September 13, 2023 • 52 mins
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
Deciding to enlist in the military is a huge decision, and when you have a family, that choice may come with changing dynamics, tough conversations with children, and anxiety for spouses that are left behind. However, this isn’t a battle you have to fight alone. To shed some light on this experience, and share the resources that are available to military families, I’m joined by United States Navy Veterans Kasey King and Dr. D’andria Jackson, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, respectively.
In our conversation today, we discuss strategies for explaining military deployment to young children, ways for military spouses to practice self-care, and how to help spouses reintegrate into the home after time away.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session three twenty four of the
therapyla Girls Podcast. We'll get run into our conversation after
a word from our sponsors. Which friend are you? And
your sister circle? Are you the wallflower, the peacemaker, the
firecracker or the leader? Take the quiz at Sisterhoodheels dot
com slash quiz to find out, and then make sure
(01:20):
to grab your copy of Sisterhood Heels to find out
more about how you can be a better friend and
how your circle can do a better job of supporting you.
Order yours today at Sisterhoodheels dot com. Deciding to enlist
in the military is a huge decision, and when you
(01:41):
have a family, that choice may come with changing dynamics,
tough conversations with children, and anxiety for spouses that are
left behind. However, this isn't a battle you have to
fight alone. To shed some light on this experience and
share what resources are available to military faiamilies, I'm joined
today by United States Navy veterans Kasey King and doctor
(02:05):
DeAndrea Jackson, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a
licensed clinical psychologist, respectively. In our conversation, we discuss strategies
for explaining military deployment to young children, ways for military
spouses to practice self care, and how to help spouses
reintegrate into the home after time away. If something resonates
(02:27):
with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us
on social media using the hashtag TBG in session or
join us over in the sister circle To talk more
about the episode, you can join us at community dot
therapy for Blackgirls dot Com. Here's our conversation, Doctor Jackson, Casey,
(02:49):
I'm so glad you both could join me today to
discuss your dual experiences as both military veterans and military
family members to start, Doctor Jackson, could you tell me
a little bit about upbringing as a part of a
military family.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
My dad was a pastor up until the age of
about eleven. When I was about eleven years old, he
decided that he was going to fulfill his dream to
become a Navy chaplain and that was a major transition
for us. Prior to my birth and my brother's birth,
he was active duty, but he was enlisted, and it
was always his dream to become a Navy chaplain. So
(03:22):
he decided at that point, and my family's all right,
I'm good, I'm ready for something different, and I want
to see the world. And so he and my mother
decided that they were going to embark on this military journey.
So into the Navy he went, and he was commissioned,
and we had an amazing commissioning ceremony for him at
our church and it was such a huge celebration to
(03:44):
seeing him sworn in and being able to put his
shoulder boards on for his rank insignia. It was such
a positive experience. And then he said, we're in the
Navy now and we're moving to ok now A, Japan,
and I don't think at eleven, geography really made that
much sense to me because I spend the little globe
(04:07):
or look at the map and I was like, okay,
well Japan is over here, but didn't know that Okanaw
was this tiny little island way below the mainland of Japan.
And it didn't dawn on me exactly how far we
were going until we boarded a plane for a twenty
four plus hour flight to Oka, now Japan, where we
(04:27):
lived for three years. And that was our initial induction
into what military life was like. My dad served twenty
plus years on active duty, and at one point we
served together. He swore me in in the chaplain of
the Senate's office and it was a wonderful experience, and
that's really what gave me exposure to military culture, pride
(04:47):
and service, and a keen understanding of what military families
really deal with.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
A keen understanding. Indeed, that's quite the culture shift for
an eleven year old to go through. Thank you for
sharing that, Doctor Jackson and Casey, you're a licensed marriage
and family therapist, a veteran, and a military wife. Can
you talk to us about how those three experiences have
impacted the work you're doing in your community.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So being a therapist, being a spouse, and also being
a veteran, just all of that combined together, I think
one resilience being able to fully understand the community that
I'm working with, being able to understand trauma as a spouse,
(05:34):
as someone who is you know, has vicariously gone through it.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I can be able to.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Sit in hole space for those who are across from
me who are going through those experiences as well.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And how many years did you and your partner serve
in the military collectively?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Almost thirty two years. I did about eight and a
half years. I told my husband you can have it.
I'm done with this and he just retired last year
after twenty three years.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Wow. Yeah, so great delitary is for both of you.
Did you all meet in the military.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Yes, Actually he came through We're in Gulfport, Mississippi, and
I noticed his car before I noticed him. I'm such
a lover of old school cars, and I saw the Cadillac.
I was a military police he was coming through the
gate and I told my girlfriend that was there with me.
I really liked that car. And he just happened to
be in there, and he was handsome too.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh I love that. Wow, what a romantic military meet
cute story. So, after hearing from both of you, I
can already imagine that the experience of being either a
spouse of a military member or a child of one
can be quite stressful. Doctor Jackson, can you talk a
little bit about mental health support that you and your
family received as you were getting acclimated to this new life.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Because we were new to the experience, I don't even
think my parents knew too much about what resources may
have been a level there to support us with that
kind of transition. You do have access to the behavioral
health clinics, and oftentimes in overseas environments they do have
child psychologists on staff that would have been of major assistance.
(07:13):
But really the way we navigated it was just as
a family and as a community, and as you started
to get closer to other people. When you move to
a new location, regardless of whether you're domestic or overseas,
you're assigned a sponsor, and that sponsor gets you acclimated
to the area. They tell you where things are, they
show you where you're going to live. They introduce you
(07:35):
to other people to help build community for you. While
you're there. So a lot of it for us was
really leaning into the people that we were meeting and
learning to understand what their experiences are while they're living there.
I do recall before we've moved to Okinawa, we met
with a distant family friend who had just returned from Okinawa,
(07:58):
and I don't know that that was really helpful. Joy
the kids were like, oh my goodness, we're so glad
to be back in America. We didn't have a cable.
They just got cable. One of the things that like
astonished me. They were like, we didn't have real milk
on the basis until recently, And I said, what, y'all
(08:19):
don't have two percent milk? What's going on? But because
the distance the location, some of those creature comforts that
we experience here domestically are not always accessible there. One
of the highlights of our tour while we were there
was that they got a taco bell on base just
before we were leaving. We got to get a taste
of Mexican pizzas. Again. So those can be some of
(08:42):
the hard transitions of figuring out how you move right,
how do you physically relocate your family, and then how
do you connect with new people once you get there.
It was really challenging to support us. I think my
parents did keep us in school. We moved towards the
end of the school year, and of course you know
how that is. Moving children can be difficult. But because
(09:04):
my dad's orders were executed in April, we did some
acceleration at our private school prior to leaving the DC area,
so we had technically finished all of the academic requirements
for the school year. But my parents had enough foresight
to say, if we don't get them in school, they're
not going to be able to meet friends or establish
their own community of peers. Once we get there, it'll
(09:26):
be harder. So while we knew we were finished with
school when we were going through the motions, we understood
that it was an important piece of our transition, and
that was really helpful. One of the first people that
I met when I moved there, her name was Tori,
one of my best friends in the whole wide world.
We say. She was one of the first people I met,
and she really helped me acclimate to what it was
like being overseas. We lived on the same base and
(09:49):
we were able to link up, and that was an
interesting experience, and I appreciate the depth that our friendship
still has because of that unique experience that we shared
during our time Okinawa.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So doctor Jackson, you of course have the unique vantage
point of having been a psychologist in the Navy and
also having your dad's experience. Can you talk a little
bit about how you've seen mental health conversations change in
the military across some of that time.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
With the ramp up, I think of the war Iraqi
Freedom and during Freedom there was a lot of focus
on trauma. There was a lot of focus on deployment.
There was a lot of focus on military readiness, like
how do we keep our force actively worldwide, deployable, and
so there has been a focus on making sure that
(10:36):
active duty service members are robustly supported with the resources
that are provided. And military psychology has really always been
on the forefront of new trends emerging trends in the
field of psychology. So from the standpoint of active duty
service members, I think it's in a really great space.
Is there always work to be done, sure, but it's
(10:58):
pretty solid in terms of what they're able to provide.
