I'm About to Explode, I'm About to Strangle: Emotional Experiences of Turkish Veterans and Their Spouses Diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Introduction: The aim of this study is to examine in depth the experiences of Turkish veterans diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and their spouses in the dimension of affective development in the light of their trauma experiences with a qualitative design and phenomenological approach.

Methods: The study group of the research consisted of 21 veterans diagnosed with PTSD and accepted as veterans, and the spouses of the 21 veterans. The data of the study were collected through in-depth interviews with the participants used a semi-structured interview form (Appendıx). Data analyses were performed used the MAXQDA 2020 software.

Results: Study, the main themes determined as pretraumatic positive emotions and posttraumatic negative emotions. There were 4 themes under negative emotions after trauma and 24 sub-themes under 4 themes.

Discussion and conclusion: As a result of the study, it was understood that trauma experience and PTSD affect the affective development dimension of veterans and their spouses at different levels, and these effects have negative elements. According to these findings, it was determined that veterans and their spouses need psychosocial services that address the affective development dimension.