Confessions of a Military Wife (29 page)

Thank goodness I didn’t have another disastrous event to report to Jon. I was afraid he would think I couldn’t be left unsupervised.

I want to talk candidly about the reality of depression and anxiety that military wives can experience.

My goal is to make you laugh or at least smile, and that’s why I’m focusing on the humor of the situation. Maybe if I tell you what I went through, you can avoid falling into the same pits I did.

It took me a while, but I finally talked to a doctor about my anxiety attacks.

I remembered becoming frustrated trying to talk to a twenty-eight-yearold naval doctor who sat there reading off a checklist. Was he checking to see if I was abusing alcohol or being destructive?

He put me on one bizarre mind-altering pill after another. Nothing worked. In fact, they all had intolerable side effects. Sometimes I felt things moving inside my head. My personality changed depending upon the medicine I was on.

I tried to do “talk therapy” with a naval psychologist. That was a blast. After an hour of convincing her my husband did not beat me, my parents did not beat me, no one had raped me, and I was not out drinking and having sex every night, I walked out.

I wished she could have focused on the condition at hand. After all, I was twenty-four, newly married, separated from my family, and my husband was in a war zone. I couldn’t sleep or eat. You’d think that was the reason I was upset and feeling unbalanced.

If you have trouble finding help like I did, don’t give up.

I stopped going to therapy because I thought no one was listening. I also stopped taking the pills.

Instead, I turned back to prayer, watched Joel Osteen, and listened to Dr. Laura.

I have since found an excellent talk therapist who has done wonders for my attitude and perspective. I’m disappointed that I didn’t find one to help me at that point in time, although I now know I shouldn’t have given up so quickly.

Do as I say, not as I did. If you are having problems, don’t give up until you find what works.

Prayer is great and so is positive thinking, but you can’t ignore your physical body and the effects of anxiety and depression. I was having racing, unrealistic thoughts. I worried about everything, constantly.

When my thoughts were under control, the physical problems—panic attacks and teeth grinding—started.

It was the dentist on base who first listened to me and made me feel comfortable. During a routine teeth cleaning I mentioned my jaw was killing me. He looked closer and saw I had been grinding my teeth down.

“I can fit you with a $600 mouth guard,” he answered. “Or like all the military wives I have seen this deployment, I can give you a prescription for Xanax to help you calm down.”

Finally, someone had gotten it. He didn’t look at me like I was someone who wanted to abuse drugs. He didn’t treat me like I was about to kill myself. He was older and had been a dentist for the Navy for more than 20 years. He recognized what was really going on.

We talked about panic attacks and the physical signs of anxiety.

I didn’t have to take Xanax every day. It didn’t permanently change my thought process or thinking. The medication simply dealt with the physical side effects.

Who knew a dentist would be the one to figure it out?

Ladies, you know your body better than anyone else. Do the research. Get to know your symptoms. Be honest with yourself, and don’t give up.

If one doctor won’t listen, go see another. If one drug doesn’t help, ask your doctor to let you try another. And don’t rule out talk therapy.

At some time in her “career,” a member of the Silent Ranks needs to confide in a professional. It is a necessary catharsis.

I recommend combining talk therapy with exercise and eating right. All factor into your well-being.

Also, let it be said that not every person needs to be put “on something” just because she’s going through a deployment. Don’t let anyone—friend, family, or doctor—convince you to take meds if you really think you are OK.

It’s not a requirement. Just be honest with yourself.

Don’t be in a hurry to throw your pills away when your husband returns, either. Consult your doctor first. Many SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) drugs have to be “weaned” from your system.

It’s a step in the right direction to know you are ready to get off the antidepression or anti-anxiety drugs, but it is a process and you need to do it right.

Now that the lecture is over, I want to share some of my not-so-fine moments while I was getting used to being on Xanax. This drug is pretty powerful.

If you take it at the beginning of a panic attack, it will stop the dizziness, tightening of breath, blurred vision, and racing heartbeat.

If you take a Xanax and you do not have a panic attack starting, you will become very loopy. I had delayed reactions, slurred words, and didn’t care about anything else in the world.

It also helps to have a full stomach when you take Xanax, especially when you first start taking it. I discovered this the hard way.

The first time I took a Xanax I didn’t know you’re not supposed to drive, and that you should take it with food.

I was starving, so I took one and headed for the commissary (which makes sense if you think about it). By the time it hit me, I was standing in the checkout line. I don’t know what came over me, but I went nuts.

I am normally very independent, but when the young and very muscular bag boy offered to carry my groceries out for me, I accepted his offer. (Maybe he offered to carry my bags because I was swaying.) I babbled non-stop all the way to the car.

Then I started harassing him.

As the poor boy loaded the bags into my car, I started to compliment him on his large muscles and how chivalrous he was to be helping out a poor lonely wife who was in need of a man.

He eyed me now and again as he began sweating and loading the bags into the car as fast as he could. I swear when I tipped him, I tucked it into the front of his shirt. He actually ran from me.

I am probably now on the list of “women who offend teenage baggers.” I’m glad they didn’t have a union, or a grievance against me would have been filed.

On another day, I had been freaking out pretty bad and decided to take a Xanax and go to sleep. I don’t know what happened next, but a few hours later I “woke up” and found myself driving my go-cart up and down the street, weaving in and out of my lane.

Michelle came home to find me with eyes glazed over and drool on my face. I didn’t even hear her yelling at me.

I was driving so slowly that she was able to walk up beside me. “Mollie, did you take one of your pills? I think you need to park your go-cart and come inside.”

Who knows how long I’d been out there. I could’ve gotten a ticket for driving under the influence!

I should have learned my lesson, but this the first of many Xanaxinduced vehicular mishaps.

On another day, I was scheduled to have a cavity filled. I knew I was going to freak out, so I took a Xanax on a full stomach.

