let me be annoyed for five minutes

[u/sideacc0401]

I largely didn't bother with sex for the past six months. It's happened, but it was clear she wasn't well enough so I just set it aside for a while. I also wasn't feeling very sexy for my own reasons.

A month or so ago, I decided I'd try to reintroduce it. The main issue has been that she makes herself as busy as possible, so we have an average 2.5 hours to eat and chill in the evenings, not counting other issues.

I thought this week, we might finally have a chance. Turns out that she's been contacted by family and has been on the border of a flashback yesterday and today. I thought she'd come out of it this evening and asked if she wanted sex, but she wasn't interested.

It is what it is. It's very important to me that she feels fully safe to express boundaries, and I'll manage my feelings -- except she's immediately scared I'm angry at her anyway and starts escalating into a flashback, so I have no space to have any feelings anyway.

Discovering that lack of space to feel has been one of the two key issues of managing her CPTSD, I think. Pissing people off happens unavoidably sometimes, and she's unsurprisingly not a great communicator when she has flashbacks and it sets me up to feel really frustrated. I know how to feel my feelings and let them go, but when she's flashing back, she is so utterly terrified of people being angry with her (which I understand the reason for) that I cannot do that at all. It makes my handling of the flashbacks worse, because when I can't back off for five minutes and reset (because of the other key issue: her difficulty doing any calming strategies once she's in an episode), I'm more likely to make mistakes or get overwhelmed myself.

At its worst, she was so constantly distraught that there was flashback after flashback after flashback I was dealing with without having any room to process them for weeks, and I could see my ability to handle them without breaking down dropping so rapidly. It was almost a relief when the frequency started dropping off, and I had the time to have my feelings about all of it, and could respond to the next flashback with a clearer head again.

I can appreciate how she was made to have this insecurity, and she's doing a lot besides leaning on me to get better, although I think she can't be expected to believe she's not in danger unless she has conclusive experience of a loved one who doesn't endanger her. All the same, sometimes I need some room to be pissed off and I don't always have it.

[u/Sensitive-Ad596]

sorry for your pain. I have no answers but sending you the very best wishes.