Living in the land of Limbo

Hi, my name is Louise and I am currently living in Limbo, but

 I don't like it and I'm not very good at it.

We had a tour start date of 10th Jan, got my head around this then it changed to later in the month. Right now we are in state limbo....the dictionary definition of this is: 'an uncertain situation that you cannot control and in which there is no progress or improvement' yup that is right where we are.

My husband is on leave before some pre-training, we still have some time to go so not completely in 'he's off tomorrow mode' I have made some lists and tried to be a little organised but right now there is not much I can do other than.....SIT......AND.........WAIT for D Day, not that I want deployment day to come but we are all waiting for it like the bloody number 4 bus.

We are totally skint because he's off work at the moment and everyday its like "Shall we get a takeaway, I mean you are going away soon" "Shall we go out for lunch, we should spent time together because you go away soon" my waistline is increasing and my bank balance isn't shrinking, its shrunk. 

I am craving routine and normality and my body is telling me I am stressed....I have a raging stye in one eye, mouth ulcers and just feel a bit on edge. It absolutely isn't that I want him to go away of course I don't but we are all here just sat waiting for the inevitable and boy I know whats waiting for me.....those first two weeks of hell! I just feel like I'd like to just dig in and get that crappy first emotional little bit done and grab the deployment with both hands and for routine to prevail so I can get into my groove, you know?

I want to start ticking days off

As we had a bit more time before he goes we have a few more memory making bits booked in the diary...more deployment money we are spending before we even have started but still it IS important to make those memories prior to a deployment it just feels like its been for about three weeks we've been in this mode!

I am trying to relish this period for the little time we have left but it is exhausting, everything I say I feel like oh but he's off soon, should I have said that? I don't want to bicker, I want it to be perfect so my memory vision is perfect. Every time he holds my hand and it's all warm I want to blink and add it to my minds memory box, every time I have a cuddle and hear his heartbeat I want to really etch it on my brain and every time we do something I want to take photos.

Perfect doesn't exist, we all know that so a day at a time skidding through this weird limbo period. If you too have a deployment on the horizon, lets limbo together because I'm finding it pretty tricky and would welcome you on the ride with me! 

Lots of love, Louise xxx

Iraq and Afghanistan....you've changed me

Over the last few months I have blogged each week about the feelings and emotions of separation, I mentioned in a few posts about how I feel I have been shaped by various deployments and promised to write a post about it.

My husband is now home for a little while and I feel strong enough to put into words how the last 17 years have made me who I am, I've never openly spoken about this and only my very nearest and dearest know the extent but emotional well-being is something that interests me and I am really keen to hear your thoughts.

Do you think your emotional well-being is/has been affected due to deployments/separations?

Let's go back...waaaaay back to 2002 I know, I know, some of you reading this were probably still at school then but I forget how long I've been living this life! 2002 I was 20 and training to deploy to Iraq with my regiment then I found out I was pregnant and couldn't go so remained on rear party and waved off my husband. Nothing could really have prepared me for that Iraq war, it was a million times worse then I could have imagined with absolutely no contact at all. I was lucky in that I was serving so felt slightly comforted that people would tell me anything I needed to know but still I was young, pregnant, not long married, in a foreign country, all my friends had deployed and my family were all in the UK. It was really tough.

Iraq happened it was a 3 month deployment that initial war, my husband returned, I had our daughter and then....WHAT?! he went BACK to bloody Iraq this time for 6 months. I went back to work after 14 weeks maternity leave and seemed to badly bimble through that second Iraq but ultimately it lead me to leaving the Army as I just had no support and looking back this is probably where it started to affect me. 

When I reflect I can't quite believe everything I went through living in Germany on my own with  a new baby....my neighbours were dodgy so I had the military police camped out in my flat looking through the spy hole for 3 days, another neighbour called my health visitor to say 'my baby wouldn't stop crying' thanks for that as if I wasn't aware! I also got posted to a new regiment that continually reminded me 'you are a soldier first and a mum second' right, thanks for the support!

Myself and our daughter survived and my husband returned for what seemed a short while because then he was deployed on a UN tour of Cyprus. The wheels slightly fell off at this point and I ended up flying out to Cyprus with our daughter who was now about 18 months old.

In the space of 2 years or so I had got married, had a baby, been posted, survived about 16 months of deployment and I was still only 23, I just collapsed in a heap.

  

I needed to recharge, I was totally burnt out. We got a posting back to the UK and I remember really feeling a sense of relief, a really turbulent three years had taken its toll. I talk a lot about our emotional fuel tanks and blogged about it, READ HERE, at this point in my life my tank was totally empty.

We had a few years to catch our breath and my husband didn't go away, let's fast forward a bit to Afghanistan. Now we must be in 2007 and my husband had changed regiment to a UK based and then deployed to Afghanistan, the day he deployed was also the day my mum told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was all a bit of a blur this tour but was the first our daughter really understood he was away and the contact was really sporadic. He returned and my mum recovered.

The next tour of Afghanistan in 2010/11 was really where I suffered the worst. I really believe long deployments, especially those which come with danger can really scar you. Iraq and Afghanistan were so scary, you just didn't know if that knock at the door would come, you played every scenario through your mind, you feared the worst and hoped for the best. Those emotions are exhausting.

