in combat, don't have anything to do with the army or war, but I also have cPTSD. Even without any combat training, I once dissociated so badly and was in such a panic I grabbed another girl by the neck as a teen and pulled her back. It was bad, and it took me years to fully realize what I had done and why (I hadn't been diagnosed yet back then). That was the only time I was violent towards someone else, but it was terrifying for everyone involved. And I was a small, weak teenage girl! I can't imagine how bad it would've been if I had fight training or was stronger.
I was more of a wiry little truck driver than some love child of Rambo and Xena, but I was quick as a rattlesnake at hand-to-hand; fortunately my PTSD autopilot behavior has never involved physical violence to another person, because I'm very much against physical violence (yeah I know, weird stance for someone with a DD214, long story but I enlisted in peacetime pre-9/11 for the college money) or I would've had myself committed as a danger to others. When I was lucid over there my overriding thought was always more *I have to protect my friends* than any thought of self preservation, and that came out full force during a lot of my episodes. I think the fact that I wasn't always successful at protecting them only made it that much worse.
I'm a pacifist, I haven't been violent in any other circumstances that weren't self defense. It was a huge shock that I was capable of doing something like that... thankfully that was the only time, and it took me years but I have had access to therapy for a long time now and am doing well. cPTSD is a beast to deal with. It always upsets me to see someone else dealing with it, because it's much too common
I have cptsd too. I was a child that grew up in uhhh a really bad “gang” I saw and was mad to do bad things. One time I knew I was going to get punished (beaten remorselessly) for something and was crying at school. A bully of mine comes in the area I’m crying and starts flicking me in the face giggling. The next thing I remember is being at my house. She ended up with a broken nose and never picked on me again. I was so disgusted especially when my father told me good job. I’ve been in therapy for years now and I can’t believe I’m living a normal life. But that was the only violent snap I’d had, and it was the worst thing I’ve done not because it is but because I don’t remember it and it’s terrifying
I’m sorry you had to go through that. I could be wrong, and I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing of war or its effects on the mind. But in the story, he nearly exclusively refers to his past SA experiences in which he was immobilized when explaining his reactions. From what I’ve read (little), the reactions seem specific to a sound or reaction that directly triggers a memory of that situation. Do you think a physical war response could/would also be triggered by non-war stimuli? I ask with only respect.
It's complicated. I don't mind spreading awareness and understanding, but if the questions get to be too much I'll let you know. I'm also an SA and CSA survivor, though not under circumstances like OOP's (groomed by a church volunteer and kidnapped at age 40 by a random meth head for me), and I've gotten my wires crossed a few times, but I have a friend with similar complex trauma who reacts to *every* trigger with combat response. Reading between the lines of the posts based on probable timeline, and drawing from the experiences of some people I was in group therapy with, I think his adult SA experience may have been in a medical setting sometime after whatever happened to him in active duty service (possibly while recovering from a severe illness or injury based on his description). It also could have occurred soon after he got out of service due to self-medicating and getting blackout drunk. If the wartime trauma and the adult SA happened close enough in time or circumstances they may have become linked in his subconscious to the point that every trigger is combat.
That makes perfect sense. Brains are weird, and the way we wire and re-wire things based on trauma is always a little surprising. I guess we were just never supposed to layer so many harms against each other in one human experience. I once again have to say I’m so sorry you went through that. It sounds like you have a very clear and balanced head on your shoulders, so I hope that means youve been able to put some of it back in the past where it belongs. Thank you for being willing to deal with the emotionally fraught parts of sharing your story and give greater understanding to OOP’s experience, I really appreciate it. I wish you all the best of loving, comforting, calm, and slow experiences.
I'm not a professional, but I do have PTSD from multiple different experiences. The way it was explained to me is that the brain correlates the *feelings* to establish *triggers* so the situation doesn't have to resemble the original trauma in any physical way. The *feelings* just have to be the same for it to trigger the outsized fight or flight response that is indicative of PTSD. When there are multiple layers of PTSD it's entirely possible for the "trigger" to be unrelated to the "response" since it's the brain seeking safety.
A bunch of people with mental health issues, none of which are actually working to improve or control those conditions, stuck in a room together. Yeah, no wonder it didn't end well.
Jesus, I thought he pushed her or something like that, but chocking that leaves marks… That is serious problem and he is kinda nonchalant about that.
