What do we know about the mental health impact of military service on the parents, spouses, siblings, and children of service members?

What needs to be said is the husband and wife need to have a meeting of the minds in a quiet place and not in an accusatory manner because without doing this there will be a lot of confusion, strong emotions, and marital friction. Too many couples can’t commit to this and many will get divorced. This is critical.

My stepson, growing up, suffered from severe behavioral health (BH) problems which had different diagnoses at different times, and we were never quite sure what the real issues were. That being said, he got into trouble quite a number of times while I was at work, underway, deployed, etc., and ended up being institutionalized. Whether it was a knife attack on his mother, stealing the car while high to try to kill himself, or whatever, he never went way out of control when I was around.

The bottom line - the service member being away is very destabilizing to the family. This is more true when a family member has BH problems. It's even more true these days with the crazy long multiple deployments troops are making.

I would wager to say the numbers are far worse for the last 15 years than they were during my time in uniform (I retired January 2001). It's also harder now, because health insurers are getting stingier with BH authorizations and compensation, and many providers are leaving private practice.

The bottom line is this is a "Perfect Storm" for severe family BH problems...

Everything about this subject is a learning process 1LT Sandy Annala and we have to be willing to take the time & put in the effort to do that learning.