Family wise, I think there are more opportunities, but the
major military treatment facilities. The clinics that are typically operated
on base, which is what we would identify as the
military treatment system, is not often geared towards supporting the
(11:19):
dependence of the active duty service members. In the mental
health clinics specifically, you can go there and get your
care for primary care or specialists that you need to see,
but if the behavioral health clinic is at capacity, they
start deferring to the network family members, spouses, children even
(11:40):
for their care. And I think that's an area where
things could improve. It's really challenging as a military family
member to move into a community space or with a
community provider who really understands the culture, the stresses, and
the challenges that military families experience on a day to
day basis. And that's because I think there's been so
(12:02):
much talk about trauma and about deployment that it kind
of gets circumscribed as that's the biggest stressor for a
military family when it is one of the bigger stressors,
but it's not in the top four actually in terms
of military families who were surveyed around what their stressors
actually are.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Can you say more about their survey What were some
of the bigger stressors So this survey.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The most recent one, included about ninety three hundred military
families worldwide, and it's called the Military Family Lifestyle Survey,
and this twenty twenty three iteration of it found that
the top four stressors were family financial wellbeing, military spouse, employment,
the impact of service, so things like time away, relocation,
(12:48):
child education, childcare. Those were the top three for active
service families, and then for veterans, the major issue was
access to quality healthcare. Deployment anywhere to be found in
those top levels of what those stressors are, and I
think in part that's because the pace of deployments has
(13:09):
really slowed down significantly in the last several years. But
I think it also just recognizes that we pretty much
expect at some point our loved one is going to deploy,
whether that's on a ship, on a brief training mission
for an extended period a time. We expect that's part
of military service. But it's the day to day stressors
(13:30):
that can tend to feel even more overwhelming, and I
think that sometimes gets overlooked.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
So you've mentioned when the behavioral clinics on base or
a capacity, they begin referring to the network. Are you
talking about like neighboring therapists in the area who probably
do a lot of work with military families just because
of where they're located. Is that what you mean.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I'm referring to the insurance network, So neighboring therapists in
the area who are credential providers through military. One source
which is affiliated with I think it's Beacon Health in
Care Leon or those who accept try Care. That's who
they will then defer or push referrals out to so
that dependent family members can receive services.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you mentioned that because
when I think about some of the resources that have
come out of the military, like some of the gold
Star standards for lots of evidence based treatments, they come
from the military, So it's interesting that they haven't expanded,
and you know, started to think about, like, Okay, how
do we take care of the greater family outside of
the person serving.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
You know, the military budget is always up for discussion
of political settings, so I think that's one element of it,
because to expand you have to be able to bring
in additional providers, and often ones who are not in
uniform are pipelines. I think I discussed that in becoming
a therapist the episode the second one. Those pipelines can
(14:51):
sometimes be a little slower, and there's not a whole
lot of people raising their hands saying I want to
serve in the United States military. Those of us who
choose to serve our one percent of the general population
in the United States, and then that percentage gets even smaller,
maybe it's three percent who serve in one person officer
can't remember the data, but it is a very small
(15:13):
subset of the population who chooses to put on the
uniform and wear the cloth of our nation. And so
that becomes an even bigger issue. Right when we're talking
about clinic management and personnel management. We just don't have
the bandwidth of active duty service members to be able
to treat all of our active duty personnel in addition
(15:34):
to their families and any veterans, And so that then
requires them to make decisions around how many folk can
we bring on, what's our budget, what's our manning, what's
our space. It just becomes that much more of a
challenging experience. So where we can refer people to trusted
resources that we believe have received the cultural competency training
(15:56):
to be able to understand the needs of military fail
families or military service members. That can be really helpful
so that those on active duty can focus on maintaining
the mission of keeping our democracy alive and well and
keeping us safe and free.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
More from our conversation after the break. So as often happens,
I think with mental health professionals, some area of our
life often becomes our area of study. So your dissertation
was actually on the impact of deployment on children of
(16:35):
active duty personnel. Can you talk a little bit about
what that study found?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Oh man, Can I tell you a little bit about
why I had decided to do that first?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah? Absolutely, So.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I went to boarding school for high school, and in
my senior year, it's a big time. You get a sweater,
you have a senior presentation, it's a very special experience.
But that year my father deployed. He was assigned to
a ship, and for the majority of my senior year
he was off someplace where I didn't know right and
(17:04):
it was very difficult to be able to share moments
with him. This was at a time where my parents
gave me and my roommate a camquarder so that we
could record some of the little moments that happened in
the year, and I could nail those to my dad
and he would receive them in maybe two three weeks
after the recording actually took place. And in the instances
(17:26):
where he was able to call, it was like, I'm
breaking the rules. I'm gonna keep my cell phone because
I know my dad is important, and you just gonna
have to excuse me as I walk out of this
class to take my father's phone call. Kind of experience
or moments where you couldn't even reach him. You know
he's important. Maybe I missed the call, but it's not
a number that I can call back. And so that
was a really difficult time, especially in adolescence, as there
(17:50):
major milestones but also major challenges. And it was at
that point in time that I realized this has an impact.
This is an important thing to consider. My cousin, her
husband is also an active duty service member. He's a physician,
and he deployed at a time when she was pregnant
miss delivery. She didn't have her husband there to support
(18:14):
her through that process, and she had one small child.
And so just seeing in my family what that experience
was like to deal with the absence the ambiguous absence
of your service member, although they're very much still part
of your family system. I said, I need to explore
this a little bit, and I actually changed my dissertation
topic to reflect that I was previously interested in the
(18:38):
relationships with black women, and I said, but there's not
so much information out there, not too many studies focusing
on the challenges of military families and the children's experience.
So I did decide to explore that in my research,
and we identified that throughout the cycle of deployment, there
are different issues that may arise for children. In the
(19:00):
ramp up. There are lots of feelings, maybe confusion, some anxiety.
There could be some concern, maybe a little overwhelmed, depending
on the age of the child. As that deployment cycle
rams up, and then the family member leaves and goes
away for training, but they're not yet quite gone. They're
just not as accessible. And then there's the deployment period
(19:21):
where the family is adjusting, right, like, Okay, we know
our roles, we know what's expected, we anticipate what the
routine is when we might hear from our loved one,
and we're able to be resilient to pull it together
and keep going. But then we found that there's a
lot of challenge on the reintegration period. You get all
excited because you get notification I'm coming home on this day, right,
(19:44):
And I remember my dad coming home and he came
into port and you see all the nice white uniforms
standing on the deck of the ship, and that was
super exciting, right. And there was the transition of him
coming home and acclimating he had some sea legs, so
he wasn't driving for a little while because things just
different after you get off of the water. And then
it became a process of how do we reintegrate Dad
(20:07):
into this system. And in our research we found that
that's a really trying time for the family. The roles
have been renegotiated. The loved one who's been deployed has
been gone for quite some time, so maybe they're not
the disciplinarian or the final sign off on what someone
can and cannot do as a teenager or as a
young person, and finding their way back into that space
(20:30):
is difficult for the service member and it's difficult for
the family. Sometimes during those parts of the process, we
find that younger children, particularly may have some regression in
their milestones, so you might see night terrors, you might
see bed wedding, you might see more babyish behaviors that
you thought your child had grown out of coming back
(20:53):
up again because they got really big feelings and they're
not quite sure how to handle all of that. And
with that research, we were able to identify what services
were out there at that point in time. But there
were some services emerging at that point in time to
help deal with those specific challenges, and they're robust even now,
even though the pace of deployments not being what they
(21:15):
used to be, those resources are still very much there
and accessible and available to military families. We also saw
that upon reintegration there's a lot of marital stress, right
there's the renegotiation of who's doing what around the home
and who's doing what with the children, and the financial element.
(21:36):
A lot of people don't know that when you deploy,
you actually get an increase in pay so coming home
from deployment can actually pose for some families financial strain
or financial stress if the money's not been managed well
during the deployment period, so that can be an issue.
There's a whole issue in navigating the relationship after that
(21:56):
honeymoon period, my Boo is back, my bay is here.
There can be that difficulty of all this time you've
been gone, and I'm tired. It's your turn to pick
up right, It's your turn to do a little bit more.
But that service member themselves is coming back and they're saying,
all this time I've been gone, it's not been a vacation,
and I'm tired. And if communication is not good, if
(22:19):
parenting practices are not on the same page, it can
cause a lot of conflict. And as children observing the
dynamic between the parents, of course that has an impact
on them as well.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
So based on the results of your study, doctor Jackson,
it sounds like the children of military members are particularly
affected by this lifestyle of constant moves and what sounds
like a lot of regular uncertainty. Casey, you're the mother
of three school age children. I'd love to hear from you.
What kinds of things do you do with your children
to try and make the situation a little easier for
(22:54):
them and help to ground them in this experience.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I am very big on family.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Grew up with two of my cousins living with my
first cousins.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
We're so close their kids call me auntie.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
So we always try to make sure always call it
the world tour. When we transfer, we always try to
make sure we stop by and see family. I try
to make sure they are very connected to their family,
they know who their family is even though they're not
close by, and try to have some form of the
relationship that we had. So that's one thing I try
(23:30):
to do is make sure to still connected to family.
