The Family I Left Behind: How Military Life Tested My Closest Relationships

I enlisted in the United States Army Reserve at 34. It was for my family. My husband had heart disease and couldn't work. We had a young child, and I wanted the security and benefits offered by military life. I didn't know at the time that the institution I believed would bring security would instead demand sacrifices from the very people I loved the most.

Enlisting resulted in missing my husband during some of his worst health emergencies. It was during the Gulf War deployment of my unit when he had to undergo emergency heart surgery. Meanwhile, my mother was undergoing her own health problems. Duty versus family was the choice I faced, and duty prevailed. Not because it was a higher concern, but because the military would not compromise.

But the moment that put it all into perspective was when I had to turn over my son to my soon-to-be ex-husband. It wasn't a mere legal document; it felt as though I was giving away part of my soul. "It felt like losing part of myself," I documented in my book Secrets of the Uniform, and it stuck with me even after leaving the military. My son didn't just grow up with his mother missing from the room; my son grew up with a mother traumatized by a system turning my pain into a burden to carry alone.

The apartness hurt him more than I was willing to acknowledge. We would rebuild our relationship, but the emotional and physical space left a scar. There were birthdays I missed, milestones to which I wasn't a witness. These are the things the brochures fail to advertise.

My time in the military not only tore me away from my family, but it also put a strain on my friendships. My story is considered unique; however, other cases may have other types of incidences. When I say I was assaulted, I was sexually assaulted and beaten. I expected camaraderie, but instead I found cruelty. Harassment and a lack of professionalism in my unit left me isolated. After a superior sexually assaulted me, I realized I couldnt trust nearly anybody. These male soldiers treated a female soldier, maybe not all females, like some sex toy. Even a woman should never be treated this way. I withdrew further from my civilian friends, fearing they would be pulled into the turmoil I was experiencing. That feeling of isolation became my new norm, and the military culture exacerbated it.

Even after I left the service, the wounds persisted. PTSD pursued me. Panic attacks, sleepless nights, and an inescapable feeling of failure both as a warrior and a mother remained. I didnt fall into depression but became angrier as well as not trusting and fearful. When I experienced this, there were no support groups, other than seeing a VA doctor and close friends. I stayed numb for years, but had to regain myself back mostly by myself. I felt as though the very same uniform I wore with honor was the cause of the wedge between me and what I loved. "The uniform was a burden," I would later describe it, and it wasn't just the trauma; it was all the things I lost because of it.

But my family welcomed me home.

After leaving the military, I devoted myself to repairing my relationship with my son. As a single mom, I struggled to reclaim the time and relationship we'd lost. Working with the Department of Children and Family Services, though, allowed me to see trauma in a new, deeper way, my clients and my own. And then, when I started to train service dogs, I learned a surprising path to healing. Summer, my retriever, assisted my PTSD better than therapy. "She calms me like nothing else," I'd written. She provided a sort of calm that my life had been missing for years.

I remarried in 2003. Dan provided me with stability, empathy, and the emotional support I wasn't even aware I still required. Having him and my son with me at last made me feel complete again.

My closest relationships were tested and nearly shattered by the military. But the bonds, once broken, are now the cornerstone of my healing. Im living proof that even when war sundered a family, healing can occur.

However, my tale isn't one of personal survival. It's one of the systems that takes all from soldiers while leaving little for their families. The military has to do better to take care of service members, particularly mothers, who must make a choice between family and uniform. No one should ever be made to give up their child in the interest of service. I left my family to serve. Now I fight on their behalf, and on behalf of all the others. Because no one ought to have to choose between loyalty and love."