Alex and I went on our first date in early September of 2010 and were "official" by the end of that September. Within the next year I was meeting his friends and acquaintances and they were starting to become my friends and acquaintances, but this was a mixed bag. Many of them had complicated histories when it came to their interactions with my husband, and they wanted to tell me all about them. Not wanting to be rude to these people I just met, I often let them go on, but like with most people, I didn't let others' opinions or stories about a person sway my opinion of Alex much. He had not treated me unkindly. He was not super weird with me. He was charming and smart and lovely.
There did come a point when I had had enough. I remember specifically that I was at a LARP when a particularly bad offender told the same story they'd been telling me about how dorky my husband was for this odd quirk he had back in college for at least the third time. Besides the fact that I was fed up with hearing it, I'm sure I was exhausted so I snapped and told them I was done hearing about what my boyfriend (at the time) used to be like. I didn't care what my boyfriend used to be like. I was with him now, and that's not who he was now. I remember that the individual was taken aback by my response and kept their distance for an hour or so, but after that they approached me and apologized for their behavior and I apologized for my shortness. It never happened again, and we've been good friends ever since.
You see, my husband has a dark past, but that's his story to tell, not mine. Many of you know about my dark past, but it gets darker. The things I had to do to survive my past gets really fucked up and I'm not proud of it. Through therapy and time I've learned to forgive myself for the things I'd done because I was a child, a traumatized child, a child with undiagnosed depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, my husband lived with undiagnosed depression and PTSD. People, especially laymen, scoff at the idea of "self-diagnosis" but I feel very strongly that comes from a place of internalized societal stigma, the privilege of those who have access to health insurance and providers, and the plain ignorant. My husband has PTSD - the flashbacks, the nightmares, the avoidance, emotional distress and dysregulation, physical reactivity, exaggerated blame of himself, feeling isolated, decreased interest in activities, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, the whole shebang.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you, the reader, that I was always perfect when it came to my husband. I was frequently frustrated and upset by his symptoms. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to be with me and have fun, why he was unhappy or not comforted by me and I'm a fucking mental health professional. This is why surgeons can't perform on their own family. Sometimes you're just too close to it. It came to a point that, after he finally got health insurance, I gave him an ultimatum: get professional help or I walk. I would not stay only to watch someone I love decompensate and die. He agreed to get help, and has been getting help ever since. To this day I don't know if I was bluffing. I don't know if I would have been strong enough to walk away from him because I was then and am now deeply in love with him.
I can't explain to you how much it hurts my heart when people simply can't understand why he behaves the way he does, and become reactive to his symptoms without being aware that that's what's happening. Furthermore, they're not interested in giving him another chance. I get it - why would they know? Why should they care? First of all, it's an explaination not an excuse and can you imagine if we had to slow down our entire day to analyze our every human interaction and ponder, "Hmm, I wonder if they have some invisible illness that could explain what's going on here?" That's certainly not sustainable, but I think people just don't believe me when I gush about how awesome he is - because he is. My husband is the single most caring, loving, gentle, considerate, sweet, intelligent, creative, fun person I ever met. That's why I put aside my commitment issues and decided to marry him.
Do people think I'm delusional? Do they think my taste in men is abhorrent? Because I know that there are people out there who are familiar with me and who judge my husband harshly because of old behaviors and old symptoms he's worked through and worked on. They want to tell me about what a dork he was and how he did this crazy thing however many years ago. I'm done hearing about it. I don't care what he used to be like. Do you have any idea what I used to be like? Take a good, hard look at me and bring it. You can't be any more cruel to me than I've been to myself. And what about you? What did you used to be like?
I say this all without hyperbole. This man has saved my life, opened me up to the world, given me friends worth all of the riches in all of the world, supported me through the toughest of times, fought for me, and always, always, always takes care of me. He's the exception to nearly every rule I have. If I don't want to talk to people, I want to talk to him. If I don't want anyone to touch me, I want him to hold me. I don't like surprises, but he always knows the exact way to surprise me in a way that makes me deliriously happy. I love him. I love him. He's my hero, and I'll never stop gushing about that. I'll never stop fighting for him. He'll never stop being my champion.
