What to do, what to do...

Last week I went in with my husband for his mental health med follow up because he had been scheduled with a Middle Eastern doc and he just cannot feel safe in a room with a Middle Eastern person yet. I tried to explain, in the least offensive way possible, that my husband carries many wounds from his time in Iraq and one of them is an extreme dislike/distrust of Middle Eastern people and it would be better for him if he could see someone else. I was in tears by the end of this because I felt so terrible saying this to this woman but did so because I know my husband would have screamed it to her, laced with obscenities, had I not. He is not a bigot, he simply can't get passed the fact that he was blown up due to a woman, a nurse, of Middle Eastern decent bringing explosive devices into the hospital he was guarding. Yes, her male counterpart actually threw the explosive device out the hospital window, not her. But to be fair, my husband dislikes/distrusts Middle Eastern men as well.

Thankfully, if the Doc took offense she was kind enough not to show it and set us up to see another Doc that same day. This Doc turned out to be the clinic director and while he was very kind to see my husband that day he spent a lot of time placing blame for my husbands PTSD squarely on my shoulders. He even went so far as to say that my husband might be better off if I got my own place so he didn't have to deal with me.

What??? I met my husband AFTER he was injured and at THAT time he was rated at 70% for PTSD. But this Doc is telling me that *I* and the sole cause of his PTSD. I am not only floored, I am pissed off. This is the second VA employee to say this to me and I am told by other wives that they hear the same thing.

So, I have spent a week thinking about what the Doc said, what his old case manager always said and what my husband screams at me in fits of PTSD rage and have decided, maybe they are right. Maybe his rating did increase because of me. Maybe somehow I have caused this. I began looking for an apartment tonight. I am in no way saying that I am leaving my husband. I will live close by and be married in all senses of the word except that he will have the house and I will have my place.

Hubby thinks if I do this I will never move home. That I will divorce him. I think that it will either prove what the VA folks and hubby are saying is true or it will prove them all wrong. Either way, we'll find out the truth. I am tired of being vilified. I am tired of some ass that met me five minutes ago blaming me for a disorder my husband had for 4 years before meeting me. I am tired. My health is suffering for it. I have never felt so low in the self esteem department and I thought that was impossible.

I'll close with that. I have to be up to drive hubby to the VA for (ta da!!) mental health tomorrow. Lucky me. That Doc better stay away from me. I am in no mood for him.