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So long story short, my wife has all the symptoms of PTSD now. Ever since middle of last year, her health has gone downhill (physical, emotional and mental). It mainly triggered from trying to having kids for 2 years, and which has led to a spiral of other things along the way that has caused a wreck in our marriage. Right now she's moody, unmotivated, 99% negative mindset, gets irritated easily, the whole nine yards of PTSD effects. Aside from trying to have kids, the biggest trauma driver has stemmed from her mom (Asian) being super strict in her bringing up. She literally had no childhood (what normal kids get to experience), she was inflicted with verbal abuse and emotions neglected. Now fast forward to a grown up adult, she's realizing all the things her mom taught her what to do in life is now the things she doesn't even want or like. It's like trying to now unlearn everything you learned growing up.
She sees her psychologist/counsellor every quarter, but I feel sometimes it does more harm than good. Doctors have good intent to help you, but her psychologist would pull up all the things from her childhood on what makes her unhappy, and it leads to her "mom". So now all the fingers point to mom as a villain aka bad guy which so much resentment. Every day is like mom this and that, all the negative things she did to her to raise her. E.g. Never let her to go out, watch tv, always criticize every little thing she did (no love at all from when she was born until now). Mom only put food on the table and that was it, and only wanted her to go to school. Every day would have negative thoughts about different things.
Now as her husband, it's so hard on me mentally and physically. I feel unmotivated and stuck in life because my wife isn't my wife (like not the same person I once met), because she doesn't know her identity and who she truly is. She's lived a life for someone else's expectations for like 40 years, now to realize that's not whom she is. She's trying to figure out whom she is, which absolutely sucks because this mental illness stuff takes a toll on the marriage.
Has anyone gone through something like this, or know of anyone similar how to heal? She still goes out to see her friends, which helps keep her in check with friendship support circle (but that's really band-aid temporarily I find because after that, she's back to her usual). She brought up the idea of moving out to live independently for awhile to find herself back, but I've kinda fought against this idea as we are married. When someone is ill, walking away from your spouse isn't the most healthiest, so kinda stuck what to do.
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