Another thing is I talk to them, let them know
we're moving. My husband one time he did a whole
PowerPoint presentation to talk about where we're going. What's that
going to be, like, does that military strategic thing? We
try to make it a family event and also just
(23:52):
ask them how they're feeling. The middle one, he's such
an extrovert. He's always excited for the adventure. The oldest
is like, we got to do this again, have to
meet people again, and so we always try to make
sure to check in with them and see how they're feeling,
whether their anxiety is the oldest one should get to
(24:12):
a little anxious sometimes, so just talking to them about
that and letting them know regardless that we're going to
be there as a family unit, we're all going to
be there and that's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
But our door is always open if they want to.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Talk about the transition, if they want to talk about
the feelings that they're going through, and we let them
know those feelings are completely normal and we'll be here
with them throughout those Hmm.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
That communication sounds key. Going back to you, doctor Jackson,
are there any specific resources that you can share for
anybody who's enjoying our conversation who might find themselves in
this situation and want to know where they can find support, specifically,
any resources for children for children, The.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Ones that I really like are Operation Purple. Operation Purple
has camps for for children and for military families geared
towards connecting each other and creating that community of understanding
and familiarity. And so they offer these camps throughout the year,
and I think they have a summer camp and a
one day family camp that's offered and you can find
(25:15):
them online under Operation Purple. For relocation services, there are
resources through the Yellow Ribbon for National Guard families, and
there are resources through the Penn State School Penn State
School resources about military families and that addresses the specific
(25:35):
needs of military children and how they can thrive academically, behaviorally,
and with their mental health by connecting them with individuals
who understand the needs of military families. For children and families.
There's also a program called Focus and that stands for
Families Overcoming under Stress, and they have resources to assist
(25:58):
military families with issues that they experience even outside of
the context of deployment.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Thank you for that. In casey, do you know of
any resources that are specific to black military families.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Yes, Facebook, Facebook, there is a group Black Military Wise,
Black Military Spouses.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
They are there because those are things.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Again that we need when we're looking for a black therapist,
we're looking for a black obgyn. We want to know
the schools that have black teachers or military teachers. So
for us to still be intertwined with our community as
black people is definitely important to us. Because ninety two
(26:40):
percent of military spouses are women, but only fifteen percent
of them are Black women. And so let's say, for example,
on one street of ten homes on one side, you
may have one or two that are black women. I
lived in a neighborhood on both sides of the street
was me and it was one other person two door down,
(27:03):
and that was it. And we think fifteen percent is
a really big number. But when you look not just
stay side, you look in other countries, they are not
many of us collectively around, So we do rely on
those groups that black military wise, black military spouses, black
spouses of whatever state that you're in to really help
(27:27):
and be a support during these times.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Thank you both so much for sharing those resources. I'm
sure many people will find those helpful. I want to
go back to a comment you made earlier, doctor Jackson,
about being the partner of an active duty personnel member
and how dynamics can change once that military member comes
back home. Can you talk a little about what treatment
would look like and how you might help that kind
of couple with some of those difficult conversations.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh man, couple counseling can't stress it enough. If you
need it, see if your local military TI treatment facility
offers couples counseling, and if they don't, get a referral
to the network with someone that you can trust to
understand the culture. That would be my first line of
intervention if it's necessary, Like if there are those level
(28:14):
of problems in acute conflict, couple's therapy would be the
thing In the absence of that, there are other options
provided through chaplains. Active duty chaplains all of their departments
tend to offer retreats. They also offer counseling and support
pastoral counseling and support that can be accessible to military families.
(28:35):
But in the office, I would recommend talking a lot
about communication and roles and expectations, talking about needs, emotional needs,
attachment needs, like what is going on that maybe miss
that your partner can come in and address, so that
the core issues are being met right Oftentimes it's not
(28:57):
just I'm tired physically, it's I'm tired. Do you see
all that I've been doing. Do you value the sacrifice
that I've been making while you've been able to go
and do your job. Do you understand that there were
a lot of things that may have happened here that
we didn't discuss or share with you because you needed
to be focused on the mission. That's really often encouraged
(29:20):
is that you military spouse is you keep that to
yourself and you figure that out with your support system
so that you are not distracting the service member from
what they need to take care of. Sometimes in very
hostile environments and so a lot of times, I think
there's a need to get to the root of the
issue and not just spend a lot of time addressing
the surface level situational factors that may be coming up.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And Doctor Jackson, you also mentioned even in your personal
family around getting ready for deployment and what a big
deal that was. What kinds of suggestions or advice would
you give to a family who's maybe preparing for deployment.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Sure, I would recommend spending lots of time together finding
out what your strategy for communication will be a lot
of times you won't be able to nail down specific
days and times that you'll call, but identify what's really
important to you, what your service member needs while they're away,
and what you need to hear from them or have
from them while they're gone and when they return. So
(30:18):
spending lots of time together creating those milestones you have
young children. Build a bear is a wonderful thing where
you can go and record a story or a little
message so they can continue to hear your voice while
you're gone, but being mindful of the fact that they're
sacrificed on both ends and each partner validating what it's
going to take for you all to get through this
(30:39):
as a team, right, and understanding how you can best
support each other during the period of physical separation I
think would be really important.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
And can you talk a little bit more about like
how you'd explain that to young children in particular, you know,
like this idea that maybe mom or dad is going
to be gone, and even feelings of like maybe losing
family members to the military that I think could come
up for either children or even adults. What kinds of
things would you say about that.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
And preparing children. Sesame Street you sas some really great resources,
and I still think those are active resources to help
talk to young children about what deployment is and what
separation looks like. Giving them expectation that they're going away
for work and this is an exciting thing and they're
doing their job and we look forward to hearing from them.
(31:27):
Keeping it very age appropriate is going to be important.
They don't need to know all the risk that's involved.
They're not going to understand all the risk that is involved,
but you can explain it to them in age appropriate
ways and use materials from the library or Sesame Street
resources to help explain it to really young children with
older children. I think you have frank discussions like, look,
(31:48):
this is where we are. This is going to be
taxing for us, and it's quite a shift in our
family dynamic. So this is how as a family we're
going to navigate this process. And we want your act
of involvement. We want to understand how you feel about
what's going on and what you think about what's going on,
and we're going to hold space for the fact that
it's going to be frustrating sometimes that we're all going
(32:10):
to have some moments where this isn't the lifestyle we
necessarily want or the experience we want to be living through.
But how can we continue to focus together as a
family to get through the moment dealing with loss. I
don't think there's any easy way to explain that. I
think it's helpful if there has been loss to utilize
the resources within the military community. Always if there's a
(32:33):
death notification that needs to be made. A KEKO officer,
I can't remember what that acronym exactly stands for, but
a KEKO officer is going to show up at the door.
That's where you see the person come in a full
uniform and knocks on the door. And the service member
spouse knows exactly what's going on. That's a KEKO call
and those are really difficult to make. But those KKO
(32:55):
officers are the points of contact with the resources that
you need to connect due to the entire process and
provide support throughout that process. If a death notification has
been made, that can include what benefits are, how those
benefits are distributed, how a service is coordinated, and what
resources mental health wise are even available for you.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
More from our conversation after the break, doctor Jackson, you
just brought up a very important and i'd imagine common
anxiety from military families, which is the death of a
military service member. Casey, as a military spouse, have you
(33:43):
ever been in a situation where you were unsure about
your partner's safety.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I can't remember if it was Afghanistan are Kuwait and
a base was bombed. This was back when there was
only Skype to communicate. There are no phone calls, there
were no FaceTime, and at that time you could watch
the news because they shut everything down. If the basis on,
(34:07):
everything is shut down. So there were so many times
those incidents happening where I'm just waiting on someone to
come knock at my door because there was no phone
call or text to say hey, I'm okay, everything is good.
You're watching your news to figure out whatever information they
can release, and you're waiting on someone to call you
(34:29):
or someone to knock on your door. And the knock
on the door, I mean your husband or your spouse
is no longer here. So there were so many of
those moments that surprised me because you don't know how
to prepare for it. There's no way to actually prepare
for that moment. So I had a few of those
moments that really my anxiety was so high.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Thank you for sharing that, Casey. I'm sure many of
our military Family listeners are listening and sharing that emotion
with you. To go back to the reintegration process you mentioned,
doctor Jackson, for those family members who are fortunate enough
to have their military member come back from a deployment,
what kinds of suggestions would you offer to family for
what life looks like while the person is deployed, and
(35:14):
then what is the process of even reintegrating them. What
does that look like?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Well, while they're gone, establish your routine, do what is
going to work for you. You are at home managing and
holding it down. So whatever process is going to be
useful to you, engage in that.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Okay, So I'm hearing that establishing a routine is key.
