Anticipatory Grief: Round 2

So for anyone who has studied the actual psychological implications of deployment, you know all the stages of deployment. If you haven't, research has proven that there is an actual set of stages that most spouses go through when their husband or wife is deployed, about to be, or just was. There's many stages, including predeployment, post-deployment, and so forth. They are very similar to the stages of grief when someone close to you dies. This leads me to a term that I think many of us have felt but never knew exactly what it was: anticipatory grief. My non-scientific definition of anticipatory grief, which I'm just conjuring up after reading the science definition in my studies, is mourning your deployed husband as if he were dead, when he is in fact alive and right in front of you. This usually happens during the predeployment stage. Some examples are (1) already preparing yourself for what you'll do if he dies (2) crying every time you look him in the face because you think "I have to memorize his face in case I never get to see it again, (3) already feeling alone, like he's never coming back. I can say that I definitely went through all of that. Example #2 was particularly hard for me. I saved about 100 text messages, I saved all his voicemails, I took 8,000 pictures of him, and I tried as hard as I could to memorize his face and voice, just in case I never got any of those every again. I was treating him as though he was sure to die. This also happens in the first few months of deployment, when you start functioning and living every day as though you'll be alone from now on forever because he's not coming home. You think you're just preparing yourself for the worst. We all see how this can be dangerous. If you're set on him not coming home, you're in the worst possible mind-frame. That's why I researched all of this information months before he left, so that I would be familiar with what we were experiencing and would know how to fix it. I recommend every military spouse doing that leading up to, during, and after deployment until your soldier is fully reintegrated. I did it via this book: While They're at War by Kristin Henderson. I went to a lecture by the author and got the book signed. It's an awesome resource.

I am now experiencing what I think is an odd round two of anticipatory grief. Naturally, sending him back after R&R was just as hard (and I think harder) as when I sent him off the first time. However, I managed to get back into a routine here in the last few weeks. Well, for some crazy reason, they have made my husband perform the same mission-related task that I can't discuss for TWO WEEKS straight. He's been off the FOB doing this mission for 13 days today, and "should" be in the next few days. I personally think it's dangerous to have a soldier outside the wire for that long because they can't eat or sleep 90% of the time when they're outside the wire. His energy level has to be at like .02% by now, which isn't good for reaction times and other instincts required if something goes down. But I guess that's besides the point. I think the longest mission we've been through before this was 6 or 7 days. Most are between 2 and 4. So needless to say, I'm experiencing very different things after 13 days of him being outside the wire. I've come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, anticipatory grief. I noted in an entry a few days ago that it was starting to feel like he was gone--and I think we all know what gone means in that context. That feeling has really started to sink in. Without being able to see, touch, hear him for this long, it starts to feel like he doesn't exist. That is by far the worst feeling I think I've felt during this deployment, because it makes me think about what that would feel like. I've started playing through in my head how I'd manage if it was really that way. What scares me is that when he's gone for this long, I realize just how good I've gotten on making it on my own. I hate to think that I can make it on my own. I'm miserable and missing him and lonely and tired without him, but somehow I'm making it. Sometimes I think I just want to be crazy and depressed so that I can feel like I'm not brainwashed into thinking that having my husband gone is normal and okay, because it's NOT. I'm realizing after 13 days that this feels too normal, but I don't want this lifestyle to feel normal. I think it's sad that military wives have to get used to feeling this way. I never want him not being here to feel normal. How in the world do women who's husbands die (not even military) marry again? I mean, I've just been thinking about all this stuff, and it's not a pretty outlook, but it scares me to think that I would probably just be living like I do now, alone, missing him, but making it.

I don't even know what to make of all of this, other than attaching a psychology term to it, but it's just what I'm feeling. I hope you didn't expect it to make sense, because I think that nothing a military wife really truly feels inside during a deployment is going to make sense in the real, civilian, everyday world. I think it just helps to put those feelings "on paper" because it requires you to think about them and figure them out and move on.

The good news is, he should be back at the FOB in the next few days and I'll get to hear his voice again, and tell him to tell his CO that he is NEVER allowed to leave for this long again, and I said so. Then, I will feel much better.