Quiet Confessions, Episode 30 - The Other Side of Trauma: A Partner's Perspective

Content Warning: This episode discusses sensitive topics, including suicide and psychiatric hospitalization. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help. 

In this special Quiet Confessions mini-episode, Chelsea's partner, Ben, steps behind the mic to share his perspective on the intense trauma the family has navigated over the last three years, brought on by severe PMADS (Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders). 

As Chelsea has been battling a respiratory virus and completely lost their voice, this created the perfect opportunity to start sharing a partner's side of the journey, which is something we'd like to continue from time to time moving forward.

Ben speaks with raw honesty about the loss of trust when Chelsea conveyed suicidal ideation. He reveals the immense pressure he felt, encapsulated by his belief: "it was my job to make sure that Chelsea was happy... because if I don't, they will die".

He discusses using EMDR therapy to process memories of watching Chelsea taken away in an ambulance for their first inpatient stay, and the powerlessness of feeling unable to "fix" mental health. 

🗝️Key Takeaways

• The Partner's Burden: Ben felt extreme stress and anxiety because he believed it was his responsibility to ensure Chelsea's happiness, which translated to keeping them alive, leading to him putting aside his own needs.
• Trauma and Powerlessness: Key traumatic memories involved feeling powerless: watching Chelsea leave in an ambulance for inpatient mental health treatment , and dealing with Chelsea's suicidal intent.
• The Fixer Shift: Ben utilized EMDR therapy to let go of the "fixer" role , learning to compartmentalize and accept that an update about a bad day was a report, not a request for a solution.
• Trust and Communication: Rebuilding the foundation required Ben to learn to trust Chelsea's claims that they were okay and to use articulation to clarify needs: "Is this something that you need me to act on? Or is this something that you just want me to know?".
• Mandatory Self-Care (Adjusted Load): With Chelsea permanently disabled, Ben cannot "pick up all the slack". Survival requires lowering expectations (e.g., easy meals, not folding laundry) and acknowledging that you can only do what you can do. Asking for help is critical. 

💬Sound Bites

• "I said, because if I don't, they will die."
• "Watching those doors close and watch the ambulance leave knowing that there wasn't anything I could do and feeling like I wasn't a good enough partner because I couldn't fix this."
• "Now I'm able to understand if they say they're having a bad day, they're just letting me know."
• "Is this something that you need me to act on? Or is this something

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

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Transcript

Ben Edmonds (00:43)
Hey folks, welcome to Quiet Confessions. A mini episode where typically my spouse Chelsea would spend 30 minutes or less catching you up on what's new in our world. As Chelsea has been battling a respiratory virus and completely lost their voice, we thought it might be the perfect time to try something new. I'm Ben, by the way, probably should have said that sooner.

I'm Chelsea's husband, so if you're looking for a partner's perspective on what it's like recovering from the traumas brought on by severe PMADS, well, here it is.

One of the major things that changed for me during Chelsea's struggle with PMADS was being able to trust that they were okay.

For a long time, it was very difficult for me to be able to believe that they didn't need me to fix every problem that they had, which put a lot of pressure on me. We were in a couples counseling session, and I had said that it was my job to make sure that Chelsea was happy. And our therapist asked why.

and I replied with what my gut feeling was, you know, without really thinking about it too much, and I said, because if I don't, they will die. So when a partner has looked at you in the eye and told you that they think that you and your children would be better off without them, that creates a deep crack in the trust between the two parties. And...

That couple's counseling session was the first time that I had really verbalized why I was so stressed out about making sure that Chelsea was always happy. This realization ⁓ steered me in the direction of

doing another session of EMDR therapy, which has been very successful for me in the past. I used it after my near fatal motorcycle accident to be able to drive again, and it has helped immensely in that regard. So I was hoping that it would help in this regard as well, and it did. We were able to...

isolate and identify specific memories that made me feel powerless and that lack of being able to do anything to alleviate your partner's suffering was a huge stressor for me because I'm a fixer. I like to get things fixed and I like to

provide solutions for problems. this was, you mental health journeys are not something that you can just, you know, go to the hardware store and get parts to fix it. Some of the memories we focused on was ⁓ watching Chelsea be taken away in an ambulance to their first stay at their inpatient mental health institution.

and how it felt to watch those doors close and watch the ambulance leave knowing that there wasn't anything I could do and feeling like I wasn't a good enough partner because I couldn't fix this. And that powerlessness and that pain was very overwhelming.