We talk about the importance of routines and prioritizing care
of yourself here on the podcast all the time. So
I can only imagine the benefited offers to military families. Casey,
from your experience, what sorts of routine self care practices
have been helpful for you to engage in while your
partner was away?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
A lot of naps. I love to sleep, a lot
of naps, a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I work out a lot, and that's something I still
do every morning, is taking time for myself. I'm a
big believer in taking time for myself before I take
care of everybody else. So I'm usually up at least
an hour or two before the kids, checking in with myself, reading,
(36:21):
if I have one more I need to cry, if
that Plenty of those moments you know, have those moments
and make sure I take care of myself through moving
my body. Are sometimes just being silent and writing, having
a cup of coffee and sitting outside and watching the
sun come up, or just having some moments like that.
(36:42):
To really just take care of my spirit and my energy.
Those are usually things that I find that works best
for me.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
In casey, could you also talk a little bit about
your own experience managing your home while your husband was
deployed and then helping to reintegrate him back into the
home after deployment.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
I can't say it's an easy thing to manage when
your spouse is gone for six months, eight months, ten months.
We just really do the best that we can. There's
been times where I just I don't work because I
want to fully be there. Because they know they have
two parents. One is inactive, so I have to do
(37:21):
double the work. So that may mean for me not
having a job outside of the home for a period
of times, I can be fully available for them throughout
the day. When he comes back, we are already in
such a routine without him that coming back for him
(37:41):
is okay.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
So where do I fit in this family? That's a
real thing.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I notice it is my wife, I know, if it's
not my children, But where do I fit in?
Speaker 3 (37:52):
It's almost like am I in your way? What do
you need me to do?
Speaker 4 (37:57):
So for him, it's been many times observing or asking questions,
what does this kid like to do now?
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Has their favorite food? Change, has their favorite color? Change?
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Who's their teacher? Which classroom is theirs? What's their temperament now?
And even for the kids being okay with going to
ask daddy a question, because I've been talking to mommy
so much for six months, asking her for everything, So
it can be that bypass, Daddy come to mommy and
(38:30):
that parent or that soldier may see it as a
disrespectful thing, but we're so used to you not being here,
so being gone for six months. After about two to
three months, we're in the new groove, and then when
the soldier comes back, it takes maybe another two to
three months to reshuffle this thing all over again to
(38:55):
reintegrate him.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
It's very it's very tasking.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I' musa say, doctor Jackson, and are there any other
strategies you'd recommend for helping us spouse reintegrate after time
spin away from home.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Once you get that notification that your loved one is
coming home and you start preparing, it's not all just
about the party, right, Understand what they need? How do
we celebrate your return and how do we give you
space to process and reacclimate? Oftentimes on the heels of
a deployment. Service member has some leave time, may want
to take a vacation, They may just want to be
(39:26):
at home. They may be coming back with very little
insight about how their experiences have really impacted them, and
there may be a delayed onset of what those experiences maybe,
whether that's trauma or depression or anxiety. Making space for
them to be able to feel and reconnect is going
(39:47):
to be really important. Try not to overstimulate or overschedule.
Get a lot of buy in from that service member
about what it is that they want to be able
to do when they do return home, into them this
is what we've been doing since youve been on Our
seventeen year old is doing this, and our five year
old is doing that, and these are some of the
(40:09):
milestones that have occurred while you've been away. And I'm
wanting to loop you into how we've been doing things.
And once you get back and you've decompressed a little bit,
let's have a family discussion about how we renegotiate the
roles and how we discuss the current expectations so that
we're moving into a space where there's frequent communication. I've
(40:31):
heard a lot of complaints from military spouses and even
military children that they're like, my service member parent treats
me like I'm one of their sailors, soldiers or airmen,
and I'm not right. It's kind of easy to fall
into that with the default way that we communicate military.
If you're in a position of leadership, you say something
and it gets done. You don't have to repeat yourself
(40:52):
often and then happen in homes you have to get
comfortable with repeating yourself and so communication is so key
and involving each other in an understanding of what's needed,
what the routine has been, and how we're preparing for
a shift. I think it's a recipe for success.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Mmm mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
So, doctor Jackson, you mentioned that some service members it
might come back with some trauma they've experienced, or even
have an onset of depression or anxiety. What kinds of
things should a partner or a spouse know about how
to support a service member who's coming back home and
maybe experiencing some of these changes.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Keep an eye out for what has changed, what looks different,
Remind the service member of what their available options are,
but be compassionate with the fact that there's a lot
of stigma in the military around mental health still because
the worldwide deployable component and fitness for duty is still
(41:49):
a huge piece of every service member's career, and some
people believe that as soon as I walk into behavioral
health or as soon as I sit down with the
psych that disposition is going to be changed, and that's
going to have a negative impact on my career. And
to be quite frank sometimes for some people it might
depending on what it is that you do, unfortunately, and
(42:12):
there may be some resistance to that because they're thinking
about the time invested, the identity that they've developed by
putting that uniform on every single day. So be compassionate,
but notice what the changes are, right, offer them support
and remind them of what the resources are. And sometimes
it's helpful to even say, but you know what, love,
(42:35):
at some point, you're going to retire from this military system,
and at some point they're going to want to know
everything that's been going on with you in terms of
your health and your well being. And this is an
important thing for them to know because your country has
made a commitment to you to take care of you
because of the service that you've offered. So let them
take care of you, whether it's in the now or
(42:57):
in the future. And the only way we're going to
be able to do that is to talk to somebody
about what's going on. A really helpful resource, again, can
be the chaplains. They have confidentiality that is similar to
behavioral health confidentiality, sometimes even a little bit better, and
so from that standpoint, they can be a first line
(43:18):
of support where a diagnosis may not need to be established,
but support needs to be offered. Chaplains can be a
really great resource for that. Fleet and Family services for
the Navy and Marine Corps can also be a great resource.
If there's no diagnosis to be had, you can be
seen at Fleet and Family or the same thing within
(43:39):
the Army is called Military Family Life Counseling is INFLECT
for the Army and for the Air Force, their support
is Military Family Readiness System and sometimes that can be
a place where service members can get support without a
diagnosis before approaching behavioral health. Reduces a little bit of
(44:01):
that concern or fear about walking into the behavioral health system,
and that can be a way to disarm your service member,
but say hey, we need some support here. Those can
be alternative options of support. But being mindful of what
depression looks like, what anxiety looks like, not assuming that
everybody who's been exposed to trauma is going to develop PTSD,
(44:24):
but understanding what some of those signs are is really
helpful as well. And then one thing that I think
doesn't get enough attention is looking at the relationship that
your service member might have with substances. Rarely are we
going to see service members using illicit substances because of
the consequences of that. But alcohol can be part of
(44:46):
what military culture looks like, and it's harder sometimes to
identify when we've moved from a space of this is
what military culture looks like into excess and problematic relationship
with alcohol. So being mindful of mood changes, sleeping changes,
changes in the way that they're interacting with their loved ones,
with their colleagues, with their supervisors, substance use, all of
(45:09):
those things are things to be mindful of.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I think doctor Jackson, you've talked a little bit about
military deployment readiness. Can you explain what that means to
our listeners who might be unaware.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So it's fitness for duty and that relates to one's
ability to, at the drop of a time, be worldwide deployable,
and it is a military psychologist, social worker, whatever level
of behavioral health treatment you're at in for active duty personnel,
it's imperative that you're considering that disposition at all times
(45:41):
because we have to maintain a fighting force that's ready
to go when we need them to write, if the
balloon goes up, how many people can this particular unit
send off on that given day that they're assigned to,
And so we have to be mindful of what diagnoses
can't be treated in a deployed setting, things like bipolar disorder.
(46:02):
Of course, serious mental illness is not something that could
be treated in a worldwide deployable kind of status. Sometimes anxiety,
any sort of medication use, those kinds of things might
impact someone's ability to be able to deploy. And because
every service member is a soldier, sailor airmen first, we
have to always maintain that fitness for duty and readiness
(46:26):
to go.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
So if you're not able to maintain that status, then
your status becomes what.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
There are options there. So if you're not able to
go when the balloon goes up, there are options they're
called different things for different branches of service, but essentially
it is limited duty. So for a little while, we're
going to say maybe six months, you're not able to
do your job and we need to focus on treatment.
So we might offer you what we would see in
(46:52):
the civilian world to be reasonable accommodations, change in work schedule,
change and shift, ability to leave early in order to
attend behavioral health appointments, maybe some time off work altogether
to pursue a higher level of care like intensive outpatient
therapy or partial hospitalization. Those put some restrictions on the
(47:14):
ability for a military component or a unit to be
able to move that person or send them off very quickly.
So it affects the needs of the Navy, and it's
important for active duty clinicians. They all know that it's
important for them to be able to understand and make
those dispositions appropriately so that the units are able to
(47:35):
do what they need to do or get more people
without there being a specific personnel challenge or maning challenge.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
So as a military psychologist, a part of what you're
doing as a part of your care is assessing for
this fitness for duty.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Absolutely, now I want to be clear I'm no longer
a military psychologist. Yes, they'd be like, who is this
and why does she not get clearings from the public
affairs officer. I'm a former military psychologists and yes, absolutely,
it's at the forefront of most clinicians' minds. That's something
they need to be mindful of.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Got it. Both of you have already given us a
ton of resources, But are there any others that you
think somebody who's enjoying our conversation might benefit from.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Military one Source is a really great resource. It's one
that's widely known often amongst military communities because they have
a wide range of benefits to address the specific needs,
whether it's financial stressors, couples counseling, individual counseling that's needed.
