Yep... you don't want to read books about how other spouses have lived with PTSD, because the only outcome is that you know what you already know, others do it and put up with the same shit.

What you want to know, is how counsellors and therapists pull information from clients, which means, you then find strategies and ways to unintrusively pull emotional feelings from your spouses, instead of standard logic responses which just piss a PTSD sufferer off even more. You need to understand why they do things because of PTSD, not just why do they things in general. You need to know what is PTSD, and what is relationship issues, because the two often get very confused into the PTSD wrapping.

You need to learn about PTSD itself, not what spouses of PTSD have done or how they cope. Learning about PTSD itself will teach you far better than a book from a spouse on how to handle a partner with PTSD, how to even begin getting within their mind and making them open up to you, which is the end aim.

Much of talking with a sufferer on an emotional level is about time and place. If a sufferer is doing something, you will only ever upset the balance and get an aggresive response, opposed to if the sufferer and you are lets say... lieing in bed together before going to sleep... you may actually get a very different response, because the person is now concentrated on one thing, not doing and answering a question, just now answering a question. Time and place is a big thing... which slowly as partners and sufferers work through issues, open up to more broader spectrums and then eventually just become a part of daily life and discussion occur everywhere and anywhere. Start small... work your way up over the years.

I'm delighted to have discovered this thread. I was going to start a new one, asking about books especially for carers. I have read much of Patience Mason's writings, and also Aphrodite Matsakis' book Vietnam Wives. Obviously I'm not a Vietnam wife, but there was much helpful information contained in it regardless. Jods, what did you think of Anxiety Disorders: The Caregivers? Any good? Perhaps I will search for it myself, thanks.

Hi Kathy

Didn't get the chance to read it as I had to return it to the library. Sorry.
My current reading is pretty much whatever bedtime story our son picks out for me.(The hungry caterpillar is the one he likes at the moment) I suppose there is a message in it, transformation is possible in all cycles of life.

Ah yes believe I prefer books for the kiddies myself. My children, my grandchildren, my nephew, and Evie, all liked Goodnight Moon. Practically know that one by heart, and many others.

Jim.