I had a pretty stressful job, our daughter was 7 years old, we didn't live in quarters at this point and now I can be reflective I was not coping one bit. It started before my husband even deployed, just the thought of going back to that worry was sending me over the edge...I knew what was to come, I knew how hard it was going to be and I was frightened for myself and my emotions. Then he deployed. I was anxious and wasn't sleeping, I actually remember one night having my dad on speaker on my pillow all night because I was going stir crazy with worry. I tried to self help and bought myself some books, searched the internet, read some blogs, I joined Twitter which opened up a community of others going through similar and actually made some friends through that which I will be eternally grateful for.

I was working full time, I was crippled with worry and uncertainty, I was desperately trying to help my daughter who was not coping at all with the deployment, I was trying to avoid the news and papers, I was trying to keep everything as normal as possible and failing....

It was without doubt the darkest time in my life

I developed what I now know to be stress induced OCD, it crippled me at night time. (I have never openly discussed this so please be gentle with me but I hope it open discussions) I had so much going round in my head I just couldn't process it, along with the consuming responsibility for a child who was coping really badly with the deployment the output was this behaviour I couldn't control. I would have to unplug EVERYTHING, I was obsessed with checking the front door was locked about 100 times, I always needed to check the cooker hob buttons were off.....I'd then go up to bed, wasn't satisfied so had to go back down and check everything again....then I'd get back into bed....and so the cycle continued. Sometimes this would happen for maybe an hour or more up and down those stairs, checking and re-checking until I passed out having to get up sometimes just five hours later for work. Over the seven months this got worse and worse, I was utterly, totally emotionally and mentally exhausted...the front door didn't even survive the ordeal I had to have the door replaced twice because I had pushed the handles so hard to check it was locked I ended up breaking the mechanism. I was very very private about what was happening only confiding in family and my best friend because I was embarrassed and confused and I am very thankful there was no judgement from them, just worry, they wanted to take it all away but they couldn't.

That tour is why Little Troopers exists.

I got through that tour in one piece as did my daughter, not entirely sure how but those seven months along with all the other deployments previously shaped me, it is why I am who I am today. The OCD subsided and these days if my husband goes away I can feel if it is returning but it is never to the extent it was back then, I know what triggers it, I know it is temporary and I know to give my mind a break. We have a long Afghanistan tour coming up in the new year and I can't lie and say I'm not apprehensive because I am, I want to cope, but only time will tell.

Emotional well-being is so important and it is also important to know yourself and learn about yourself. Our bodies are really complex and stress can have many different outputs, this is just my story and my experiences with hopefully the aim of sharing being that if you are reading this and  going through a deployment and you feel like you aren't yourself then just know you aren't alone and it is often temporary. Your light at the end of the tunnel will come, I promise.

Below is my favourite quote and something I live by, it is so very true. I hope this post has brought some comfort and strength. 

Lots of love, Louise xxxx

DING DING All change!!!!!

Some times it really can feel like you are on this separation train and for this week its has been a funny old ride and it is now our time to get off, I haven't dealt with that very well.

So this was meant to be a three month separation for us but my husband messaged me this week to say he is now coming back next week which means its only been just over two months. It is strange isn't it that in military terms we think that is such a short time but to others outside the military being separated with little contact for over two months would be huge. We shouldn't let ourselves devalue any separation, all are tough.

OK so potentially some of you reading this will be thinking I should be happy about this, jumping for joy, delighted that our light at the end of the tunnel has arrived sooner that we thought and lets be honest it is normally the news that they are delayed not coming back earlier.

The truth is I wasn't happy when I first heard my husband was coming home early

I promised to write an honest account of ALL the feelings and emotions through a separation and so that needs to be the good, the bad and the ugly and do not think this has been an easy post to write. I am laying my soul out but the point of doing that is hopefully to spread that strength that if you too feel any of these things, it is just part of the train ride.

I have now processed things throughout this week and feel ready to articulate what I felt and potentially why and also how I came out the other side.

My husband text to say he was being put on an earlier flight home, he of course was really happy and asked me not to tell our daughter so he could surprise her. All I could think about was how I had planned lots of things, my diary was packed, I was seeing people, saving money and going places in half term AND THIS WASN'T IN THE PLAN!! I was in my groove, the last three weeks or so I'd got there and finally felt like I was coping with deployment and actually enjoying some elements of it. 

My mind had accepted the change and processed it and we were doing just fine.

Now you were going to come home and ruin all that.

Do not for one minute think this has any reflection on my love for my husband, I adore him and have missed him so so much this last couple of months. In that time we have spoken maybe four or five times and I feel like so much has happened at home and he doesn't even know, it has been a tough one. I reacted badly and was a bit of a bitch to him, I pushed him and his excitement away.

I have been kind to myself this week and tried to have time to explore my feelings. You see it is about emotional safety, our emotional fuel tanks take batterings as military families and sometimes I close down to keep myself emotionally safe. It looks like for us we have a seven month tour on the horizon in early January and I found that out again by text message a few days before the early return date. I knew the rollercoaster I had just been on in this separation and just managed to level out and I knew he was going to now come home and I would fall back into family unit mode especially with Christmas leave and then I could already see the next deployment on the horizon.

I was scared. Scared for me and my emotions.  

 

I rationalised, talked about it and as the days passed I came to terms with both things and allowed myself to feel excited about my husband returning. I have missed his face so so much and I honestly can't wait to see him.

Historically I am not great at homecomings, never have been. I find it all a bit awkward and much prefer my husband to just come home with no big fuss and get back to some kind, our kind, of normal.

It really is an emotional rollercoaster and although I never get used to it I am better these days and being kinder to myself, learning why I feel what I feel. We can't control our feelings but we can talk about them to give comfort that we really are all in this together.

Louise xxxx