Running for Dear Life

Stacy Bannerman, one of the leading advocates for military families, has written another incisive article, “At War at Home,” which appeared on the Women’s Media Center website. This one discusses her reaction to the deployment of her own husband.

A military consultant suggested she exercise more and practice deep breathing while he was gone, because those would reduce her anxiety and improve her focus on taking care of herself while her husband was at war.  She doesn’t say if she got other advice, but she does report asking the consultant whether she had ever experienced the deployment of a partner.  Turns out she was a civilian.  With that advice, it figures.

It’s true that running and deep breathing are good for the mind and body, but her experience illustrates the point that the military leaves spouses pretty much on their own as far as mental health is concerned.

“So I run and I breathe, increasing the speed and incline, running for my husband’s life, until I am bawling on the treadmill,” Bannerman says in the article.  “And I can’t stop it—any of it.  I can’t stop running, or sobbing, or him from being gone again.  I can’t stop another endless year of isolation from family, friends, and community....I can’t halt...how my heart skips a beat when I see a dark, unfamiliar vehicle cruising toward the house.”

More than anything, she reports hating herself for feeling weak, as if worry and fear are somehow a failure to adequately buck up, and hating that the service-related psychological injuries of military spouses are being ignored--although nearly half of our nation’s military spouses report their mental health suffered while their husband or wife is deployed.

“The military offers on-line counseling, but I am already isolated enough,” Bannerman says.  Many spouses and military children (who experience the same debilitating anxieties and other psychological problems) resort to mood-enhancing drugs, presumably both prescribed and not. They listen to shallow praise for how resilient they are, get a pat on the back from time to time, and go off to breathe deeply for months at a time.