Needing Advice due to a tragedy?

A friend of mine when through something similar years ago. A distraught young woman drove her car head first into his rig on a two lane road in Missouri. She was killed and turns out she was suicidal as well. He realized he had to make a living for his family and once he had replayed it in his mind and realized there was nothing at all he could have done to prevent the tragedy he went back to driving. I pray your husband can realize the same thing. Does the company he worked for offer counseling for employees?

 

Truly sorry that your family has to deal with this tragedy due to the selfish behavior of another. If your husband is an employee he should file a workers compensation claim, if it has not been addressed already, doing so can mitigate even more difficulty down the road. I say this as it can easily be overlooked in a situation such as this.

As you said above, there was nothing that he could have done to prevent the suicide of that individual, and the other reality is that he very likely prevented further death by controlling his rig and not involving other traffic in the incident. He should be commended for his actions as difficult as it may be for him to comprehend it at this time. Supporting him, as you obviously are set to do, and reinforcing his actions as appropriate and correct will eventually lead to him understanding he could have done nothing more, yet did everything he could have done.

I wish you and your family the strength and patience to get through this difficult time as quickly and completely as possible.

 

So sorry about what you and your husband is going thru.Counciling helps but to be honest its going to take along time for your husband to heal.I do think in time he will want to try it again but I would not try and talk him into going back.When hes ready he will.

 

I am so sorry your family is living through this experience. I am not not sure any words can ever relieve the stress of what your husband experienced. Our prayers are with you.

 

Hopefully time will heal his wounds. Meanwhile he should see what services are available to help train him for another line of work.

 

Would it be ok if you ask your husband to come on the forum and talk to other drivers?

 

Hi mamamullins. Sorry to see you and yours caught up in this mess. Post Traumatic Stress Disease is very real, and it is a true bich. Now days, people who work as first responders often have "stress debriefings," after a particularly traumatic incident. Being old school of course, a bunch of us dinosaurs laughed at "all the young kids who had to be coddled." But as the years past, we found that those "coddled kids," were doing a hell of a lot better in handling the stress than we did.

What your husband is going through is not unusual. Of course the degree varies with the individual. But one thing I want to stress here, is that he is going through a normal reaction, although perhaps to an abnormal degree. Counseling can help, but only if he is willing and ready for it. Fact is, it may take some time for him to even be ready for counseling.

OK, I'm going to scare the hell out of you with the next couple of paragraphs. I don't mean to scare you, but this is information that is vital for you to have:

The best advice I can give you and the rest of the family, is to be as supportive of him, as you would want someone to be supportive of you. OTOH, don't try to hide facts from him. I'm talking about facts of the family financial condition, and what the rest of the family is going through. He needs to know this, not as a stress inducer, (he already has plenty of that,) but to kind of keep him grounded in reality. He needs to know that he still has to take responsibility for bringing in a paycheck. This is a tightrope for you. To make him aware of this, and yet to not think you are criticizing him, is going to take a lot of thought and a lot of diplomacy on your part.

Get him into counseling just as quickly as he can handle it. This is truly urgent.

I also have to caution you about another almost unthinkable possibility here. And that is that sometimes when someone is involved in something like this, they can become suicidal! This is a real concern. If he mentions killing himself, take it seriously. If he mentions it, most likely it will be in a "joking" or "round about" way. Don't be fooled. If he is talking about it, he is thinking about it. NOW it is time to get him into counseling, even if you have to hog tie him and drag him there. One of the last signs of impending suicide is if all of a sudden his world is now OK. People who have made the decision to commit suicide will often feel like the weight of the world has been taken off of their shoulders, and they have made peace with themselves. If you notice this, it is a right now emergency. Like 911 right now. It may take some explaining on your part to get the responders to see the urgency of the situation, but you have to stick with it. Having "Joe EMT" talking to him and telling you everything is fine, don't worry, just isn't going to cut it. There are temporary commitment laws in every state, and law enforcement or medical can force a commitment on someone they believe to be "a threat to themselves or others."

Of course the above is just at the extreme end of PTSD. It is the same for extreme depression, which of course is one of the signs of PTSD. Chances are that his situation will not progress that far, but I felt you needed to know this.

I wish I knew of some "magic words" you could say that would ease his hurting, but there just aren't any. He has to come to grips with this in his own mind, in his own way. Once it has been made thoroughly clear to him, that there was
nothing he could have done to avoid or prevent this, and that in no way was it his fault, then he has to process this into his own reality.

Good luck with you.

FYI, I'm a retired trucker, who is also a retired Law Enforcement Officer, ex-firefighter, ex-medic. I'm not just talking through my rear end here. I've BTDT, suffered the PTSD, the whole bit.