I was fine, no panic attack. I even thought I was fine on the drive home. I waved to my neighbor across the street before I pulled into the driveway. Then the craziest thing happened as I pulled up the driveway. Out of nowhere the house JUMPED out in front of the car and hit the bumper.

I felt my body whipped around the car just before I threw it into park. Damn that Xanax!

Then I realized my neighbor across the street had seen the entire thing. How could I play it off? Oh, I know. I’ll just sit in the car for a few minutes and maybe she’ll leave.

Yep, that’s the amazing, crystal-clear thought process you have while on Xanax.

I sat in the car for ten minutes. I avoided looking toward her house because I didn’t want to acknowledge that I had wrecked my car in my own driveway. Finally, I grabbed my purse and climbed out.

As I opened the car door I heard her call out, “Mollie, are you OK? I saw you hit your house with your car. You’ve been sitting there for ten minutes!”

Busted.

A word to the wise: unless you want to humiliate yourself in front of your neighbors, friends, and commissary employees, take your meds at home on a full stomach and stay there until you get used to them.

Besides going out for a manicure and a pedicure, one of my favorite things to do with the girls is to shop.

Natalie, Liz, and I would pile into the car and head to the mall. You don’t have to go to the mall to get all the good deals. Michelle gave me a great tip about “shopping” on base. When people PCS, they tend to leave a lot of furniture behind, often right in the front yard. The rule on the base is simple: “finders-keepers!” And the higher the rank of the household, the better the treasures left behind!

On our evening walks we scoped out families preparing to move. We found computer desks, high chairs, strollers, playpens, grills, wicker chairs—the list goes on and on!

Michelle and I became known for our quick acquisition of property. Michele often called me on her cell phone while she was driving home from the bus stop. “Meet me at such-and-such for a pick up!”

But let me offer a word of caution: make sure someone is actually moving
before
you take something out of his or her yard. This mistake can be quite embarrassing, especially when you have a yard sale and one of your neighbors recognizes their missing family heirloom in the middle of your pile of stuff!

One day Michelle and I set out on our afternoon walk and stumbled upon an old wooden ammo crate. Since one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, I decided it would make a great coffee table for the back patio.

It was pretty heavy, so Michelle suggested that I go get my car. We could slide it in the back and unload it at the house after we finished our walk.

I was so excited about getting another great “Del Mar Street Bargain” that I cranked the car and backed out the driveway at full speed—right into my neighbor’s car. Of course, this is the same neighbor who watched me crash into my own house one week earlier. (I promise I was not on Xanax this time.)

That ammo crate ended up costing me more than $500 in repairs to the neighbor’s car. My husband was not too impressed with the news of that bargain. Still, I went after the ammo crate. I was going to get my $500 dollars worth of pleasure out of that thing come hell or high water!

And we did, using it throughout the years we were on base.

Communicating with your spouse during a deployment often presents some challenges. There is very little you can do to enrich your marriage at this time. It’s really all about sustaining it.

At times, I was guilty of thinking, “What can Jon do for me while I am so lonely here at home without him?” You can’t have that attitude. You are truly on your own.

Maybe I am not the best role model because the only deployments I experienced were during wartime, when nothing is guaranteed. Phone calls, letters, and emails were sporadic at best.

I lived for the mail. During Jon’s first deployment I received frequent letters. I would be so excited I would run back in the house and read them while sitting in the bathroom crying. I never shared my letters with anyone. They were mine and they were private.

Phone calls were different. All of the wives were really good about sharing info from emails or calls because those were so rare.

At that time we were desperate for up-to-date news as well as the assurance that our husbands were safe.

If Natalie got a call from Carl, she would call me and I would know Jon was OK. If I got an email from Jon, he would let me know Carl was OK, and I would pass this on to Natalie. We were all really good about sharing news.

No matter what form the communication comes in, it is still not the same as the daily one-on-one communication in a marriage. You both need to prepare for that and know your limitations.

I can just about guarantee that there will be a fight, and it will be horrible because during one of the middle rounds the email will shut down or the phone will go dead. Don’t beat yourself up over it. It is what it is.

We all have spats with our spouses; it’s a part of marriage. You can try to do everything you can to minimize fights and avoid arguments, but there will be one. It’s not the end of the world. Just accept it.

Just like in the civilian world, the most common argument is over money. I had a girlfriend who hit the roof when she learned her husband had purchased a very expensive camera while he was deployed because his had broken. They needed to talk about such a large purchase, but there was no opportunity to do so. They had a budget, but the inability to communicate over finances really hurt them.

This fight dragged on for days. Neither was right, and neither was wrong. Still, they couldn’t talk about it without fighting.

Today they laugh about the episode, but it was a real issue at the time. As should be clear by now, deployments add crazy stress to everyone.

Jon and I had a nasty argument over money during his first deployment. Some crisis happened at home and I had to buy a bunch of things in a row—a microwave, new tires and, of course, my hair needed to be bleached.

I thought I had it all under control. I was working and was expecting a paycheck. I figured I would pay the credit card bill off when my paycheck arrived. Logical, right?

Jon had been in the field for more than a month. When he came in, he went online, checked our banking account—and freaked out! After weeks of not hearing from him, I woke up the next morning to find a scathing email outlining how irresponsible I had been with our finances.

The battle was on! I emailed him back that he had broken my heart. I was deeply hurt that he could not trust me. I told him I couldn’t believe he was questioning me about money when I didn’t even know if he was alive! He quickly saw the error of his ways and we settled it.

Remember, tone can be very difficult to interpret in emails. We didn’t communicate well. We didn’t handle that situation correctly. Remember when I had thoughtlessly sent the life insurance letter to Jon? He should have sent me a thoughtful email first—and then asked about the finances.