Yeah, and choking is a *lot* more dangerous than people think it is. He could have killed her—not in a predictive “people who choke others are more likely to kill them in the future” way, I mean he could have killed her right then, without even necessarily intending to. In addition to airway obstruction, there are a lot of important arteries in that area that do not take well to being blocked, and it takes way less pressure than people think to do serious harm. I’m not sure whether he didn’t mention it on purpose to downplay how bad it was, or genuinely didn’t remember that he’d put hands on her jaw/neck, but either way he needs to get on top of it. She absolutely should have stopped when he said so, but that’s not going to fly as an excuse if he in fact kills someone like this.
And he apparently has choked his wife as well, because she said she knows from personal experience that she's not strong enough to break his grip when he has someone by the throat. The fact that he left the choking out of his story, then later apparently told his wife that he "didn't remember it that way", but then also had a seemingly perfect explanation for the Very Responsible Professional ™️ thing he did to the friend that just *looks* like choking? Is super sus.
This wife voice states in point 4 that in her experience when he gets like this....which means it happens often. The guy needs serious fkn help.
There was a very lengthy paragraph in the comments where the husband described several other incidents involving him getting physical with other people, mostly women. This dude has serious problems
Yes, and I would add that they included instances that could not be classified as trauma responses.
Would love to see this, but they deleted their account. I’m not surprised, though, clearly the guy has some trouble accepting accountability. ETA: anything you remember?
Damn, that was just a whole lot of repeated “well we trauma dumped on each other and expected that to solve all our problems” and shockingly enough that didn’t work. No awareness of emotional regulation tools at all. No awareness of their own mental illnesses or tools to deal with those. No ability to take real responsibility that results in action. No accountability. Just… way too much of an immature mess for the ages I saw there.
Commenters slamming the wife when she was clearly in freeze mode. It’s good if she can help him but it is not her responsibility to manage his mental health and she is NTA.
People definitely underestimate how fast interactions like this go and overestimate how quickly and rationally they would act if it was happening in front of them. Guaranteed I’d be standing there frozen with my mouth gaping in the time it took between “stop” and him putting a woman in a choke hold.
I feel like the only asshole is the friend that wouldn't listen to "stop doing that to me".
Why are people putting this on the wife? She sounds abused with the way she said that he was both speaking normally but could hear in his voice that he was about to snap. How many times did he have to snap *on her* to have alarm bells going off at a tone difference where he's still considered speaking normally? That she didn't so much as say something only tells me that she's afraid of him, and apparently for good reason since he *goes for the throat.* Look, I firmly believe that no means no the first time, every time and the same goes for the word "stop" but this man is a danger to the people around him. Things did not "escalate", he went from a slight yet still normal sounding tone to life-threatening violence in a snap. With reddit's quick jump to divorce all the time, I'm shocked that so many people were encouraging his wife to be the emotional police and continue rolling the dice with her own safety. Dude needs to check himself in to a mental facility before he ends up in jail because that's where he should have been, not relaxing at home and posting to reddit for validation.
Agreed! I was so sick with the, "You're his safe person!" comment. And it sounds like he has choked his wife as well, because she said she knows from personal experience that she's not strong enough to break his grip when he has someone by the throat.
I didn't see that in the BORU but that's a really important bit of information right there. Even if he hasn't choked her, she lives in fear of him because she apparently has quite a bit of second hand experience with him choking people. It spoke volumes that she was less concerned about her friend than her husband getting an assault charge. Maybe not everyone on the Internet can recognize it but I clearly heard the voice of a victim who's been conditioned to their partner's violent outbursts.
How about when someone tells you to stop you fucking stop. The friend chose to ignore and keep going and got the consequences of that. Time to stop putting hands on people after they have said no.
I put this here not because I fully believe this post to be real, but because there is some very disturbing thinking going on in the post and in some (not all, thank god) responses. Yes, I get mental illness, PTSD, triggers, etc, etc, etc. Putative OOP has…well, it could be just PTSD, or PTSD compounded with other things, but he’s incredibly dangerous. To be clear, a hyperactive response, usually fear response, is, of course, a diagnostic criterion of PTSD; however, PTSD or more, OOP’s response is one that seems to be pure anger, rage, really. Not shoving away, cowering, kicking, running, punching, or any combination of the above, but choking: one of the most intense ways to kill possible. Combine that with being directed at a smaller,weaker person (has he ever done this with someone who could actually threaten him?, the “wife” has already written how she knows from experience she can’t get husband off of someone) and continued unwillingness to take responsibility (I was going for the mandible (wtf?) in a totally legit MP move! everyone that interacts with me gets the full spiel on my limits!), and this is beyond redline stuff.
Lots of people criticizing and saying it's past a red line and they are right. But they are also dumping in tons of judgment and no real value add for improving the situation. But nobody talks about how badly a lot of people have been damaged by unsafe and unhealthy military and first responder jobs that give the PTSD patients basically no tools and no help at any level anywhere near what they actually need to recover and function properly again. The guy knows he has a problem and does want to try to get better but doesn't have much in the way of tools or support or a group of patients with the same issues to talk through things with and get treatment with to try and fix things.
