Dear Deadly Duo PTSD and TBI

An open letter to PTSD and his evil henchman TBI.

Dear Deadly Duo,

You consider yourselves formidable foes, but I am not scared of you. A pair of cowardly trolls is all you are, and if I could find the bridge beneath which you cower, I would rain down deadly mortars akin to those you send to torture my husband in his nightly dreams, entombing you both in the rubble. But for now I will content myself with stabbing your effigy with venomous fervor, wishing you a slow and painful death or a quick and fiery one, I don't care, I'll take whatever I can get so long as the outcome is your ultimate demise.

And do you have nothing better to do with your spare time than sit around creating disturbingly twisted storyboards, planning out frame by frame the hellish nightmares you have in store for my husband each night? Do you enjoy watching him pass out on the couch, drunk, at 3am 'cause he can't face what you have in store for him when he climbs into bed? If you thought you were the only ones with warped minds, I have a suggestion for a new scene, it shows TBI rolling up one of those drawings into a tight tube and cramming it up PTSD's ass!

Oh Wizard of PTSD, why do you insist on using your evil black magic to transport my husband back to Iraq with cruel and realistic flashbacks. I cannot reach him when you do that, dangling him within my grasp but out of my reach is nothing short of mental abuse. If you're looking for something to abuse I suggest you lock yourself in a closet and abuse your d**k! That is of course if you can find it, and if you can't, I'm sure your boyfriend TBI knows exactly where it is seeing how it has his name tattooed on it and all.

And speaking of TBI, I thank you for the gift of patience although I expect to have several years tacked on to both mine and my husband's lives for all those times he's sat on the couch in suspended animation during his 50-yard-stare episodes. And for all those times I have sat by his side waiting for him to free himself from a bout of stammering before he can start a sentence or engaged in a conversation twice as long as it needed to be as it was peppered with ums and uhs. And for robing him of his career twenty years before he was due to retire for which I should be sending you an invoice by the way. But what's the point? You are the poorest of the poor, and have no worth from which to pay him.

I should thank you also for teaching me how to survey my surroundings in order to forewarn my husband of potential triggers. And for showing me and the kids how to conduct ourselves in a calm and quiet manner so as not to startle him. My hope however PTSD, is that while you're setting one of the booby traps that triggers his anxiety, it will detonate in your face. And don't count on TBI to save you, he doesn't remember anything he learned about first aid, he'd be too confused and disoriented in a stressful situation such as that. Chances are you'd bleed out before help arrived, that is with any luck.

You think you hold all the cards, that all the power is in your hands. It is true that one of you alone could inflict enough damage to do the job quite nicely but still insist on tag teaming without having the decency to play by the rules while one of you waits outside the ropes. I call bullshit on that, two against one are unfair odds, but it's not two against one, I am right by his side to defend and fight back. Deadly duo? I think not. Go crawl back under that bridge from whence you came and hide like the cowards you are. As for me, I'll never stop hunting you down, mortars at the ready.