Military Spouse: Thy name is Isolation

Military Spouse: Thy name is Isolation

I have been awake for more than 24 hours now. A good chunk of that time has been spent pondering what it is like to have real friends, to put down long term roots somewhere, to wake up each day and not wonder if today is the day the rug will get ripped out from under me again. I wonder if normal people worry about these things all the time the way every military spouse I know does.

Recently I was interviewed for an article about military spouses and higher education.  When asked what the hardest thing about going to college is for military spouses, I must confess, it boils down to a profound sense of isolation. On the one hand, many military people don’t understand my drive and imperative to get my education. This leaves me feeling out of touch with the military community. At the same time, I find that civilians, while completely understanding of my intellectual drivers, have no understanding of the extreme uncertainty that pervades every aspect of military life. For them, my husband’s absence is akin to a business trip.

This lack of understanding by civilians for the differences imposed by military life, leads to an even more profound sense of isolation, because on some intrinsic level, you know they don’t get what it is like to never feel settled anywhere and to perpetually miss out on the little important things of everyday life, like dinner with your spouse. They don’t understand what it is like to cram 6 months or a year worth of marriage into a few hours or maybe, if I am lucky, a few weeks. There’s no understanding of the profound sense of loss I feel each time he leaves. Nor is there understanding for the fact that though my spouse is stateside (lucky me, let me tell you), I may not get to talk to him for days at a time. This is not simply a result of his hours, but it’s also in part a result of my school hours. We usually get a narrow window to chat, on the days we do talk. If for some reason, my schedule or his shifts and closes that window, I find myself feeling profoundly guilty for choosing to pursue my education rather than soak up every precious minute I can get with him.

I find I try mightily to keep all the plates spinning despite all of the profound anxiety I feel on a nearl daily basis. Sometimes these plates come crashing down, sometimes without warning. There is no understanding for that either. After all, as one civilian told me, everyone has problems.

The longer I live like this, the more I come to understand why so many military spouses isolate themselves from the broader community. It’s just easier to stick with people who share the same experiences you do and who understand the sacrifices you make every day that those who live outside this military life never see. I admit that more and more frequently I think about how much I truly wish I could be intellectually satisfied by being a stay-at-home wife, because it just gets harder and harder to do this alone every day.

I recently blogged about an experience that brought home to me how profoundly alone I really am. There just really is no one here in civilian land that I could call if the chips are down. My family is far away. My friends are spread out all over the country and sadly the only close long-term relationships I maintain are with other military spouses whom I have met online. They know more about my life than my “real” friends and are far more likely to pick up the phone and check in.

I tell you these things not to throw a pity party for myself, but because I am convinced that many military spouses feel every ounce of the isolation I feel. Some probably feel it even more acutely than I do. They are real people you walk past in the supermarket, the library stacks, at the community pool. You don’t see them because they look like you. They know, just as I do, that after over a decade of war, the American public doesn’t want to hear our deployment struggles, or our isolation during a training cycle. They don’t want to hear about loneliness, physical and mental injuries, or death. We just suck it up and drive on the best we can.

Some of us do this by becoming incredibly gruff and impersonal, holding everyone at arm’s length. Some of us wear our hearts on our sleeve. Many of us focus on external events and activities, outside of our own particular needs to try to deflect anyone from looking too closely at our wounds. When people do ask us how we are doing, we are rarely sure whether you are asking because you genuinely want to know how crazy things are for us at the moment or whether this is simply the standard, obligatory greeting. We worry it will be followed by a hurtful comment in response to our answer that tries to minimize our pain. Many of us deflect these questions because we are utterly afraid of honestly answering it. This further enforces isolation from the community.

The problem with this isolation is that it leads down the dark hole to depression, anxiety, and potentially suicide. It is no secret that military spouse suicides are on the rise, as more and more spouses crack under the constant stress. The very last thing our community needs, from within or without, are people who minimize the very real feelings military spouses have and thereby further isolate them. 

As we all learned this spring from Jessica, the person who seems to be handling things well, who seems confident and self-assured, may be the person most at risk. It behooves us all to take a moment and really assess, how well do we know the military spouses in our lives? Would we be able to see the warning signs if they were on the edge? Would we be trusted enough to do something if we did see it? Do we even know the difference between false bravado and the real man or woman behind the mask? If we don’t, we probably should.

After nearly 4 years in one place, I find myself questioning whether anyone here could honestly answer these questions about me. I wonder, if after I leave this place, will anyone even have noticed I was here? A big part of me feels that much like a pebble tossed in the ocean does not significantly disrupt the tide,   when I move on to the next new place I will have been just as influential. It’s pretty depressing. But planting gardens you will never see grow to fruition is just part of how military life is.

As the sun rises and I finally have worn myself so thin that I might be able to sleep for a few hours before the bed becomes an enemy reminder of how isolated I am, I hope that something I have said will prick someone’s heart to take the time and look after the military families in their community. I honestly believe that one day, it could save a life.