Why dont people respond when I talk do they not care

What happened to listening to me and replying to what I said?

Sharing is Caring

It’s so hurtful when people just wait for us to stop talking so that they can start again. But, is that what is really happening?

As Veterans, we read letters differently than most civilians do. From Boot Camp to EAS, we lived and breathed from the letters we received. Getting a letter was a MASSIVE thing. We focused on each word and formed serious mental pictures. We wanted to imagine everything that was happening during the exact time they were writing the letter.

We also have conversations in a similar manner. It was important to understand every detail of the mission plan right?

A simple line such as: “Picture it, 1981-ish, I’m at my aunt’s house.” doesn’t mean much to most civilians. To us however, that simple line contains at least 4 things that serve as way points in the conversation.

For example:

1. “picture it” = ok, I’m sitting down, I’ve turned everything else off. I do not care about anything else starting right now.

2. “1981-ish” = remembering the cars of the era, imagining all things 1981ish.

3. How old was the Aunt? What color was her hair? Was she happy that day? Was she wearing a perfume? Was she casually dressed, dressed as she was returning from work, going to work, the grocery store, etc, or sitting around in sweat pants watching tv?

4. What kind of house is it? What color is it? How does the lawn look? Was it wintertime and snow was on the ground?

Veterans, we get it, right?

As we move along in the civilian world and have conversations with people, we start to figure out that we look kind of funny asking about the Aunts hair color and what the lawn looks like at her house… However, since we are a new civilian, we are still thinking that everyone does this too, you know, just like all of our brothers and sisters in arms do that we left not so long ago.

As the days, months, and years go by, we start to learn that maybe some details are not really that critical to the conversation. While they are still important to us, we now know that we can not expect every person that we talk to give us those details.

As more time passes we begin to notice that the people we are talking to are not asking for the same details from our story. We are like huh, why not? Do they not care about what we are saying? I mean we already understand that a mental picture of everything is not something most people do, but why not acknowledgement of what we said? Why no questions for way points? Wait, why are there no way points to begin with? We opened our heart and said some serious stuff!

The immediate thought is forget this, I’m never saying anything real again. The person we are talking to seems to be so focused only on hearing themselves talk. They seem to be just impatiently waiting for us to finish getting the words out so that they can start talking again.

With strangers, this may in fact be true. With actual friends and loved ones, the reasons may be different than you ever imagined.

Its quite possible that your friends and loved ones are actually looking out for you.

They may be skipping certain parts of our conversation because they honestly don’t want to trigger anything in our past history. Since they are a good friend or family member, they know that sometimes when we talk, they feel it gets pretty deep for us (the Veteran). So they may be so kind as to try and avoid triggering something for us.

They may be honestly considering that we have been through some serious shit. They are considering the fact that they can not imagine nor even possibly understand. They may even be factoring for the things that we are not even allowed to talk about. Some may even understand that there is a personal cost for us that comes later (after sharing the story). Some may even consider the after effects on your immediate family and don’t want to create more repair work for the spouses or those we trust.

In other words, it’s because they care about us.

Mind blown right? If you owe some friends and family members apologies, its never too late to reach out. Remind them that you are still learning and may have misunderstood some things. Stay on the path to PTSD recovery, its important to the entire Veteran community that you do. You are not alone in the struggle, you are not crazy. You are in fact important to us all.

Thank you to our contributing author, Shawn Kurschner.

pet supplements for dogs and cats 300 x 250