We talked about the component specific or service specific family resources.
(48:41):
Military one Source is a broad umbrella that will take
any service member from any branch, veterans, or their family
members to provide them with access to some of these resources.
And as far as I'm aware, with military resource, you're
able to have some complementary session for individual therapy. You
(49:02):
do have to go through a process of applying for
those benefits and finding an in network counselor and things
like that, But those sessions don't get charged to you
for a certain number, and you'd have to speak with
a military one source representative to identify exactly how many
of those sessions you would receive without out of pocket
costs to you. But that's a really great resource as well.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Perfect We'll be sure to include that and all the
other resources that you mentioned in our show notes. We
could keep this conversation going on, I'm sure much longer,
but to close us out, could you both let our
community know where we can find you.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
My website is Dkseking dot com and I am on Instagram, TikTok,
Kcsking across the board, Facebook, all across the board kcs King.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Our website is Epiphany Psychotherapy dot com and I can
be found on Instagram at doctor period D Jackson.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
In casey, I know you've recently released your book The
Life of a Military Spouse. Your dreams matter too. How
would you like for folks to engage with this body
of work.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
I would really like you to go out and purchase
and just support the book because I believe this book
would be a great help to so many military spouses
who've thought about giving up who are at the point
in their life they said, you know what, I'll just
do nothing. My dreams don't matter. I don't know a
(50:29):
spouse that has been told and maybe there are many
that have been told, Hey, make sure you take care
of yourself. Whatever your goals are, you can achieve those
goals as well. You're more than just a military spouse.
You're more than just your children's mom or dad. You
have goals, you have dreams, and those do matter too,
(50:53):
and they don't always have to be on the back burner.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
There's a way that you can achieve those things you desire.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Will said, well, thank you both so much for joining
me today. We've been wanting to have this conversation for
a while, so I'm so glad that we were able
to talk with both of you. I'm so glad doctor
Jackson and Casey were able to share their expertise and
experience with us today. To learn more about them and
their work, visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls
(51:22):
dot com slash Session three twenty four, and don't forget
to text two of your girls right now and encourage
them to check out the episode. If you're looking for
a therapist in your area. Check out our therapist directory
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory and if
you want to continue digging into this topic or just
be in community with other sisters, come on over and
(51:44):
join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner
of the Internet designed just for black women. You can
join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
This episode was produced by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and
Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennis and Brad. Thank
y'all so much for joining me again this week. I
look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
(52:07):
Take good care which friend are you and your sister circle?
Are you the wallflower, the peacemaker, the firecracker or the leader?
Take the quiz at Sisterhoodheels dot com slash quiz to
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of Sisterhood Heels to find out more about how you
(52:28):
can be a better friend and how your circle can
do a better job of supporting you. Order yours today
at sisterhood Heels dot com.
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session three twenty four of the
therapyla Girls Podcast. We'll get run into our conversation after
a word from our sponsors. Which friend are you? And
your sister circle? Are you the wallflower, the peacemaker, the
firecracker or the leader? Take the quiz at Sisterhoodheels dot
com slash quiz to find out, and then make sure
(01:20):
to grab your copy of Sisterhood Heels to find out
more about how you can be a better friend and
how your circle can do a better job of supporting you.
Order yours today at Sisterhoodheels dot com. Deciding to enlist
in the military is a huge decision, and when you
(01:41):
have a family, that choice may come with changing dynamics,
tough conversations with children, and anxiety for spouses that are
left behind. However, this isn't a battle you have to
fight alone. To shed some light on this experience and
share what resources are available to military faiamilies, I'm joined
today by United States Navy veterans Kasey King and doctor
(02:05):
DeAndrea Jackson, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a
licensed clinical psychologist, respectively. In our conversation, we discuss strategies
for explaining military deployment to young children, ways for military
spouses to practice self care, and how to help spouses
reintegrate into the home after time away. If something resonates
(02:27):
with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us
on social media using the hashtag TBG in session or
join us over in the sister circle To talk more
about the episode, you can join us at community dot
therapy for Blackgirls dot Com. Here's our conversation, Doctor Jackson, Casey,
(02:49):
I'm so glad you both could join me today to
discuss your dual experiences as both military veterans and military
family members to start, Doctor Jackson, could you tell me
a little bit about upbringing as a part of a
military family.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
My dad was a pastor up until the age of
about eleven. When I was about eleven years old, he
decided that he was going to fulfill his dream to
become a Navy chaplain and that was a major transition
for us. Prior to my birth and my brother's birth,
he was active duty, but he was enlisted, and it
was always his dream to become a Navy chaplain. So
(03:22):
he decided at that point, and my family's all right,
I'm good, I'm ready for something different, and I want
to see the world. And so he and my mother
decided that they were going to embark on this military journey.
So into the Navy he went, and he was commissioned,
and we had an amazing commissioning ceremony for him at
our church and it was such a huge celebration to
(03:44):
seeing him sworn in and being able to put his
shoulder boards on for his rank insignia. It was such
a positive experience. And then he said, we're in the
Navy now and we're moving to ok now A, Japan,
and I don't think at eleven, geography really made that
much sense to me because I spend the little globe
(04:07):
or look at the map and I was like, okay,
well Japan is over here, but didn't know that Okanaw
was this tiny little island way below the mainland of Japan.
And it didn't dawn on me exactly how far we
were going until we boarded a plane for a twenty
four plus hour flight to Oka, now Japan, where we
(04:27):
lived for three years. And that was our initial induction
into what military life was like. My dad served twenty
plus years on active duty, and at one point we
served together. He swore me in in the chaplain of
the Senate's office and it was a wonderful experience, and
that's really what gave me exposure to military culture, pride
(04:47):
and service, and a keen understanding of what military families
really deal with.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
A keen understanding. Indeed, that's quite the culture shift for
an eleven year old to go through. Thank you for
sharing that, Doctor Jackson and Casey, you're a licensed marriage
and family therapist, a veteran, and a military wife. Can
you talk to us about how those three experiences have
impacted the work you're doing in your community.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So being a therapist, being a spouse, and also being
a veteran, just all of that combined together, I think
one resilience being able to fully understand the community that
I'm working with, being able to understand trauma as a spouse,
(05:34):
as someone who is you know, has vicariously gone through it.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I can be able to.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Sit in hole space for those who are across from
me who are going through those experiences as well.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And how many years did you and your partner serve
in the military collectively?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Almost thirty two years. I did about eight and a
half years. I told my husband you can have it.
I'm done with this and he just retired last year
after twenty three years.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Wow. Yeah, so great delitary is for both of you.
Did you all meet in the military.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Yes, Actually he came through We're in Gulfport, Mississippi, and
I noticed his car before I noticed him. I'm such
a lover of old school cars, and I saw the Cadillac.
I was a military police he was coming through the
gate and I told my girlfriend that was there with me.
I really liked that car. And he just happened to
be in there, and he was handsome too.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh I love that. Wow, what a romantic military meet
cute story. So, after hearing from both of you, I
can already imagine that the experience of being either a
spouse of a military member or a child of one
can be quite stressful. Doctor Jackson, can you talk a
little bit about mental health support that you and your
family received as you were getting acclimated to this new life.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Because we were new to the experience, I don't even
think my parents knew too much about what resources may
have been a level there to support us with that
kind of transition. You do have access to the behavioral
health clinics, and oftentimes in overseas environments they do have
child psychologists on staff that would have been of major assistance.
(07:13):
But really the way we navigated it was just as
a family and as a community, and as you started
to get closer to other people. When you move to
a new location, regardless of whether you're domestic or overseas,
you're assigned a sponsor, and that sponsor gets you acclimated
to the area. They tell you where things are, they
show you where you're going to live. They introduce you
(07:35):
to other people to help build community for you. While
you're there. So a lot of it for us was
really leaning into the people that we were meeting and
learning to understand what their experiences are while they're living there.
I do recall before we've moved to Okinawa, we met
with a distant family friend who had just returned from Okinawa,
(07:58):
and I don't know that that was really helpful. Joy
the kids were like, oh my goodness, we're so glad
to be back in America. We didn't have a cable.