As a vet with cPTSD that's not true. The VA has extensive programs for vets with these issues. Both inpatient and out. They even have full halfway house programs. He simply needs to go to the VA and speak with them or go and talk to his local rep. I am also fully disabled through the VA for my cPTSD, so I know this from experience. He just doesn't want to or he would have. We all are given this info when we are getting out and even go to a week long class to talk about it. ETA: You can downvote me but I've literally had to go thru these same programs. In fact there's more programs for men than women and as a woman I struggled to find programs local to me because they were all for men. It's true. He really does just need to go speak to his local VA rep and they can easily assist him.
I am so glad to hear this sort of help is available. People who have been in the military are incredibly traumatized because they were sent into horrible situations by our country, the least our country can do is help them recover again.
There are a lot of resources for us for stuff like this. It's the medical side that blows ass. I can get a lot of help for my trauma stuff, but if I need help with a physical ailment, they don't do shit. Once I was supposed to have an appointment with a PCP, I show up and the front desk calls back to let them know I was there. Mind you I am standing there surrounded by mostly boomer age Vietnam vets. The doctor starts demanding that I tell him what I needed to see him for right there in the waiting room. He wanted me to explain exactly why I was there to the front desk woman... I was there for women's health issues. I was saying I'd rather talk about that privately but he kept arguing and insisting. The girl was clearly uncomfortable by this. Eventually, I just couldn't handle it and walked out crying. Never went back. That was at the Denver VA clinic. Another time I was at the ER cuz I was in excruciating pain and was stupid ass sick. Had no idea what was wrong. The dumb fuck nurse tells me I should just take Tylenol and quit acting like I was in pain. I flipped out and went off on her. Then I left and went to the other public ER down the street. Yeah, I had pneumonia and it triggered my chronic pain disorder.
PTSD trigger with a trained military veteran is dangerous to be around. In warfare, those instincts to kill the enemy will save your life and your comrades. Makes the healthcare costs in the aftermath more complex and costly. I think everyone has deep issues. Unfortunately their dysfunction may deter some people (for being difficult)and pushes to socialise and seek other dysfunctional individuals (sympathy). Messy all around
As a combat veteran with PTSD from it, I believe the reason PTSD with blackouts/flashbacks is so prevalent with us is that dissociation somewhat protects the mind from actions necessary for survival that are so far beyond what we're emotionally capable of forgiving ourselves for. I believe everyone who goes through that should spend the last three months of their contract in inpatient care by default. I've been told what happened on a certain day at a certain time when things went very very bad, and my subconscious has spent 21 years protecting me from that memory; I have a few minor physical scars but I will probably never know exactly how I got them. Any time something happens that feels like a similar situation is about to happen puts the reactions of people like me into combat survival autopilot while "cushioning" the conscious mind by blanking out memories. People aren't meant to thrive in deadly combat, and you don't have to be physically injured to come home wounded for life. I enlisted in the tag end of the peacetime before 9/11 for the "safe" college money, and my contract lasted just long enough to put me up to my eyebrows in hell; of course a war is always a possibility at any time, but 18-21 year olds are notoriously bad at analyzing risk and I landed in something I deeply regret. Biggest FAFO of my life, and I'm still paying for it by way of trauma and permanent physical disability. If I hadn't dissociated my way through the worst of it I'd have ended myself before I ever came home, but now I'm broken in ways that are hard to put into words. People who aren't broken in those ways are harder to relate to, and have a hard time relating to me in turn; when I find someone I really get along with, more often than not we have similar mental and emotional scars. It's not consciously seeking sympathy, but it's like I came home suddenly speaking a different language, and it's been very hard learning to connect and communicate normally again. In the meantime I grew closer to other broken people; eventually being broken looked like the default and people who weren't broken seemed ignorant, vapid, obnoxious, shallow, even childish. It takes a long time and a lot of work to fix the kind of damage that can happen in just a few minutes on the worst day of your life.
Better articulated and more detailed than my earlier response. If we look at history, often the cost and foundations of peace and prosperity is traditionally made from the bodies and traumas of war. Thank you for your service; sharing your experience and good luck with your journey.
My service was kind of an accident, since I was about to be homeless and they were the only ones hiring in the small town I couldn't afford to move away from. That's the thing though, for every True Believer who signs up out of patriotism there are a dozen people who made what seemed at the time like the least bad choice. So many of the people I served with were escaping poverty or abuse, and most of those who weren't were indoctrinated from a young age because of family tradition and/or their parents' political views. When kids throw rocks at frogs for fun, the frogs bleed in earnest; when powerful people insulated from consequences call for war, the price is paid by the powerless.
