Untouchables

It's been a year now since my husband was retraumatized in a state ordered exam, carelessly conducted by an examiner who began with the assumption that he was making up his symptoms.

It's been a year since he could touch or be touched by anyone above the age of reason, including me, without dissolving into shakes and dry heaves.  

A year, since we had a way to reconnect, to mend and recenter after the daily words that can only pull us apart, my daily desperate battle to maneuver us all into position to get through the very real daily challenges that his swiss-cheesed brain cannot see, my snapping at him to get back in sync after he has leapt to respond to the shadows of his own fears.

I dream of his touch,  I dream of us making love again; I dream of him telling me that he is done trying and that we will never touch again.  I dream, and I wake up bare inches from him.  Sometimes, in the night, he sprawls and the backs of his fingertips touch the back of my arm, and I freeze, for as long as it lasts.  That did not happen in the first months.  Even in sleep, he would convulse awake in panic.

He hasn't had stable mental health care since early summer.  Even then the facility was understaffed and could only schedule him every two weeks despite his care plan requiring multiple sessions a week.  In summer, the low income transportation service went from bad to worse, botching every other pick-up and destroying his ability to get to and from what appointments he could get.  Now the facility lost more staff and nothing is happening for two months, not the promised intern, not the promised trauma specialist, and not even a regular counselor-- just the twenty minutes even six weeks to get his meds checked.  No support for progress.  

He has no fear of dogs, cats, and very small children, including, baruch HaShem, our own-- but how is it affecting our small child, to have parents who never touch, to see no affection in his home that is not centered on him?  How does it affect our boichik's sense of empathy and peace, to be able to see us break down but never to have a visible sign that things are all right again?  But things are never all right again.  Touch was how we made them right.