They just got cable. One of the things that like
astonished me. They were like, we didn't have real milk
on the basis until recently, And I said, what, y'all
(08:19):
don't have two percent milk? What's going on? But because
the distance the location, some of those creature comforts that
we experience here domestically are not always accessible there. One
of the highlights of our tour while we were there
was that they got a taco bell on base just
before we were leaving. We got to get a taste
of Mexican pizzas. Again. So those can be some of
(08:42):
the hard transitions of figuring out how you move right,
how do you physically relocate your family, and then how
do you connect with new people once you get there.
It was really challenging to support us. I think my
parents did keep us in school. We moved towards the
end of the school year, and of course you know
how that is. Moving children can be difficult. But because
(09:04):
my dad's orders were executed in April, we did some
acceleration at our private school prior to leaving the DC area,
so we had technically finished all of the academic requirements
for the school year. But my parents had enough foresight
to say, if we don't get them in school, they're
not going to be able to meet friends or establish
their own community of peers. Once we get there, it'll
(09:26):
be harder. So while we knew we were finished with
school when we were going through the motions, we understood
that it was an important piece of our transition, and
that was really helpful. One of the first people that
I met when I moved there, her name was Tori,
one of my best friends in the whole wide world.
We say. She was one of the first people I met,
and she really helped me acclimate to what it was
like being overseas. We lived on the same base and
(09:49):
we were able to link up, and that was an
interesting experience, and I appreciate the depth that our friendship
still has because of that unique experience that we shared
during our time Okinawa.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So doctor Jackson, you of course have the unique vantage
point of having been a psychologist in the Navy and
also having your dad's experience. Can you talk a little
bit about how you've seen mental health conversations change in
the military across some of that time.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
With the ramp up, I think of the war Iraqi
Freedom and during Freedom there was a lot of focus
on trauma. There was a lot of focus on deployment.
There was a lot of focus on military readiness, like
how do we keep our force actively worldwide, deployable, and
so there has been a focus on making sure that
(10:36):
active duty service members are robustly supported with the resources
that are provided. And military psychology has really always been
on the forefront of new trends emerging trends in the
field of psychology. So from the standpoint of active duty
service members, I think it's in a really great space.
Is there always work to be done, sure, but it's
(10:58):
pretty solid in terms of what they're able to provide.
Family wise, I think there are more opportunities, but the
major military treatment facilities. The clinics that are typically operated
on base, which is what we would identify as the
military treatment system, is not often geared towards supporting the
(11:19):
dependence of the active duty service members. In the mental
health clinics specifically, you can go there and get your
care for primary care or specialists that you need to see,
but if the behavioral health clinic is at capacity, they
start deferring to the network family members, spouses, children even
(11:40):
for their care. And I think that's an area where
things could improve. It's really challenging as a military family
member to move into a community space or with a
community provider who really understands the culture, the stresses, and
the challenges that military families experience on a day to
day basis. And that's because I think there's been so
(12:02):
much talk about trauma and about deployment that it kind
of gets circumscribed as that's the biggest stressor for a
military family when it is one of the bigger stressors,
but it's not in the top four actually in terms
of military families who were surveyed around what their stressors
actually are.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Can you say more about their survey What were some
of the bigger stressors So this survey.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The most recent one, included about ninety three hundred military
families worldwide, and it's called the Military Family Lifestyle Survey,
and this twenty twenty three iteration of it found that
the top four stressors were family financial wellbeing, military spouse, employment,
the impact of service, so things like time away, relocation,
(12:48):
child education, childcare. Those were the top three for active
service families, and then for veterans, the major issue was
access to quality healthcare. Deployment anywhere to be found in
those top levels of what those stressors are, and I
think in part that's because the pace of deployments has
(13:09):
really slowed down significantly in the last several years. But
I think it also just recognizes that we pretty much
expect at some point our loved one is going to deploy,
whether that's on a ship, on a brief training mission
for an extended period a time. We expect that's part
of military service. But it's the day to day stressors
(13:30):
that can tend to feel even more overwhelming, and I
think that sometimes gets overlooked.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
So you've mentioned when the behavioral clinics on base or
a capacity, they begin referring to the network. Are you
talking about like neighboring therapists in the area who probably
do a lot of work with military families just because
of where they're located. Is that what you mean.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I'm referring to the insurance network, So neighboring therapists in
the area who are credential providers through military. One source
which is affiliated with I think it's Beacon Health in
Care Leon or those who accept try Care. That's who
they will then defer or push referrals out to so
that dependent family members can receive services.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you mentioned that because
when I think about some of the resources that have
come out of the military, like some of the gold
Star standards for lots of evidence based treatments, they come
from the military, So it's interesting that they haven't expanded,
and you know, started to think about, like, Okay, how
do we take care of the greater family outside of
the person serving.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
You know, the military budget is always up for discussion
of political settings, so I think that's one element of it,
because to expand you have to be able to bring
in additional providers, and often ones who are not in
uniform are pipelines. I think I discussed that in becoming
a therapist the episode the second one. Those pipelines can
(14:51):
sometimes be a little slower, and there's not a whole
lot of people raising their hands saying I want to
serve in the United States military. Those of us who
choose to serve our one percent of the general population
in the United States, and then that percentage gets even smaller,
maybe it's three percent who serve in one person officer
can't remember the data, but it is a very small
(15:13):
subset of the population who chooses to put on the
uniform and wear the cloth of our nation. And so
that becomes an even bigger issue. Right when we're talking
about clinic management and personnel management. We just don't have
the bandwidth of active duty service members to be able
to treat all of our active duty personnel in addition
(15:34):
to their families and any veterans, And so that then
requires them to make decisions around how many folk can
we bring on, what's our budget, what's our manning, what's
our space. It just becomes that much more of a
challenging experience. So where we can refer people to trusted
resources that we believe have received the cultural competency training
(15:56):
to be able to understand the needs of military fail
families or military service members. That can be really helpful
so that those on active duty can focus on maintaining
the mission of keeping our democracy alive and well and
keeping us safe and free.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
More from our conversation after the break. So as often happens,
I think with mental health professionals, some area of our
life often becomes our area of study. So your dissertation
was actually on the impact of deployment on children of
(16:35):
active duty personnel. Can you talk a little bit about
what that study found?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Oh man, Can I tell you a little bit about
why I had decided to do that first?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah? Absolutely, So.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I went to boarding school for high school, and in
my senior year, it's a big time. You get a sweater,
you have a senior presentation, it's a very special experience.
But that year my father deployed. He was assigned to
a ship, and for the majority of my senior year
he was off someplace where I didn't know right and
(17:04):
it was very difficult to be able to share moments
with him. This was at a time where my parents
gave me and my roommate a camquarder so that we
could record some of the little moments that happened in
the year, and I could nail those to my dad
and he would receive them in maybe two three weeks
after the recording actually took place. And in the instances
(17:26):
where he was able to call, it was like, I'm
breaking the rules. I'm gonna keep my cell phone because
I know my dad is important, and you just gonna
have to excuse me as I walk out of this
class to take my father's phone call. Kind of experience
or moments where you couldn't even reach him. You know
he's important. Maybe I missed the call, but it's not
a number that I can call back. And so that
was a really difficult time, especially in adolescence, as there
(17:50):
major milestones but also major challenges. And it was at
that point in time that I realized this has an impact.
This is an important thing to consider. My cousin, her
husband is also an active duty service member. He's a physician,
and he deployed at a time when she was pregnant
miss delivery. She didn't have her husband there to support
(18:14):
her through that process, and she had one small child.
And so just seeing in my family what that experience
was like to deal with the absence the ambiguous absence
of your service member, although they're very much still part
of your family system. I said, I need to explore
this a little bit, and I actually changed my dissertation
topic to reflect that I was previously interested in the
(18:38):
relationships with black women, and I said, but there's not
so much information out there, not too many studies focusing
on the challenges of military families and the children's experience.
So I did decide to explore that in my research,
and we identified that throughout the cycle of deployment, there
are different issues that may arise for children. In the
(19:00):
ramp up. There are lots of feelings, maybe confusion, some anxiety.
There could be some concern, maybe a little overwhelmed, depending
on the age of the child. As that deployment cycle
rams up, and then the family member leaves and goes
away for training, but they're not yet quite gone. They're
just not as accessible. And then there's the deployment period
(19:21):
where the family is adjusting, right, like, Okay, we know
our roles, we know what's expected, we anticipate what the
routine is when we might hear from our loved one,
and we're able to be resilient to pull it together
and keep going. But then we found that there's a
lot of challenge on the reintegration period. You get all
excited because you get notification I'm coming home on this day, right,
(19:44):
And I remember my dad coming home and he came
into port and you see all the nice white uniforms
standing on the deck of the ship, and that was
super exciting, right. And there was the transition of him
coming home and acclimating he had some sea legs, so
he wasn't driving for a little while because things just
different after you get off of the water. And then
it became a process of how do we reintegrate Dad
(20:07):
into this system. And in our research we found that
that's a really trying time for the family. The roles
have been renegotiated. The loved one who's been deployed has
been gone for quite some time, so maybe they're not
the disciplinarian or the final sign off on what someone
can and cannot do as a teenager or as a
young person, and finding their way back into that space
(20:30):
is difficult for the service member and it's difficult for
the family. Sometimes during those parts of the process, we
find that younger children, particularly may have some regression in
their milestones, so you might see night terrors, you might
see bed wedding, you might see more babyish behaviors that
you thought your child had grown out of coming back
(20:53):
up again because they got really big feelings and they're
not quite sure how to handle all of that. And
with that research, we were able to identify what services
were out there at that point in time. But there
were some services emerging at that point in time to
help deal with those specific challenges, and they're robust even now,
even though the pace of deployments not being what they
(21:15):
used to be, those resources are still very much there
and accessible and available to military families. We also saw
that upon reintegration there's a lot of marital stress, right
there's the renegotiation of who's doing what around the home
and who's doing what with the children, and the financial element.
