Discussion about behavioral manifestations of PTSD in relationships, using examples (emotional numbing, marked behavioral changes like sudden anger or profanity, withdrawing from responsibilities, and self-destructive behaviors). Emphasizes that transient depression after betrayal is common but becomes PTSD-like when pervasive, persistent, and functionally impairing. Recommends early help when behaviors escalate.
As someone is processing this and we're thinking about ptsd, what might we look for in terms of behaviors? How does this come out in relationships? I mean, you talked about symptoms, but maybe symptoms are the first step and then behaviors the outcome. So what might someone see in their behaviors if they're dealing with PTSD and in particular what's happening in their relationships?
And this, I think would be quite telling. Again, you're looking at an escalation in severity. So it might turn out to be something that, you know, your partner is angry and is disengaged. And those are all very normal things. But let's say that you leave the house in the morning and your wife is sitting at the table and looking out the window, and you come home six hours later and your wife is sitting at the table looking at the out the window. Something is wrong with that. You know, if you, if someone, if a partner has gotten to a place where they're just, they're numb and they're filled with hopelessness or, you know, and they can't even get out of their head enough to do the things that they normally have to do because they just are. Because their brain, the alarm in their brain is, is going off and they can't get past that something is wrong. Then that, that's not a normal behavior or. I've heard one person, they described it this way, that before discovery and disclosure, their wife was just super sweet and kind and this godly woman and, you know, and spoke nice things to everyone. And then after this, they started to see this change in this person to where, I mean, she was angry and she was yelling and she was using profanity and I mean, things that this person had never done before. And even to the point where they described that, I couldn't believe the dark words coming out of her mouth, okay, something is wrong. You know that if you notice that this extreme change in someone's behavior, then it's probably not just a normal trauma response that someone's gonna get over after a little bit of time has passed, that's not gonna be helpful. Does that make sense? And so, I mean, those are just some of the things that you could experience. Or if they're going off and leaving the kids with somebody else all day, which they've never done before, and you don't know where they are, but they're at the local bar all day long, you know what I mean? And engaging in these self destructive behaviors and they never did that before. And so it's looking at those kind of Things that even if those are happening early on, it's. It's good to get help early on, you know what I mean? Because it's only going to get more distracted.
Yeah. So one of the symptoms you mentioned, just to circle back to it about depression, because I think a lot of people that have experienced betrayal and realizing the relationship that they have, the marriage they have, isn't what they thought, that feelings of depression, even periods of depression, may be fairly common. So is depression, because that's, I think, a big kind of deal in our society is depression very often like ptsd, like, do they go hand in hand? Or is it possible that you could be dealing with depression because of the betrayal, but it's not at the level of ptsd. How would you help people think about depression as that kind of sign?
Yeah. So I think that it's very normal to experience depression after discovery or disclosure. In fact, even to be in a season of depression where maybe you don't necessarily stop the whole entire time, like you're able to engage in your normal activities, but then when you're alone or when it gets quiet at night or you have this kind of this background of depression going on in your head that nobody else sees back in. Right. I think that those all can be very, very common behaviors. Again, when it ends up going into, like the PTSD arena is when you. When a person can't get out of that. Right. And so what you're looking for is something that is not just the common things, that of depression, the common symptoms of depression that a partner could experience after discovery or disclosure, but it's more of when you're getting into where are they depressed all day and it's coming out in their language and they're unable to function and take care of their normal things. And again, looking at it from a pervasive pattern of behavior, is this starting to become their norm or is this something that, okay, I see it showing up on Friday nights or at different times or specific times, but then it's not necessarily overwhelming their life.
