It’s hard to see the combat stress behind the jerk sometimes. You plan all the wonderful things you are going to do for your Warrior when he comes home: cooking his favorite meals, washing all his clothes so they’ll smell fresh, calling his good friends so they can plan get-togethers, etc. Then homecoming happens and he doesn’t seem that grateful. He doesn’t show up to the family events. He’s abrupt and rude. He’s completely unpredictable except that you know at some point he is going to blow. In short, he’s being an absolute jerk.

We spend a lot of time talking about the symptoms of combat stress here. It’s our feeble attempt to normalize the maddening array of confusing behaviors that the Warrior you once knew now displays. But even if you know that war has changed him, sometimes it is really hard to remember that in the heat of the moment when he’s going off at you when you were only trying your best to make him happy. His death ray stare doesn’t always inspire the “Awww, it’s okay, I understand, it’s the PTSD that’s making you act like an ass” response in our brains. More than likely, you get angry, scared, or both.

It takes a long time to really understand what makes our Warriors tick, and until that time there are a lot of hurt feelings. Jamie Keyes very honestly talks about this in the featured story this week. It tore my heart out when she said how hurt she was when she saw her son, whom she was very close to, behaving so badly towards her and her family. Luckily, Jamie is the kind of person that, even if something hurts her, she doesn’t take it lying down. She read up on combat stress while kicking her son out. She was there for him and pleaded for special considerations to be made during his hearing, but she was proud when he took responsibility for his actions.  

As time goes by though, you’ll get better and better at recognizing when his anger or apparent rudeness, while it’s directed at you, isn’t because of you. Maybe it’s a small consolation when you’re still getting yelled at, stood up, or ignored. But it’s a lot better than internalizing your loved one’s anger into your own self worth.