‘Living in Fear’: Woman Shares How Her Family Struggles With Husband’s PTSD

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At some point in life, we may have heard about  people suffering from PTSD but won’t know much about how PTSD affects their lives. Now, one woman from Illinois decided to tell the world how her family has been struggling since learning that her husband has the condition.

Sydney Waters met her husband, Tyler, when they were in high school and went on to get married and have three children. From the surface, outsiders would think they were a happy family, but the reality is the opposite because Tyler suffers from PTSD.

Tyler, a Mundelein police officer, had gone through two combat tours as a Marine in Iraq and was a former member of the SWAT team. But after his return from deployment, Sydney started noticing that something was different with Tyler.

“He was becoming irritable and on edge,” she wrote on her Facebook page, Strollin With My Homies. “He was having night terrors. He was having panic attack’s [sic] just thinking about getting a call out.

“He would throw up at our house before he left, dry heaving on his way out of the door. He would be physically shaking and was completely withdrawn from us,” she added.

Tyler told Sydney that his chest felt tight and he couldn’t breathe. He even asked his wife to assure him that he “wasn’t dying.” As it turned out, Tyler was suffering from PTSD as a result of the combat tours.

“They had to pick up their brothers who were dead and they had to go back into the city to get other Marines who had lost their lives,” Sydney explained to CBS Chicago.

Although Tyler was sick, he couldn’t tell his boss because he was afraid of losing their only source of income. So, the couple told his boss that Sydney had postpartum depression.

However, this was not the best solution in the long run as Tyler started taking more and more days of sick leave. Eventually, the couple found an equine therapy program from a group called BraveHearts that helped, but it still could not take away all the pain and stress.

One day, an incident occurred at work that put Tyler over the edge, and he had no choice but to tell his boss about his PTSD. After all the suffering the Waters family went through, Sydney decided to tell the world about her family’s struggle.

“I am so sick of living in fear,” she explained in her post.

Sharing her story helped heal her pain.

“I was bawling writing that,” she said. “I was terrified sharing that (and) felt that I was finally letting out everything that I held inside.”

She also hopes to let those who are in a similar situation know they are not alone.

“Letting them know they are not alone,” she said. “We can get help.”