Coping with deployed loved ones

Coping when loved ones are deployed

A few thoughts to hopefully help with those of you who have loved ones deployed or if you are going to be deployed.

It's very important to stay busy so do your best to get out and be with friends and family. Preferably have a close, healthy support network you can lean on and depend upon who are trustworthy and whom you can speak deeply with.

Keep a daily journal, and ask your loved one to do the same. The beauty of this is that it is not only therapeutic for the both of you but it will help to reflect back on in the years to come and it is something nice to hand down to the children as you pass on. Don't avoid your true feelings in the journal. If you cry, write about it. If you feel angry, write about it. Let the journal capture your every feeling and experience. Writing becomes a form of exercise for the mind and soul. For a more detailed writing on journaling click here.

Try to do things in moderation. Do your very best to avoid addictions such as food, TV, alcohol, drugs, and other things which can assist you in becoming depressed.

Exercise daily by running, going to the gym, swimming or even if it is just going for a walk. It is very important to get proper fluids moving which will help counter stress and depression.

Practice some sense of spirituality. Meditation, prayer, or what ever gets you more in tune with your soul and or surroundings. If you don't have a belief system then try and get into nature and engage in your five senses; listen, touch, smell, see and get a good taste of the outdoors.

Sleep well and try your best to keep a tight schedule. It's imperative to keep on track and one way to insure you are on track is to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day and evening.

I hope this has helped. This is coming from a battle seasoned veteran whom was married during a few missions and survived. And by the way, it is quite fun to read the journals years later, they are a treasure at times to read with my daughter now.

Lots of strength and love.

A gentle warrior,

SB

Please send suggestions and feedback here.

Items in review:

1) For the kids... when the day to return got closer, she made a board-game-like display with a winding countdown of days until I return. At the end of the countdown was a picture of the entire family having fun at the beach. Make sure to put a few extra days in and then remove them as the date gets closer and more certain. You could also place little notes along the way that indicate scheduled calls etc. Send a smaller copy to the service member.

2) If you're in a non-military community let your trusted neighbors know that your spouse is away. People appreciate the fact that someone is serving for their benefit and will treat you accordingly.

3) Let your spouse know that it helps for him/her just to listen to your problems and triumphs on the phone and that you are not expecting them to conduct problem-solving while they're away.

4) Set goals for the chilren too. Ride a bike, learn the alphabet, know the times-table.

5) Encourage the service member to write a unique letter to each child in the family. This helps the service member to keep in touch with his feelings and memories of the children and takes the pressure to talk to him/her over the phone when it's expensive and potentially frightening.

6) Give each child and age-appropriate explanation of your spouse's job. For example, Daddy is fixing computers or building houses for the Army in Iraq. Otherwise children might think that the spouse is shooting and getting shot at 24/7. If he is, then figure out which euphemism to embrace. For example, my Dad is helping the people of Fallujah to hold elections while the bad guys are trying to stop the elections.

7) If you can afford to, put all the bills on auto-pay through your bank or directly. This is easy to do through the creditors these days.

8) Include a few choice pieces of the kid's schoolwork in his/her packages.

9) Make care packages with themes. Be creative and get the kids involved, mystery theme, keeping cool theme, health theme, fun theme, foot theme...

10) Buy birthday gifts in consultation with the spouse and let the children know that it's "specially from him."

Journaling

I believe that journaling is a very healthy outlet and almost formal practice towards ones well being. It can be done when one is under stress or even when one is having an elated moment in their life. What's more is that if some sense of boundries are set up, as minimal as possible, such journals are priceless to pass down through the ages to your children and then their children and then so on. Imagine if you could read your great great grand parents journal on how they argued one cold rainy night in the 1700's? In times of trial, when a person is under a lot of stress, journaling can be a much needed form of release in that it becomes self induced therapy all in itself. As an example of this I captured much of my experience of basic training in the U.S. Army via journaling and have every once in a while took it out and read it. Additionally, while serving in the military I often found myself on missions in harms way which included the end of the cold war, desert shield and desert storm where I earned 3 bronze service stars. While keeping my boundries clear, i.e. secret material, location, strategy, I managed to capture much of these conflicts in little black books which essentially became my war journals. This not only was a great form of release from a traumatic situation but also a way to capture history in the making which I could then hand down to my children whom would hand down to their children and so on. Lastly, I wrote a piece titled "Coping when loved ones are deployed" for soldiers and family members who experience war and the affects of war. In this writing, located at - http://www.scottbruno.com/deployedlovedones.htm I outline and emphasize just what I previously suggested as to why we might journal: Keep a daily journal, and ask your loved one to do the same. The beauty of this is that it is not only therapeutic for the both of you but it will help to reflect back on in the years to come and it is something nice to hand down to the children as you pass on. Don't avoid your true feelings in the journal. If you cry, write about it. If you feel angry, write about it. Let the journal capture your every feeling and experience. Writing becomes a form of exercise for the mind and soul. So I hope that in my sharing of this information it is of some help to those that may have not used the journaling technique in the past. I will testify that it's always fun to take one of those little black books out on a cold rainy day and sit in front of a fire place and read about the days gone past. I should only hope that later generations find them as interesting in capturing the "real" moments in my life. So DO, capture your moments, it is never to late to begin. Much Peace and Love, Scott Bruno