Thursday, December 9, 2010

Just Had An "Ah Ha!" Moment

I was just making myself a fresh pot of coffee as I prepare for the final study session for my exam later tonight when I noticed something. Beside the coffee pot is our fridge, on this fridge I have a dry-erase board with my countdown and countup to CB's return. Apparently I had neglected it for a few days because todays count shocked me.

It has officially been 70 days since he left. We have successfully completed 10 weeks, or 2 and a half months, however you want to look at it.

When the hell did this happen? I mean, I know I've been struggling with his deployment and some days have been horrible in comparison to others, some just fly by. But at some point, and I'm not sure when, this all became routine. Writing him letters or sending him e-mails have somewhat comfortably taken the place of  text messages. Our facebook chats have filled in for our joking around we use to do in the morning. The actual phone calls themselves have taken place of our whole weekends together.  I don't think I'll ever get use to having to wait for him to call though.

1 letter is like the equivalent of a week of text messages
1 facebook chat has now turned into what our usual Saturday morning goofing around was
1 phone call of 30 minutes, I swear he sits there with a timer, has turned into the equivalent of our weekend.

I look forward to all of these things more so than I think I use to look forward to our weekends together. I know I didn't take our time for granted before, but now that there is so little of it I'll take it where I can get it and every second of it only fills me with joy, happiness, and love to continue.


Mini side story

Last time CB and I spoke, he told me of this horror story of a situation one of the guys over there is dealing with. It pretty much broke my heart and enraged me all at the same time.

There is a soldier who is deployed with him who's girlfriend has anxiety issues. Before he left she had everything in check and was not really effected by it. Obviously the stress of him leaving ramped up her symptoms and she began having panic attacks, so many that she lost her job. The stress of losing her job, obviously, only increased her symptoms and she is now unable to pay her rent. Obviously she told her soldier this and he felt it was important enough to try and go home to deal with it.

Well here is where this story gets stupid. They don't believe their story, they think she is lying about her symptoms and therefor wont send him home to quickly take care of things. Because her first language is not English and they only have English speaking psychologists on staff there is no one to evaluate her claims... So there she sits, being called a liar, stressed the hell out, and not being treated.

What I don't understand is why can't they refer her to a psychologist who speaks her language and have the diagnosis shared afterwards? How can they risk not assessing her? Some disorders can be impairing, especially if left untreated

I guess the reason this really hits me is because I suffer from anxiety attacks as well, but only minor ones, and I am studying in this field as we speak. I have learnt about the effects and consequences of panic attacks from the textbooks I study as well as from what I have experiences myself. It's scary. My heart goes out to this woman.

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