"Heretic: A person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted" and you can't get more against what is generally accepted than to be married to someone willing to die for others.Veterans Day A Family Affair There are so many things that just don't get talked about and intimacy is one of the biggest secrets of all because no one wants to admit it. Welcome to my world!
There was a lot I could have learned the easy way, but had no way of knowing where to find it. The truth is, back when I was growing up, there were things no one talked about but somehow, within the silence, everyone knew about what was not said.
When I first heard the words "shell shock" they came from my Dad, a Korean War veteran talking about his first impression of my then boyfriend, a Vietnam veteran. He couldn't explain what he meant by it. He told me to go to the library.
Yes, back in the stone age before computers plugged in everything within reach of the keyboard strokes. Every spare moment I had, I sat with a stack of clinical books and a huge dictionary. I couldn't understand at least one word in each sentence since they were all written by psychiatrist and psychologist.
When I was done learning what I had to learn about war and the terms they used, I moved on to learn about Vietnam. After all, when by "boyfriend" was in Vietnam, I was still in grade school, so I had no clue what was what or where Vietnam actually was. I had a lot to learn.
Then I had a lot to share including my life with the man I fell in love with and married over 30 years ago.
This quest began out of love and knowing my best friend had so much within him that a devotion to veterans began. Knowing if he was going through all of it, there were a lot more just like him and wives just like me, I had to do something. No one seemed to know what I had learned was available for us to discover to make our lives easier. I was pretty shocked to discover most of the research was over a decade old back then. Now I find it all disgraceful that after even more decades, we actually knew more about PTSD back then than most wives know now.
How can that be with all the technology plugging in information within reach of a cellphone?
Because everyone is doing what is easy while few are doing what is necessary.
Home Front Heretics is for us, the family members forgotten about in all the clutter of screamers and claimers bringing attention to themselves and not much else.
They choose to serve and we choose to love them even knowing what comes with all of what they do for others.
Go into any of this blindly and there you discover the reason why marriages fall apart. Go in with eyes wide open and you have a glimpse of what may come. Get support to stay and you walk side by side with them. Get the right support and you will see them thrive.
It isn't as easy as it seems nor is it as complicated where we really need money to do it.
It isn't hopeless as long as we stop believing we're helpless. We make it better for our families or we make it tougher on everyone. It is up to us to use the power we do actually have to form our own future.
Little did I know over 30 years ago I'd still be doing this work but since my husband is worth it, I know that millions of other wives feel the same way but have not found what they need to get through the worst of all of this so they can see the best of what is possible.
From today, Veterans Day until Veterans Day 2016 I will post something to share on Home Front Heretics to make a difference in your life so you can keep making a difference in their life.
Today began with one of the biggest things we just don't seem time to talk about and that is intimacy in our marriages on Veterans Day a Family Affair.
Featured in the post is Why veterans have intimacy issues by Lee Woodruff on CNN.
As for the rest, I have over 30 years of research plus living with PTSD, making mistakes as well as making a better life for us. Pick my brain! I'll tell it to you straight so you won't have to learn the hard way like I did.
Most of what you'll read will be about veterans but I will try to blend in just as much information on police officers and firefighters, not just from the US but from other countries going through the same issues we do. Then you'll know for sure that just because you feel no one will understand what is part of your now normal life, you do have plenty of others living in your world too!
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