I actually called my therapist sitting there on the curb after the ambulance had left and just stated where I was at and my therapist just listened and provided support. She's very good at what she memories like that were chiefly what we were.

working toward and it wasn't just memories about Chelsea we also discussed the trauma of having to put our cat down ⁓ and how you know that's another type of situation where you feel totally powerless you can't do anything to fix old age and saying goodbye to a pet they've had they've had for 18 years is immensely painful always so ⁓

It wasn't just memories about Chelsea, it was other things that produced that feeling of powerlessness in a person.

So one of the, or the final memory that we discussed was that memory of Chelsea's final inpatient ⁓ hospital stay at UVM. ⁓

and when they told me that essentially they wanted to die and

processing that.

looked like.

acknowledging that it wasn't my fault. It wasn't because I wasn't good enough as a partner, as a husband, that they were going through this. It wasn't me. It didn't have anything to do with me. ⁓ Knowing what we know now, could very well have been a friggin brain tumor. ⁓

that definitely did contribute. don't think it was the sole source, but it was definitely a major contributor. And being able to accept that and sort of unshoulder that burden was a huge step in my recovery and...

ability to start rebuilding the trust that I had lost, that foundation that had been shattered when Chelsea said that they wanted to die.

Before I was able to finish my EMDR sessions, obviously there was plenty of time to put what I was learning into practice. I think it took maybe six weeks of EMDR before I got through all of the memories that we had chosen to work through.

In the meantime, before I really had a handle on accepting that it wasn't my responsibility to keep my partner happy, which translated to keeping them alive, there was a lot of constant ⁓ worry and...

anxiety about any time that they would text me at work saying that they were having a bad day or that they were having a flare day and they had a headache and feeling like every time they reached out to me that was a request for me to find a way to fix their problem when really it was just a report of how they were doing so that I knew what to expect when I got home.

Coming to terms with that took some doing. Because again, I'm a fixer. So to not fix something and to just hear about it is very difficult for me. But I've been practicing and I've gotten a lot better at it. But in those days, it felt as though...

I had to walk on eggshells all the time and everything that I did, I had to put aside anything that I wanted to do to make sure that Chelsea was happy so that they would stay alive. That's what it felt like.

Before the EMDR, some of the ways that my anxiety manifested was putting extra pressure on Chelsea to just not reach out with negative things while I was at work. I basically asked them to not text me when they were having a bad day.

because I couldn't do anything about it and it totally ruined my state of mind at work. And now, because of the EMDR therapy, being able to compartmentalize and understand that it wasn't a request for a solution, it was just a report on how they were doing.

Now I'm able to understand and says they're having a bad day, they're just letting me know. And I just need to support them. I just need to be there to listen and to reassure and to...

be there as a partner.

Being able to let go of the burden of having to fix everything was a huge help. It was a long journey, but it was a huge help.

The other thing that I had to learn to trust was knowing that when Chelsea said they were okay, that they were okay.

There was a period of time where I couldn't trust when they told me they were okay. Or I didn't trust when they told me they were okay.

my faith in their resilience was dramatically shaken by what happened in the hospital and their whole journey altogether.

So being able to understand that they are not in the same place and they are not under the same stressors and they really can tell me that they are fine and I can believe them that they are fine. Being able to accept that took a lot of work.

Now I have a habit of asking them when I am unclear if they're asking for a solution or not, I will just say, is this something that you need me to act on? Or is this something that you just want me to know? Being able to articulate that has been a huge step in our relationship in smoothing out times of anxiety, stress, or strife.

If you've been keeping up with Chelsea's story, we now understand there were physical aspects of their post-partum mental health journey that we didn't know about at the time, namely a pituitary tumor in their brain which ruptured.

Having a partner... Well, let's back up. Because of this ruptured brain tumor essentially, Chelsea is now permanently disabled. They have a handicap, placard, they are on disability, and they can't hold a normal job because they are still working on recovering.

from all of the extensive trauma they have experienced in the last three years.

