I will be the first to say that I am not a mentally healthy person. I have endured some very traumatic experiences throughout the course of my life, and they have certainly made being a military wife an even more difficult experience than what it is for the average person. I was first diagnosed with clinical depression and post traumatic stress disorder at the age of 8 years old by a social worker that I can't even remember meeting. In fact, I don't remember much at all from my childhood until I'm about 13 or 14, and most of what I do remember is school related. Almost none pertains to my home life, and most of what I do know I've had to piece together throughout the years by what little information I can get from my family and the tiniest scraps of memory that I have. Most of what I remember I wish I didn't.
These days I live with the diagnoses of clinical depression, PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder which is another thing I have most likely had since I was a child. I also strongly suspect that I suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder as well, but have not been diagnosed officially by a mental health professional. Unfortunately the woman that I went to see dismissed my concerns stating that were I to have said disorder that she would be able to tell the moment I walked through the door. Did you know diagnostic medicine worked that way? Why didn't anyone tell me?! In regards to BPD I do display many of the symptoms. I am a championship compartmentalizer and am often very dissociated from my feelings. I've had self harm and suicidal ideations since I was about 10, and my ability to control my emotions is pretty much nil even now at 21 years of age. All three of the other disorders that I have are also very commonly found in conjunction with BPD, and I have alot of the behavior characteristics such as black-and-white thinking and an intense fear of abandonment.
So how does this play into military life?
Well, to start my husband leaving for basic training was a deeply traumatic experience for me. I ended up in the hospital three times for anxiety attacks. I couldn't watch any commercials because I would start to cry uncontrollably. I had at least 3 anxiety attacks a week. I barely ate and hardly slept. I'm pretty sure my husband got more sleep in basic than I did while he was in basic. For the first two weeks he was gone I couldn't go anywhere without the buildabear's we had made for each other before we left. For me it wasn't like he had just gone and was coming back later; it was like he had died and was never coming home. I was convinced that the man who would be at the graduation would be nothing but a shell of the man I once loved replaced with someone new who the Navy had brainwashed to be what they wanted. Consequently I was heartbroken. Even now just thinking about it makes me want to cry.
This may sound extreme, and in truth it is, but for me losing someone I loved so much was the worst thing that could have happened. I had finally found someone who I really, truly believed loved and cared about me and actually accepted me for who I was... and still loved me. For someone who had spent their whole life feeling rejected and unwanted that was, and is, a monumental thing. And that was taken away from me, or so I thought, and that was devastating. Crushing. Heartbreaking. It was by far the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It physically hurt me, and took a huge toll on my health. It took 6 months of intense work, endless patience from my husband who deserves more credit than he will ever get, and more love than I ever thought I would receive from another human being in my life.
So how did we conquer this? Ironically, through baby steps. Yep. Nothing exciting. Just baby steps. With all the stuff I went through in basic I have developed a PTSD response to just about anything Navy related. I still, nearly two years later, cannot listen to the opening lines of the oath that they all say without crying. Even thinking about it now I'm tearing up. I don't watch the news, and every time Curt(one of my managers at work) turns on the news if I'm in the breakroom he has to promise me that he'll change the channel if anything about ISIS comes on. I can't handle it. It brings all those feelings back and throws me into emotional despair. PTSD never really leaves you. Thankfully, it can be managed and made better, and one of the best things Cameron and I ever did was realize that I needed to experience everything in baby steps. So to start things were small. He would tell me something silly that happened while he was in class training or that he was experiencing "death by powerpoint" as we call it. I would hear about some cool event they were doing. Just little day to day things. As we moved on and he realized that I could handle more he would tell me something slightly bigger. And once I was okay with that I would hear something slightly bigger than that. I was certainly not perfect, and I'm certainly not now, but it helped to keep things in what was maybe slightly uncomfortable, but not unbearable so I could learn to cope.
Today, a year and a half later, things are better, but there are still things that upset me. I still can't hear the oath. I still left the house and cried at the park up the road when my husband moved his uniforms into the rental house when I stayed down there for a month after our wedding. I still absolutely refuse to go on any military base without Cameron there to hold my hand(I also won't drive on, seeing as how I freak out about having my ID ready at least two miles before the checkpoint), and I'm still way too afraid to go on the carrier for a tour, but I've never liked boats so that's just like combining two fears into one there :P But I'm better than where I was, and that for now is a good start to make. I will never be 100% comfortable in the military world. I just know that about myself. I don't fit in, and it has left me with many mental scars, and I'm okay with that. Why? Because I look at where I am now, and I realize that I would have never learned so much about how to cope with things I find to be unpleasant and painful without this experience. I was able to have a calm, rational conversation with my husband about how it bothered me that his job is essentially helping people to kill other people(yes, they may be bad people, but I'm very sensitive and I just can't justify it in any capacity :/ you're talking to the woman who cried watching people hack up live lobsters on Iron Chef America, okay? I have a really big heart). For me that is monumental. Seriously. To be able to calmly explain my feelings and what triggered me is an immensely big deal for me, and I know that Cameron was incredibly proud of me for how well I handled that. A year ago I would have been screaming, crying, and freaking the freak out. And I didn't do that. Instead, I handled it in the right way, and I'm so proud of myself for doing so.
Being a navy wife is certainly not my calling in life, and it's certainly not something I want to do a minute longer than I have to, but I am grateful for the experience and for learning more and more about myself as time goes on. It may not be easy, but it has brought growth to my relationship with my sweetie, and my own personal growth as well. If I can do it... well, not everyone can. But there are certainly more people out there who could if they wanted to. If the mentally ill girl can take it on then you can too!
I have a wonderful quote that I had tattooed on my shoulder, and it's one we could all stand to remember every once in awhile: "And this, too, shall pass". Whatever we are going though, good or bad, will always pass in time. So whether you're a navy wife wishing for escape from military life, or someone who's just struggling with their chemistry homework(... nope, that would never, ever be me!) things will always end, and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel as long as we are willing to continue to make a single step forward at a time. And that's just what I intend to do.
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