Dear Deployment: Is This Normal?

[Wendy Poling]

This week marks my one-year anniversary at this duty station. I remember because less than a week after I arrived my husband left for sea. He had arrived two months prior to us, which meant we ending up spending the entire summer apart.

My son and I spent the next few months getting settled into our new home. We unpacked, he started school, and we began to explore our new surroundings. For the record, I don't recommend going through the "settling in" phase of a PCS without your spouse if at all possible.

Are you in the middle of a PCS move this summer?

Is your spouse getting ready to deploy?

The emotions you experience as you face a deployment can be overwhelming, intense and frankly leave you questioning if you are normal. Plus, if you have just PCS'd the stress level triples...at least.

Over the next month we are going to be talking about the emotional cycles of deployment. I'm excited to introduce you to a few military spouse bloggers who will chime in with their advice and thoughts. They all have experienced recent deployments.

If you are new to the term "Emotional Cycles of Deployment" and like to read ahead, you can check out this great article from MilitaryOneSource.com.

Here's an excerpt:

"Keeping your emotions in balance can be a real challenge when your spouse is deployed. You are likely to experience different emotions in clearly defined stages, starting when you first learn about the deployment and continuing until well after your spouse has returned. As you go through this "emotional cycle of deployment," you may experience feelings ranging from fear, anger, and loneliness to joy, relief, and anticipation. Sometimes you may feel a combination of these emotions all at one time."

Whether this is your first deployment or your tenth, in my opinion they are all different and they don't get easier. However, they all have the ability to make us stronger and more resilient to withstand the twists and turns this crazy, amazing military life has to offer.

Join us next week as we highlight "Hearing the News" of deployment and what emotions you might experience.

[Karen Francis]

Since we just started on the 4th deployment a couple of days ago, I can safely say the weeks before deployment are a mixture of wonderful and awful. We had just gone through the "maybe we are, maybe we aren't moving" stress that lasted weeks. This deployment included 3 months of TDY/training down south, and the total lack of communication as to dates of leave etc (the rear det refused to give dates until 4 days before graduation) and an FRSA who doesn't communicate (no FRG at all). I'm hoping the deployment goes a little easier - of course 2 days, into it (yesterday) I got the call from the lovely people who rent our house to let me know of the storm damage they just suffered! USAA made reporting easy, let's hope the rest goes as well! Normal. what IS normal? nothing much in our lives is what anyone else would call normal! we make our own normal - and we do it well. Keeping busy with work and volunteer work, making time to enjoy the little things, or learning something new to stay busy - I am learning to spin fiber this time - it makes the time pass. I'm in that first 2 week of deployment cycle. For me, this cycle includes eating too much of what isn't good for me, and the urge to not go out at all. I know from experience that in a few days, I'll be going back to my proper eating habits; I scheduled quite a few things for this week so I would have to get up, get dressed and communicate with others! Reaching out, making sure that no one is so alone that they lose hope, is what we do and what we need to do.

[Wendy Poling]

Karen, Your comment slipped by me. Sorry I'm just now responding! I love your thoughts on making sure you scheduled appointments to get out of the house and have contact with others. This is great advice! I hope the deployment is going well and that you are nearing the end. Hope to see you next time I'm in your neck of the woods!