Mindfulness For Warriors. Kim Colegrove

Cost of Untreated Trauma

      If nothing else upsetting had ever occurred in David’s life, these two incidents alone would be enough to cause distress. But that wasn’t the case. David encountered a tremendous amount of stress and trauma in his lifetime, and much of it was concentrated in the eight years he served as a police officer. As a federal agent for the final twenty-two years of his career, he worked some difficult cases and encountered challenges, but nothing like those eight years in a patrol car. Those years were brutal.

      Yet he never sought, nor did he receive, proper treatment.

      Throughout David’s career, the untreated and unprocessed trauma caused him to experience recurring symptoms, which he was intermittently able to numb—typically with alcohol. He battled with anxiety and depression off and on, and he suffered from recurring dreams and nightmares. In his dreams, there were three consistent themes: he was in a police station, he felt a sense of being lost or in the wrong place, and he often needed to discharge his weapon but could not. He would even wake up with a sore hand from squeezing it tightly and repeatedly in his sleep.

      Over time, accumulated stress and trauma grew so overwhelming and so powerful that it infiltrated David’s personality, turning an otherwise great guy into an angry, paranoid, cynical character, or an emotional wreck who could not stop crying. These stress-induced symptoms ultimately left my husband unable to cope with change, uncertainty, or the most basic daily challenges.

      As he approached retirement, I believe all the unprocessed pain, fear, anxiety, and depression that he had contained over the years began creeping up and oozing into every crack and crevice, flooding and engulfing him mercilessly. He began taking an antidepressant. That didn’t help. He added an anti-anxiety drug. That didn’t help. He drank. That didn’t help. He kept himself busy. That didn’t help—and that had always helped.

      The Dark Side of the Light of My Life

      It has taken me a long time to summon the courage to speak honestly about my husband, his issues, and our struggles. David was a very proud and private man, so telling his secrets feels like a betrayal of sorts.

      I don’t want to let strangers into the dark corners of our life together. I’d much rather talk about the good times, and there were plenty of those. Anyone who knew us knew that we loved each other deeply and shared an intimate friendship that I may never know again. But toward the end of his life, when he was unraveling, that changed, and he turned on me.

      My sweet, loving husband became someone I hardly recognized and could rarely reason with. He vacillated between despair, anger, bouts of crying, and hostility. He said and did things that were out of character and extremely hurtful, and he made some choices he would never have made in his right mind.

      The last few months of his life were like the scariest roller coaster you can imagine, with hairpin turns, inversions, barrel rolls, negative Gs, no brakes, and no seat belts. The man I had known to be as solid as a rock was up and down and all over the place, unpredictable and inconsistent in every way.

      What I now know, having interacted with a lot of first responders and their spouses, is that a high percentage of spouses experience the roller coaster at some point in their relationship, if not throughout. It’s terrifying to be on the receiving end of that kind of whiplash, especially if you are trying to keep a marriage and family together.

      The truth is, throughout our marriage, there was a dark side to David that cast a shadow on our otherwise sunny life—like a murky figure lurking in the background. When he got emotionally triggered by anger or felt threatened in any way, this dark figure would step out of the shadows and take over. This happened rarely, but when it did, it was intense.

      That dark guy was never violent toward me, but he was angry and hateful and completely out of control. After each “episode” had subsided, David was embarrassed, ashamed, and apologetic. And, even though these episodes were awful, I felt so sorry for my husband because it was clear he was full of pain. I believe this dark alter ego developed as a result of years of unresolved trauma and suffering.

      In the last days, there was very little left of the David I had known and loved. His eyes were vacant, and his personality was totally altered. On the day he died, however, he left me with a gift. As we were passing each other in our bedroom, he reached out and stopped me. He stood in front of me, placed his hands on my shoulders, stared right into my eyes, and said, “I love you.”