The Questions

In order to help explain the deployment experience of those left at home, I'm asking if you'll share your own thoughts.

While many of us go through something very similar during a deployment, we're all unique and have unique reactions to difficult times. I'd like to hear from you about YOUR experience.

For many, the year or more of a deployment (again, for those at home) is an incredibly confusing, intimate, and tumultuous one on a number of levels, and too often, those going through it feel the need to stay quiet about it because what they're going through "is nothing compared to what those at war go through."

But it's not a contest. Every experience is valid and deserves the attention necessary to make sure as many as possible get through it as well as they possibly can.


Please number your answers 1-21, and provide answers only. No need to include the question. Please reply in "COMMENTS" and feel free to answer anonymously.

TWENTY-ONE QUESTIONS

1. Are you male or female?

2. In your first deployment experience, where was (or is) your spouse/lover deployed? Iraq or Afghanistan?

3. Was the person deployed your spouse or your lover?

4. Did you feel the need for emotional support during the deployment? If the deployed was not your spouse but your lover, did you feel adequate support was still available to you?

5. Did you seek support from spouse groups during the deployment?

6. Did the support improve your emotional state? If yes, in what way? If no, why do you think it didn't work?

7. Did you experience any of the following during the deployment? (Please only answer yes if the symptoms occurred regularly or consistently - we almost all have brief periods of weight loss, depression, etc.)

a) weight loss
b) hair loss
c) unusual illness
d) consistent lack of sleep
e) depression
f) anxiety

8. How often did you think about your deployed s/o?

9. How often did you think about yourself?

10. Was it difficult (emotionally) to maintain your daily life as you had before the deployment? Why or why not?

11. What word would you choose to express your emotional state for the duration of your first deployment experience?

12. What was your greatest fear during that time?

13. How did the deployment affect your relationship with your significant other?

14. With friends and family?

15. Did you think you might be able to use professional help during the deployment (such as therapy)?

16. Did you seek therapy?

17. If you answered yes, did the therapy help?

18. Did you take anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medication to help you through your first deployment experience?

19. What was your greatest source of support during the deployment?

20. What, if anything, would you most want people to understand about the deployment experience of those left at home?

21. How old are you?

22. (this is a new question, added July 2) Do you think the show "Army Wives" accurately depicts the deployment/military spouse experience?

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions. Again, I don't need names, so the blog has been set up to accept anonymous posts.

I appreciate your help,

Kristen Tsetsi