(21:36):
A lot of people don't know that when you deploy,
you actually get an increase in pay so coming home
from deployment can actually pose for some families financial strain
or financial stress if the money's not been managed well
during the deployment period, so that can be an issue.
There's a whole issue in navigating the relationship after that
(21:56):
honeymoon period, my Boo is back, my bay is here.
There can be that difficulty of all this time you've
been gone, and I'm tired. It's your turn to pick
up right, It's your turn to do a little bit more.
But that service member themselves is coming back and they're saying,
all this time I've been gone, it's not been a vacation,
and I'm tired. And if communication is not good, if
(22:19):
parenting practices are not on the same page, it can
cause a lot of conflict. And as children observing the
dynamic between the parents, of course that has an impact
on them as well.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
So based on the results of your study, doctor Jackson,
it sounds like the children of military members are particularly
affected by this lifestyle of constant moves and what sounds
like a lot of regular uncertainty. Casey, you're the mother
of three school age children. I'd love to hear from you.
What kinds of things do you do with your children
to try and make the situation a little easier for
(22:54):
them and help to ground them in this experience.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I am very big on family.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Grew up with two of my cousins living with my
first cousins.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
We're so close their kids call me auntie.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
So we always try to make sure always call it
the world tour. When we transfer, we always try to
make sure we stop by and see family. I try
to make sure they are very connected to their family,
they know who their family is even though they're not
close by, and try to have some form of the
relationship that we had. So that's one thing I try
(23:30):
to do is make sure to still connected to family.
Another thing is I talk to them, let them know
we're moving. My husband one time he did a whole
PowerPoint presentation to talk about where we're going. What's that
going to be, like, does that military strategic thing? We
try to make it a family event and also just
(23:52):
ask them how they're feeling. The middle one, he's such
an extrovert. He's always excited for the adventure. The oldest
is like, we got to do this again, have to
meet people again, and so we always try to make
sure to check in with them and see how they're feeling,
whether their anxiety is the oldest one should get to
(24:12):
a little anxious sometimes, so just talking to them about
that and letting them know regardless that we're going to
be there as a family unit, we're all going to
be there and that's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
But our door is always open if they want to.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Talk about the transition, if they want to talk about
the feelings that they're going through, and we let them
know those feelings are completely normal and we'll be here
with them throughout those Hmm.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
That communication sounds key. Going back to you, doctor Jackson,
are there any specific resources that you can share for
anybody who's enjoying our conversation who might find themselves in
this situation and want to know where they can find support, specifically,
any resources for children for children, The.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Ones that I really like are Operation Purple. Operation Purple
has camps for for children and for military families geared
towards connecting each other and creating that community of understanding
and familiarity. And so they offer these camps throughout the year,
and I think they have a summer camp and a
one day family camp that's offered and you can find
(25:15):
them online under Operation Purple. For relocation services, there are
resources through the Yellow Ribbon for National Guard families, and
there are resources through the Penn State School Penn State
School resources about military families and that addresses the specific
(25:35):
needs of military children and how they can thrive academically, behaviorally,
and with their mental health by connecting them with individuals
who understand the needs of military families. For children and families.
There's also a program called Focus and that stands for
Families Overcoming under Stress, and they have resources to assist
(25:58):
military families with issues that they experience even outside of
the context of deployment.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Thank you for that. In casey, do you know of
any resources that are specific to black military families.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Yes, Facebook, Facebook, there is a group Black Military Wise,
Black Military Spouses.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
They are there because those are things.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Again that we need when we're looking for a black therapist,
we're looking for a black obgyn. We want to know
the schools that have black teachers or military teachers. So
for us to still be intertwined with our community as
black people is definitely important to us. Because ninety two
(26:40):
percent of military spouses are women, but only fifteen percent
of them are Black women. And so let's say, for example,
on one street of ten homes on one side, you
may have one or two that are black women. I
lived in a neighborhood on both sides of the street
was me and it was one other person two door down,
(27:03):
and that was it. And we think fifteen percent is
a really big number. But when you look not just
stay side, you look in other countries, they are not
many of us collectively around, So we do rely on
those groups that black military wise, black military spouses, black
spouses of whatever state that you're in to really help
(27:27):
and be a support during these times.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Thank you both so much for sharing those resources. I'm
sure many people will find those helpful. I want to
go back to a comment you made earlier, doctor Jackson,
about being the partner of an active duty personnel member
and how dynamics can change once that military member comes
back home. Can you talk a little about what treatment
would look like and how you might help that kind
of couple with some of those difficult conversations.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh man, couple counseling can't stress it enough. If you
need it, see if your local military TI treatment facility
offers couples counseling, and if they don't, get a referral
to the network with someone that you can trust to
understand the culture. That would be my first line of
intervention if it's necessary, Like if there are those level
(28:14):
of problems in acute conflict, couple's therapy would be the
thing In the absence of that, there are other options
provided through chaplains. Active duty chaplains all of their departments
tend to offer retreats. They also offer counseling and support
pastoral counseling and support that can be accessible to military families.
(28:35):
But in the office, I would recommend talking a lot
about communication and roles and expectations, talking about needs, emotional needs,
attachment needs, like what is going on that maybe miss
that your partner can come in and address, so that
the core issues are being met right Oftentimes it's not
(28:57):
just I'm tired physically, it's I'm tired. Do you see
all that I've been doing. Do you value the sacrifice
that I've been making while you've been able to go
and do your job. Do you understand that there were
a lot of things that may have happened here that
we didn't discuss or share with you because you needed
to be focused on the mission. That's really often encouraged
(29:20):
is that you military spouse is you keep that to
yourself and you figure that out with your support system
so that you are not distracting the service member from
what they need to take care of. Sometimes in very
hostile environments and so a lot of times, I think
there's a need to get to the root of the
issue and not just spend a lot of time addressing
the surface level situational factors that may be coming up.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And Doctor Jackson, you also mentioned even in your personal
family around getting ready for deployment and what a big
deal that was. What kinds of suggestions or advice would
you give to a family who's maybe preparing for deployment.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Sure, I would recommend spending lots of time together finding
out what your strategy for communication will be a lot
of times you won't be able to nail down specific
days and times that you'll call, but identify what's really
important to you, what your service member needs while they're away,
and what you need to hear from them or have
from them while they're gone and when they return. So
(30:18):
spending lots of time together creating those milestones you have
young children. Build a bear is a wonderful thing where
you can go and record a story or a little
message so they can continue to hear your voice while
you're gone, but being mindful of the fact that they're
sacrificed on both ends and each partner validating what it's
going to take for you all to get through this
(30:39):
as a team, right, and understanding how you can best
support each other during the period of physical separation I
think would be really important.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
And can you talk a little bit more about like
how you'd explain that to young children in particular, you know,
like this idea that maybe mom or dad is going
to be gone, and even feelings of like maybe losing
family members to the military that I think could come
up for either children or even adults. What kinds of
things would you say about that.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
And preparing children. Sesame Street you sas some really great resources,
and I still think those are active resources to help
talk to young children about what deployment is and what
separation looks like. Giving them expectation that they're going away
for work and this is an exciting thing and they're
doing their job and we look forward to hearing from them.
(31:27):
Keeping it very age appropriate is going to be important.
They don't need to know all the risk that's involved.
They're not going to understand all the risk that is involved,
but you can explain it to them in age appropriate
ways and use materials from the library or Sesame Street
resources to help explain it to really young children with
older children. I think you have frank discussions like, look,
(31:48):
this is where we are. This is going to be
taxing for us, and it's quite a shift in our
family dynamic. So this is how as a family we're
going to navigate this process. And we want your act
of involvement. We want to understand how you feel about
what's going on and what you think about what's going on,
and we're going to hold space for the fact that
it's going to be frustrating sometimes that we're all going
(32:10):
to have some moments where this isn't the lifestyle we
necessarily want or the experience we want to be living through.
