I'm a former Navy Corpsman dating an Army Veteran. And hes very sweet. Honestly its hard to believe this guy was prior service infantry because he's just a big teddy bear.
Well one time we were cuddling, and I felt his breathing changed. At first I thought he was just getting excited.
Then I felt him trembling.
Then I looked at his eyes.
And immediately I knew something was wrong.
I backed off and tried to talk him down but he was going into a full blown panic attack, I couldnt' get close to him because he kept backing away telling me he didn't want to be touched.
I kept my distance but it genuinely hurt to see him like that.
It took him awhile to calm down, and then he started apologizing profusely saying he thought he was over that.
I asked him what was wrong, and turns out he was sexually assaulted at his old unit and he thought he was over it, but as he described 'I don't know why, but suddenly nothing felt right.'
He kept apologizing over and over again to the point where it almost sounded like he was broken recording, like the same tone being repeated on a loop.
I wasn't terrified of him.
But it was honestly heartbreaking to see.
He's in therapy, has been for awhile, but hes terrified I'm going to leave him now because I saw him break down like that.
Then he proceeded to tell me that he was dating someone previously, and when they saw he had an anxiety attack, they then proceeded to use it in their next argument and now hes scared I'm going to do the same.
So I'm dealing with someone who has Trauma from a previous SA and trauma from an abusive relationship.
I'm a corpsman but I don't know how to deal with this