Oddly enough, this was the last of my spouse’s three deployments that I expected significant problems. I was on high guard about our reintegration. I prepared for and felt it wasn’t going to be as difficult as it could be. Ten years of marriage and three kids into a relationship, you’d think we’d have an asphalt-laid path in the right direction.
Yet, circumstances are different.
Deployments are different.
My husband had exited active duty several years prior and had spent this deployment as a National Guardsman in a very different MOS from before. When he returned home, he said he felt like he had gone from doing successful, do-good work, going 90 MPH in the fast lane to a screeching halt, puttering down a single lane in stop-and-go traffic.
His stressors had changed. His anxiety had exploded. Everything was different.
How could that be?
“It can be an extremely difficult experience,” explained Dr. Matthew Friedman, the Executive Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for PTSD. “You go from an environment where your primary focus is survival but you are trained extensively for it and you have group cohesion and the general support structure of your platoon, company, battalion and so on to help you deal with troubling emotions and symptoms and keep it contained…Focusing specifically on National Guard and Reservists who return to a civilian environment, when you come home, there is no formal support structure anymore. There is no training for the daily routine.”
So, how does a veteran know when to seek help? If PTS is incredibly commonplace and readjustment emotions are undoubtedly expected, how does a soldier (and a soldier’s family) know when to seek help?
Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. My answer is different than yours and we are still seeking help for our answer.
