My partner is suffering from a brain injury, PTSD and anger issues from an assault last year. She has very little support, living in emergency accommodation and I travel to her as much as I can.
When I arrived a few days ago she was very hyped up and upset (this happens a lot and it’s like she switches into a different person). She didn’t get much sleep and was being affected by different triggers around her such as being in the town centre after picking me up from the train station. We walked to the bus stop but one of the roads was closed on the route so she got very upset, couldn’t process it and blamed me for saying it might be open when it wasn’t.
We had to catch a tram and she gets very distressed when people don’t wear masks and I dread going anywhere where masks are compulsory because she can’t cope with that. Two women got on without masks and were getting close and flaunting it. I could see my partner getting very distressed and she began kicking the tram wall because she couldn’t handle it. Usually I move us to different seats but they were all full. I get scared when she reacts like this and mutters swear words and passive aggressive comments at them because I worry someone one day will snap and be aggressive because of her reactions. This is especially worrying if it’s when I am not there. When we got off she was very angry with me that I didn’t say anything to them but I am not a confrontational person and I know, as much as I hate it, people not wearing masks is becoming more common and we need to get used to it but she can’t see it like that. She wanted to chase after them and then triggers kept happening like people riding electric scooters on the pavement which she threatened to me she wanted to push off their scooters. I don’t know what to do in that situation except try and soothe her to calm down and ignore them but she can’t. I don’t know the area well and it was so busy so I couldn’t just take her inside somewhere. Can anyone think of any ways I could have made the situation better?
I struggle with anxiety so social situations can be quite mortifying but I try and work on that. Now that we got off the tram she was set on not getting transport with me because I won’t tell people off so we have to walk by a busy main road and this means she is extremely upset and triggered because she was hit by a car. But considering how upset she was by the tram this seemed like the only option. She spotted the same model of car that hit her pass us and park near us so started shouting and screaming and telling me to take photos of it. I do as she says as I want the situation to end and people stare, and I get scared we will be approached so I think I try and diffuse it as fast as possible. I get her to face away from it, to breathe and focus on me but nothing seems to work and all she can think about is safety and her hotel was still far. Does anyone have any kind of advice of things I can do in the future when this happens? Avoiding walking by roads and using transport is just not an option as we need her integrated back into normal life as much as possible and it’s helpful for her recovery. A lot of her reactions are anger and frustration directed at me so I find it very difficult as I know I don’t deserve it and I tend to tell her how that makes me feel but it makes her shut down and call herself a bad girlfriend and jumps to extremes when I just want us to improve together.
Sorry for the long post