Iraq in his eyes

My brother's yard is dirty and dusty. In December, my mom hired a dumpster to throw away all the random junk in his yard and house. My husband tried to help. My husband was very helpful until he had a panic attack about how much my brother's dirty, dusty, trash-filled yard reminded him of Iraq.

My mom called to ask me what to do with my husband, who then refused to talk to me.

"Tell him if he doesn't get on the phone, I'm coming there," I said as my husband yelled "tell her not to come here either!" in the background.

He got on the phone and locked himself in a car to feel safe while he talked to me. I put on my shoes and my contacts.

I wasn't really sure what the hell he was saying, but I told him I was coming to get him.

"No! No! I've had therapy. I can talk through this. I just need to rationalize it," he repeated a few times.

"Yes, I agree, you can talk through this," I said, finally interrupting, "but let me come get you. You can talk it through and be safe with me. That isn't the place for you to do this."

He agreed and we hung up.

I told my eight year old to be in charge and not bug my step-grandfather, 85, who was the only adult present. I told my five year old to be nice and listen to her sibling. I told them both that Daddy was having a bad day and I needed to go get him.

I cried on the way there. I am not equipped to calm someone down who is having panic attacks or flash backs. I don't know when to take someone home and when to take them to the ER. He said he drank too much coffee, which he reacts strongly to, but who knows whether he would have had a panic attack anyway.

When I showed up, Karl was sitting in the dirt with no shoes on, ranting. I tried to be nice, gently asking him to please come with me.

"No! I need to be here. I need to say this -"

"Karl," I said, loudly, "I need to get back to the kids and I need you to come with me."

"Well -"

"I need to get back to the kids and I need you to come with me," I repeated, interrupting him again, no longer caring about being gentle but only about getting him out of the dirt.

Later, my mother, an ER nurse of 30 plus years, told me I had handled the situation perfectly. I don't know why my mother thought I could somehow get through to my husband, but I did. I know that his episode reminded her of when my brother was diagnosed bipolar and would have similar bad days. Apparently watching my husband lose his shit was good for my brother, who told my mom that he understood now why we were sometimes wary of him being stressed out.

I got my husband home (to my mother's, where we were staying for the holidays), in bed, with strict instructions not to talk to our children or I would put him back in the car and take him directly to the ER, where I could probably get him placed on a psychiatric hold or sent to the VA hospital an hour away. An hour or so later he had recovered and was completely calm. That was when he realized he had left his glasses at my brother's house. He had also left his gloves, which looked like his Army gloves and helped turn my brother's dusty yard into a war zone in his eyes. Feeling like you're in Iraq without any gear is terrifying. My brother had given him a camelback though, one Karl was issued and had left at my brother's house years ago, and that seemed to help serve as a security blanket.

I went, alone, to my brother's house to get Karl's glasses. As I turned to walk back to the car, my brother stopped me.

"Hey," he said, looking a little sheepish, "I had no idea."

"I know."

No one has any idea... especially about the panic. It doesn't happen often, not nearly as often as the sniper checks. Karl and I are pretty good at keeping him out of situations that will be too stressful or trigger him.

"I think I underestimated you," my brother, who has known my husband one year longer than I have, told me.

"Karl can't come over here any more," I said, my eyes welling, "not if it reminds him of Iraq."

"Yeah... is there anything else I can do?"

"You can stop making jokes about putting one over on the government."

"Yeah, okay," he said with a sheepish laugh.

Maybe he thought it was a in-joke, not knowing that if he is joking about Karl putting one over on the government, he is denying Karl's daily life experience, but he gets it now and he won't joke about it anymore.

It was nice to have my brother recognize that there is a reason I talk to my husband firmly but calmly, a reason I avoid crowded places with him, a reason the government pays for my mortgage and everything else in my life. It was sad to see my husband in such a panic. Also, that panic set the stage for months of anger, which we are still embroiled in.

Karl is angry that he needs someone to diffuse him sometimes. Karl is angry I don't want him to use the stove. This morning we got in yet another argument about the stove. I told him I know that he won't stop using it until he recognizes he needs to stop. It has been over two years since I recognized he needed to stop using the stove, the first time he left food cooking as he left the house to go to the grocery store. He said he knows he shouldn't use the stove. He is angry. He is not angry at me.

I feel like he is angry at me, for not having brain damage... but I know not everything is about me. He is angry at himself for having brain damage and panic and anxiety and for leaving food on the stove and for not knowing when he can trust his brain and for not getting better and for getting worse and for being irrational and for being a burden and for yelling and for crying and for putting a knife in the blender.

That was this morning - he put a butter knife in the blender. While he mumbled, bewildered, at himself, not knowing why he put a knife in the blender, the kids and I laughed. I am glad they laughed. I am glad it was funny when the butter knife broke the plastic pitcher by flinging out the side, spilling coffee all over the counter. The alternative to laughing at a knife breaking my blender would be for us to join Karl in puzzling over why and how the knife got in the blender or for us to be quiet, not wanting to draw attention to poor Karl.

We don't do that. We don't pity him. We aren't easy on him. I'm not easy on him. I expect Karl to make accommodations for himself. I expect him to figure things out. If he can't, I'll help him. I am not always nice about it, but if you saw him sitting in the dirt, with Iraq in his eyes, you would understand that too.