Unfortunately with PTSD you have to get worse before you can get better. It's the nature of this particular beast.

What you're describing sounds normal for someone who has begun to deal with trauma(s) from their past. It's hard, it's scary and it's normal for us with PTSD. Finding a therapist (who specializes in trauma) is a good way to deal with all of the overwhelming 'stuff' that happens at first. It can and does get better. Like RD said, there's no quick fix. It takes time and it takes as long as it takes. There's tons of information here about the different aspects of PTSD. Some things work for some people and not for others. There's no 'one size fits all' recovery program. Each one has to be tailor made and the person with the PTSD has to be the biggest contributor to the recovery. It just doesn't work any other way.

My husband said the same line to me about not being bad until someone told me that I had PTSD. Like you I knew he was wrong. What your wife is talking out of is fear because her husband has changed and change is scary. There's a whole section for carers here. Maybe she could just read about other care givers who deal with a loved one with PTSD and she wouldn't feel quite so alone. Just like the other sections help those of us with PTSD not feel quite so alone. Please remember that you're both in this. It's not just your disorder, it doesn't just affect you. It affects everyone and everything in your life to different degrees. The closer the person is, the more it affects.

I know this feeling way too well. I worked so hard to get back to 'the person I was before'. I got back a whole lot of myself through recovery, but it took me butting my head against the same wall for a while to realize that I'm not the same person I was before. I've been changed and changed for good. PTSD changes a person for life. Change is not in and of itself good or bad. It simply is. It's what we do with it that makes it good or bad.

I know what I've written probably sounds like a load of rubbish. And when I was were you are now it would have sounded like it to me, too. But the more hard work you do on yourself and the more you accept this new thing in your life the less it will sound like rubbish. I don't claim to have all of the answers (nor do I want them), but not too long ago I was where you are now and a lot of folks here told me that I could get better and get my life back. I believed them and it did happen.

Lisa