The reality of this is I now have to find new ways to keep my own cup full, to dodge burnout as best I can. With my own personal work life being extremely taxing right now, with the, there's a hiring freeze where I work and we are significantly understaffed.

and underpaid, all that good stuff. between the work stressors and now having to pick up the slack when Chelsea is having a flare day or like now when they are sick, I have to be careful about how I expend my energy and I have to be cognizant of how I replenish my energy. Being able to balance that is a

monumentally important thing for a partner to do. If you just try to grit your teeth and do it all, you will, and I'm speaking from experience, lash out at your family, not be able to sleep,

it will be a miserable existence. It's just not possible. There's too much for one person to do, taking care of an entire family of four and holding a 40 hour a week job. It's too much. So there are times will say I'm just, I'm just not, I can't cook today. I just can't do it. I'm not going to cook. We usually, we have a

prepared meal service that we subscribe to that I it has become my sole responsibility to prepare because Chelsea has a very difficult time standing for that long and being in front of a hot stove and things like that they're very exhausting for them

So cooking dinner has fallen on me and also Chelsea's home with the kids all day and yeah it's just too much to ask them to also cook dinner. However sometimes it's also too much to ask me to cook dinner so on those days I make sure to communicate with Chelsea that I'm struggling too and maybe tonight it's just spaghetti or you know soup and grilled cheese or something that's very easy to prepare.

and Chelsea and I had a discussion at one point that really helped kind of clarify things for me because I was under the assumption that if Chelsea was running at 20 % I needed to run at 80 so that we always equaled 100%. What Chelsea was able to make clear was that was not the case.

If they were at 20 and I was at 50, that was it. There was no need for me to provide that extra 30 % out of nothing.

Being able to acknowledge that it was not my responsibility to completely make up for everything and anything Chelsea wasn't able to do anymore every single day was a huge load off my shoulders. So you can only do what you can do.

It's not your responsibility to pick up all the slack when a partner is not up to the task. You pick up as much slack as you can and you lower your expectations.

You're not gonna have a home cooked meal that takes an hour to prepare. You're gonna have something that's out of a box that's ready in 10 minutes.

you're not going to be able to take the kids sledding or hiking when you're exhausted so you put on a movie instead. There are other ways to occupy your family's time and to find strategies to get through the everyday chores that are less demanding than your typical standard.

trick is to find those, whether that's disposable plates and bowls for a while to ease up on dishes or...

making a mountain of laundry on one of the chairs in the living room because you just don't have the energy to fold at all. That's what it is. There's nothing wrong with that. You're not weak or lazy for taking shortcuts when people are completely burnt out and drained.

Other strategies involve not taking on everything yourself. Ask your family or friends for a hand. A lot of times people feel like they are a burden when they reach out to ask for help. And that does a disservice for the people that love them because those people are yearning to help to ease the burden. So it's critical not to be afraid.

to reach out to people. Being open and vulnerable is how we build communities like this that Chelsea has forged from the ground up. I'm so proud of them for everything they've built. But you can't get that without vulnerability. You have to let people know that you are struggling to find out sometimes that they are struggling with the same thing.

And by building that community, we can share the load of our struggles and make things easier. Reaching out is critical. You're not a burden for asking for help. You're just human.

I guess in conclusion, it's really important to be open and honest with your partner, to communicate effectively, and to understand what they're asking from you if they're telling you that they're having a bad day. It took a lot, but realizing

Not every complaint or update that they weren't having a good day was a request for help. It wasn't a plea, it was just a report. To be acknowledged and filed away so that you can adjust your strategy of what to expect when you get home. Being able to have that opportunity is a benefit.

It's not intended to be a burden. It's intended to be a heads up so that you can adjust your expectations for what the afternoon is going to look like. Being able to accept that has been huge. So if you're out there, you're a partner of someone who is disabled or someone who is having struggles with mental health, know that you're not alone.

and know that other people have gotten through this and you can get through it too. The only way is through and some of these strategies I hope will be able to help other people like me get through these kinds of challenges. I don't wish this on anyone but for those of you going through it there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is an end and you will get there.

This is hopefully going to become a semi-regular thing where I get to check in with you all too. So if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to let us know on any of our social media channels or by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hopefully by next Thursday you'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming and Chelsea will be back up on their feet. But until then, they want me to remind you to refill your water bottle and do something nice for yourself today.

I'm gonna add, have a snack, because snacks are great. Thanks for letting me hang out with you for a bit.