Hi everyone. My husband suffered a severe TBI back in Feb after falling from a skateboard. Glasgow coma scale of 7 upon admission to the hospital. ICU for a week, rehab for six weeks. He lucked out because he has no medical issues or physical side effects. He was doing really well for a long time, emotionally, and now he's just stressed and emotional and taking things personally...

He was supposed to ramp up to forty hour work weeks over an extended period of time, but he only took about a month to do so. I think this was a mistake. Since his forty hour work weeks started, he has been so irritable. Anything I do or say can set him off.... Anything that anyone says or does can set him off, though I'm the only person to really see it because he expresses himself to me. If I try to talk about things with him, if I try to troubleshoot or share observations about his behavior, I'm accused of micro-managing and blaming everything on his brain injury and being an *edit*. He won't give anyone the benefit of the doubt for anything, and he takes his interpretations of people's motives as gospel truth. I have to admit, I'm not exactly a stable rock and I deal with my own mental health issues (depression) and I'm having to handle this situation without family support or close friends, as we are overseas. I also miss my best friend (husband), who was my rock prior to this injury. I'm sure my emotionality is not helping the situation. Anyway..

He had bad habits prior to the injury such as not sleeping enough, occasional smoking, drinking too much coffee, and he is sliding back into those habits. If I talk to him about these habits, again, I get accused of micro-managing. I don't even approach these subjects often... It's just that if it's even discussed, he freaks on me.

I'm trying to decide if I should go to his boss (he's in the military so things can be worked out) and ask him to figure out a way to give my husband a break for a few more weeks, but I know if my husband finds out it will **** him off royally. I think scaling back by a couple hours a day would be beneficial to him. Is there something I'm not thinking of? Is there a better way to talk to him about things? I know it's impossible to eliminate all negative responses and outbursts are par for the course with his recovery.

I feel so lost.

Emily