In the past few days, the milspouse world has been rocked by a message from a fellow military wife - who decided that her pain was too great, that her life was no longer worth living. A friend wrote about this very eloquently at Left Face Blog. The outpouring of support for her, is very heartening {as of the time of this post, 219 comments of love, support and offers of help}. To us in this little world of ours, it isn’t surprising either. What’s heartbreaking – that she didn’t feel that support and love before she made the decision to end it all. That she stopped, that she realized that she didn’t need to do this, that it wasn’t all hopeless – was a relief to us all. That she is getting help, that she has decided to try to carry on no matter what – is a triumph for that strength that we know she has.
Another friend is going through a crisis – and we are all trying to rally around her, make sure that she gets the support she needs, but also gets the space she needs. The space to adjust how she sees her future, the future of her children, the changes in her life. The urge to “fix” it all, to jump in and just take over – for many of us, it’s a natural! We are used to taking charge, getting it done, moving forward. Most of the military spouses I know have had to take charge during deployments, or sea duty, or lengthy TDYs. Most of us are volunteers in our FRG, or Key Spouse programs, in our children’s schools, in our community places of worship, pet shelters, community kitchens or veterans centers, youth programs, military family support groups.
Our urge to help is one of our strengths as a community. The temptation to do too much, the burning our candles at both ends, and the middle – is one that most of us know. We just jump on that moving walkway and run like a rabbit, dashing from one thing to another, giving each project a hundred percent, wearing ourselves out but making sure we give our families the same hundred percent. It’s our strength, and our weakness. We do do do do, in a frantic race to get it all done, to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. I wonder how many of us are doing too much; how many of us are papering those cracks over and not acknowledging we need to rest.
I wonder.
KSF
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[...] a fellow military wife who decided that her pain was too great,” Karen Francis wrote on the blog “Milspouse Mutterings,” encouraging her own readers to send cards to Ms. [...]
You just talking about military wife.. i was a military wife for 22yrs… now i’m a DoD civilian dependent..My husband is in Iraq as a DoD civilian and this situacion affect the same way as any other military wife..i think the pain and the worries is the same we need help too…Tell me how I can get help and how to help other in my same situacion..my emai is irerosa65@hotmail.com