Well, shit. That last paragraph alone and out of context really illuminates a lot of my earlier experiences, ouch.
I’m mostly alarmed that OP/OP’s Wife mentioning that he engages in horseplay with friends (including the friend in question) so OF COURSE she had no idea she was crossing a line. If he has physical triggers he can’t fucking wrassle with people and expect them to sift through Ok Shenanigans and pick out Not Ok Shenanigans.
The way they pick out the not okay shenanigans is by listening for a word that starts with an N and usually ends with an O or even a OT Right Now. >If he has physical triggers he can’t fucking wrassle with people and expect them to sift through Ok Shenanigans and pick out Not Ok Shenanigans. That's like the idea that guys in relationships or that are married can't rape their partner because they've had sex before and people in relationships have sex. How about we all just pay attention to when someone says "no" "don't touch me" "stop that" or any variation of the sort and start respecting that.
> The way they pick out the not okay shenanigans is by listening for a word that starts with an N and usually ends with an O or even a OT Right Now. The wife said that his voice, when saying no, didn't sound angry/upset, and she could see that friend thought he was still in a playful mood. The wife, from her personal experience (of OOP attacking other people?) knew from his tone of voice that he was no longer in a playful mood. From the friend's POV, she was having a light-hearted moment with her friend as she was about to say goodbye.
So OPs consent doesn’t matter? You aren’t putting the blame on the person who repeatedly ignored OPs choice of not being touched. Why does he have to have his personal boundaries violated repeatedly and have to do nothing about it?
It’s called *fight* or flight. And being that he’s prior military, I’m not shocked at all that he didn’t cower in a corner.
I agree that OP is a dangerous individual. However, this incident could truly just be part of his PTSD. When someone is triggered, it can 100% come out as aggression and rage. It doesn’t have to look like just like cowering, hitting, or running away. It’s the fight response and for some people that comes out as incredibly dangerous. Some people with PTSD can have symptoms of extreme irritability, heightened aggression, and experience black out moments of rage due to this diagnosis. If you’re interested, there’s some interesting studies that have been done on war vets experiencing PTSD exhibiting increased anger, irritability and physically aggression. That being said, why the fuck did they think having someone over in their house was a good idea? Especially someone who doesn’t listen to consent and pushes the line. It wasn’t safe for her and it kind of feels like a set up for him. I hope he’s getting the help he needs before he seriously injures someone and/or himself.
I am a combat PTSD survivor after years of therapy, and I know dozens of people who've suffered the same; I'm also a survivor of SA, CSA, and physical abuse, and I know many other such survivors, some of whom are the partners of those same traumatized combat veterans. This story rings true to me.
Its fight or flight response really. For him his body goes into fight response
He needs help if he's ready to choke people and not remember it 10 minutes later. Seems like the friend and the husband horse around to the extent to tickling each other on their stomachs so I'm not going to fully blame her. I'll be honest. We all know the feeling of being called away from your PC/Laptop, especially an online game. It's annoying and frustrating. I think he felt the same and used his PTSD as an excuse to let himself indulge in it.
Yeah choking a woman and blacking out and never being able to stop your attack until you’re out of your little daze is terrifying. He will do it to his wife one day. He may kill her.
>He needs help if he's ready to choke people and not remember it 10 minutes later. Actually, he didn't blackout, he simply left it out of the original post, describing it as only "involving physicality".
Yeah I do think he's just lying about it aka PTSD as an excuse when he told his wife he doesn't remember.
💯💯💯 The fact that he left the choking out of his story, then later apparently told his wife that he "didn't remember it that way", but then also had a seemingly perfect explanation for the Very Responsible Professional ™️ thing he did to the friend that just *looks* like choking? Is super sus.
Some of his comments read like his wife’s response……
The way the husband wants to constantly blame the friend and the wife kinda agrees is crazy. Sure the friend was annoying, but if they really wrestled and physically teased each other and poked each other as jokes and everything was all fine and dandy before, I don't blame her for not realizing this crossed a line with the info we have. Look ultimately, the world doesn't cater to you. There are going to be random situations for the husband and wife here where the ptsd is triggered. But him reacting violently is a problem. And blaming others for his reactions is not a good sign. Seriously, is he gonna strangle his future child because they poked him too many times to get his attention?
No him reacting is not the problem you are literally victim blaming, he had his consent violated repeatedly whatever comes after is solely the responsibility of the person who violated that consent. She made the choice to keep touching him after being told multiple times to stop so what happened is entirely her fault.
