7 Things To Do When Military Life Gets Too Hard
Military life is a rollercoaster. You will have your good days and your bad ones. You will have highs and you will have lows. You will be waiting for orders for months and months and then you get them and before you know it you are on a plane headed to your next duty station. It’s a strange way to live your life, always waiting and then not waiting and hoping and crying and then laughing. Your emotions are all over the place.
When you hit a hard season of Military life, it can be hard to know what to do. You want to think positively, but it is hard. You want to keep busy, but all you really want to do is hide in your bed. You want to remember that this too shall pass but all you see is more lonely nights, more frustrating days and years of feeling like your life can never be normal again.
So what do you do when you hit this point? What can you do to get out of it?
Here are 7 things to do when Military life gets too hard:
- Find a good book. This works so well for me. If I can find a good book to get lost in, I can find my happiness and I can make it through another day. If you are not much of a reader you might want to try audio books. You can usually rent them from your local library and listen to them through your phone or your tablet. Find a good series to get into and you will have books to read for months and months.
- Find a good friend. Sometimes you just need to hang out with a friend. Sometimes you just need to vent it out to another person. Sometimes you just can’t be alone. If you don’t have anyone to call during this time, make plans to try to meet new people. When you get out and meet others you are more likely to make a new friend.
- Write in your journal. This can be so helpful. If you don’t have a nice journal, go out and find one you would love to write in. Plan to write in it whenever you are feeling down. Write out all of your thoughts. No one else is going to read it. This is solely for you. Taking time to get your thoughts out on paper can really get you in a better frame of mind.
- Think about the past. Think about everything you have been through. Think about how hard the past was and how you made it through. Doing this will allow you to see that you have been through some hard times in the past and you will be able to get through this difficult period of Military life. It isn’t going to last forever just like your previous hard season didn’t last forever.
- Find a new hobby. Sometimes when we can focus our energy on a new skill, we can forget about how hard life is at the moment. When I knew my husband was going to be deployed again I decided to get into gardening hoping that I could focus more on that while he was getting ready to go and after he left. It was nice to have that as a focus, to plant new things, water them and learn as much as I could about it. Think about something you have wanted to learn how to do, maybe this time in your Military life is the time to do it.
- Start a blog. When Military life gets hard you want to find others that are going through what you are. This is why starting a blog can be a good idea. You can make it a private one to just share with your friends or you can go public and try to meet other Milspouse bloggers and readers. Having your own blog is a great way to get your story out and see that you are not alone in your struggles.
- See if you can change anything. When you are in this place you can feel like the only thing you can do is get through it. Sometimes there could be something else you can do. Think about your situation and if there is anything that you can change to make it better. I did this during our 2nd deployment. I knew going through another summer during a deployment would be very difficult. I took the boys and spent the summer in California with my family. It was a good break from what we were dealing with and helped me have more support during that time. You might not always be able to change anything but see if you can because it might help you get through it.
Leave a Reply