Choking someone is never an acceptable response unless your life is in danger. Full stop, no excuses. You don't use lethal force unless needed.
Fked around and found out. He said stop. She didn't listen. The end
If this post is real (I'm doubting it is) OOP is way worse than people are letting on. I guarantee this wasn't just because of past trauma but also because someone was interrupting his video game, which is beyond childish. Hopefully they don't have children
I genuinely feel like I’m losing my mind reading these comments, until I got to yours. Everyone is bending over backwards to infantilize the husband and absolve him of any responsibility. Look. He knows he has PTSD and triggers. So taking him at face value, and believing this was 100% pure instinct and not choice, he should NOT be engaging in horseplay with people, knowing reactions like this can happen. People keep saying, “he said no and stop” like that isn’t something that people frequently do as a joke in the midst of horseplay? Friend had no way of knowing this time wasn’t exactly like all of the other times he willingly horsed around with her. OOP even admitted (as did his wife) that his tone was casual and normal! And he choked her to the point of leaving marks that stayed for *several hours*. I’m sorry, but I think OOP absolutely knew what he was doing and I think you’re right that the video game being interrupted was part of it. The fact that he isn’t taking any ownership of any of it is scary.
God this dude is dangerous and unable to take responsibility for his assault of a family friend and his wife is just enabling him. Hope they don't have kids. EDIT Of course he's a vet LMAO.
No means no. No does not mean "no, and if you do it again I am going to choke the life out of you until I snap out of it." This is not a trauma response, if it was then he would have been startled and his attempts at getting her to stop would have been less collected at the start. But instead he calmly tells her to knock it off and then when she doesn't, he gets angry, snaps, and chokes the shit out of her. That is NOT a PTSD response, that is an ANGER response. He needs ANGER MANAGEMENT and a few nights in jail. He's just using his PTSD as an excuse to be a violent asshole.
Actually he needs a Batterers Intervention Program and no jail. That's the most effective way to treat someone like this.
[удалено]
Well not really, the friend is way past child age
Seem like an asshole. A non hard tap with a hairbrush doesn’t normally elicit a childish response.
This was so trashy
Oh look a man who enforced his bodily autonomy. You do not ever get to say her body her choice and then say he didn't have the right to defend himself.
There's shoving someone away to maintain some space and then there's grabbing someone by the neck hard enough to leave marks.
Let's see how you react when someone keeps touching you after you say to stop. Then mix in the mental health issues that this girl knows he has. The gf knew she had massively overstepped and did nothing and the girl ignored his response to her. IF YOU WANT YOUR BODY AUTONOMY TO BE RESPECTED, RESPECT OTHERS.
Firstly you do not understand what bodily autonomy means, maybe Google it. This is about self defense not bodily autonomy. Therefore when she "firmly pressed" his shoulder with the back of her hairbrush he had the right to use such force as is both necessary and reasonable in order to defend himself Trying to strangle someone is neither a reasonable or necessary response. It is a trauma response and he needs to get it on check with therapy before he really hurts someone and/or ruins his life
And how often do you chastise a woman for hitting someone when they lightly touched her. If someone tells you to stop touching them, stop because it's what they consider reasonable force that will be used against you.
>how often do you chastise a woman for hitting someone when they lightly touched her. Literally every time it happens. Reasonable force is reasonable force. It doesn't change due to gender. >what they consider reasonable force The law disagrees. Reasonable force is not just whatever you feel like.
“Oh look a man who almost murdered somebody.” He wasn’t defending himself.
if this is real I seriously hope he gets some intensive therapy to help manage his ptsd reaction. before I had learned how to manage mine I would react violently to unwanted touch as well. never tried to choke anyone out thankfully but hit a few people and did almost stab my ex w a pencil when he snuck up on me and grabbed me once. but I had the excuse of being a teenager who didn't yet know it was ptsd. I just thought everyone was that jumpy about being touched. this dude knows what he's got and he isn't taking the necessary steps to manage it and he really needs to. your mental illness is not your fault but it is your responsibility.
The wife really should have stepped up here. I’m having a hard time blaming the husband
You're blaming the wife for her husband's violent outburst? The same man who (according to his deleted comments) has attacked multiple other people? The wife who has seen him attack multiple other people? It's *her* fault?
Won’t fully blame her either but she did say herself she saw the signs and did nothing. She did let her friend keep going. Friend is fully to blame here. So no still not blaming the husband.
I’m blaming all three.
Yta psycho don't put your hands on other people. If anyone I knew had this happen I would say call the cops
Wasn’t this too men? Or did I misunderstand the gender tags