But how can we continue to focus together as a
family to get through the moment dealing with loss. I
don't think there's any easy way to explain that. I
think it's helpful if there has been loss to utilize
the resources within the military community. Always if there's a
(32:33):
death notification that needs to be made. A KEKO officer,
I can't remember what that acronym exactly stands for, but
a KEKO officer is going to show up at the door.
That's where you see the person come in a full
uniform and knocks on the door. And the service member
spouse knows exactly what's going on. That's a KEKO call
and those are really difficult to make. But those KKO
(32:55):
officers are the points of contact with the resources that
you need to connect due to the entire process and
provide support throughout that process. If a death notification has
been made, that can include what benefits are, how those
benefits are distributed, how a service is coordinated, and what
resources mental health wise are even available for you.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
More from our conversation after the break, doctor Jackson, you
just brought up a very important and i'd imagine common
anxiety from military families, which is the death of a
military service member. Casey, as a military spouse, have you
(33:43):
ever been in a situation where you were unsure about
your partner's safety.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I can't remember if it was Afghanistan are Kuwait and
a base was bombed. This was back when there was
only Skype to communicate. There are no phone calls, there
were no FaceTime, and at that time you could watch
the news because they shut everything down. If the basis on,
(34:07):
everything is shut down. So there were so many times
those incidents happening where I'm just waiting on someone to
come knock at my door because there was no phone
call or text to say hey, I'm okay, everything is good.
You're watching your news to figure out whatever information they
can release, and you're waiting on someone to call you
(34:29):
or someone to knock on your door. And the knock
on the door, I mean your husband or your spouse
is no longer here. So there were so many of
those moments that surprised me because you don't know how
to prepare for it. There's no way to actually prepare
for that moment. So I had a few of those
moments that really my anxiety was so high.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Thank you for sharing that, Casey. I'm sure many of
our military Family listeners are listening and sharing that emotion
with you. To go back to the reintegration process you mentioned,
doctor Jackson, for those family members who are fortunate enough
to have their military member come back from a deployment,
what kinds of suggestions would you offer to family for
what life looks like while the person is deployed, and
(35:14):
then what is the process of even reintegrating them. What
does that look like?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Well, while they're gone, establish your routine, do what is
going to work for you. You are at home managing and
holding it down. So whatever process is going to be
useful to you, engage in that.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Okay, So I'm hearing that establishing a routine is key.
We talk about the importance of routines and prioritizing care
of yourself here on the podcast all the time. So
I can only imagine the benefited offers to military families. Casey,
from your experience, what sorts of routine self care practices
have been helpful for you to engage in while your
partner was away?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
A lot of naps. I love to sleep, a lot
of naps, a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I work out a lot, and that's something I still
do every morning, is taking time for myself. I'm a
big believer in taking time for myself before I take
care of everybody else. So I'm usually up at least
an hour or two before the kids, checking in with myself, reading,
(36:21):
if I have one more I need to cry, if
that Plenty of those moments you know, have those moments
and make sure I take care of myself through moving
my body. Are sometimes just being silent and writing, having
a cup of coffee and sitting outside and watching the
sun come up, or just having some moments like that.
(36:42):
To really just take care of my spirit and my energy.
Those are usually things that I find that works best
for me.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
In casey, could you also talk a little bit about
your own experience managing your home while your husband was
deployed and then helping to reintegrate him back into the
home after deployment.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
I can't say it's an easy thing to manage when
your spouse is gone for six months, eight months, ten months.
We just really do the best that we can. There's
been times where I just I don't work because I
want to fully be there. Because they know they have
two parents. One is inactive, so I have to do
(37:21):
double the work. So that may mean for me not
having a job outside of the home for a period
of times, I can be fully available for them throughout
the day. When he comes back, we are already in
such a routine without him that coming back for him
(37:41):
is okay.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
So where do I fit in this family? That's a
real thing.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I notice it is my wife, I know, if it's
not my children, But where do I fit in?
Speaker 3 (37:52):
It's almost like am I in your way? What do
you need me to do?
Speaker 4 (37:57):
So for him, it's been many times observing or asking questions,
what does this kid like to do now?
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Has their favorite food? Change, has their favorite color? Change?
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Who's their teacher? Which classroom is theirs? What's their temperament now?
And even for the kids being okay with going to
ask daddy a question, because I've been talking to mommy
so much for six months, asking her for everything, So
it can be that bypass, Daddy come to mommy and
(38:30):
that parent or that soldier may see it as a
disrespectful thing, but we're so used to you not being here,
so being gone for six months. After about two to
three months, we're in the new groove, and then when
the soldier comes back, it takes maybe another two to
three months to reshuffle this thing all over again to
(38:55):
reintegrate him.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
It's very it's very tasking.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I' musa say, doctor Jackson, and are there any other
strategies you'd recommend for helping us spouse reintegrate after time
spin away from home.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Once you get that notification that your loved one is
coming home and you start preparing, it's not all just
about the party, right, Understand what they need? How do
we celebrate your return and how do we give you
space to process and reacclimate? Oftentimes on the heels of
a deployment. Service member has some leave time, may want
to take a vacation, They may just want to be
(39:26):
at home. They may be coming back with very little
insight about how their experiences have really impacted them, and
there may be a delayed onset of what those experiences maybe,
whether that's trauma or depression or anxiety. Making space for
them to be able to feel and reconnect is going
(39:47):
to be really important. Try not to overstimulate or overschedule.
Get a lot of buy in from that service member
about what it is that they want to be able
to do when they do return home, into them this
is what we've been doing since youve been on Our
seventeen year old is doing this, and our five year
old is doing that, and these are some of the
(40:09):
milestones that have occurred while you've been away. And I'm
wanting to loop you into how we've been doing things.
And once you get back and you've decompressed a little bit,
let's have a family discussion about how we renegotiate the
roles and how we discuss the current expectations so that
we're moving into a space where there's frequent communication. I've
(40:31):
heard a lot of complaints from military spouses and even
military children that they're like, my service member parent treats
me like I'm one of their sailors, soldiers or airmen,
and I'm not right. It's kind of easy to fall
into that with the default way that we communicate military.
If you're in a position of leadership, you say something
and it gets done. You don't have to repeat yourself
(40:52):
often and then happen in homes you have to get
comfortable with repeating yourself and so communication is so key
and involving each other in an understanding of what's needed,
what the routine has been, and how we're preparing for
a shift. I think it's a recipe for success.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Mmm mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
So, doctor Jackson, you mentioned that some service members it
might come back with some trauma they've experienced, or even
have an onset of depression or anxiety. What kinds of
things should a partner or a spouse know about how
to support a service member who's coming back home and
maybe experiencing some of these changes.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Keep an eye out for what has changed, what looks different,
Remind the service member of what their available options are,
but be compassionate with the fact that there's a lot
of stigma in the military around mental health still because
the worldwide deployable component and fitness for duty is still
(41:49):
a huge piece of every service member's career, and some
people believe that as soon as I walk into behavioral
health or as soon as I sit down with the
psych that disposition is going to be changed, and that's
going to have a negative impact on my career. And
to be quite frank sometimes for some people it might
depending on what it is that you do, unfortunately, and
(42:12):
there may be some resistance to that because they're thinking
about the time invested, the identity that they've developed by
putting that uniform on every single day. So be compassionate,
but notice what the changes are, right, offer them support
and remind them of what the resources are. And sometimes
it's helpful to even say, but you know what, love,
(42:35):
at some point, you're going to retire from this military system,
and at some point they're going to want to know
everything that's been going on with you in terms of
your health and your well being. And this is an
important thing for them to know because your country has
made a commitment to you to take care of you
because of the service that you've offered. So let them
take care of you, whether it's in the now or
(42:57):
in the future. And the only way we're going to
be able to do that is to talk to somebody
about what's going on. A really helpful resource, again, can
be the chaplains. They have confidentiality that is similar to
behavioral health confidentiality, sometimes even a little bit better, and
so from that standpoint, they can be a first line
(43:18):
of support where a diagnosis may not need to be established,
but support needs to be offered. Chaplains can be a
really great resource for that. Fleet and Family services for
the Navy and Marine Corps can also be a great resource.
If there's no diagnosis to be had, you can be
seen at Fleet and Family or the same thing within
(43:39):
the Army is called Military Family Life Counseling is INFLECT
for the Army and for the Air Force, their support
is Military Family Readiness System and sometimes that can be
a place where service members can get support without a
diagnosis before approaching behavioral health. Reduces a little bit of
(44:01):
that concern or fear about walking into the behavioral health system,
and that can be a way to disarm your service member,
but say hey, we need some support here. Those can
be alternative options of support. But being mindful of what
depression looks like, what anxiety looks like, not assuming that
everybody who's been exposed to trauma is going to develop PTSD,
(44:24):
but understanding what some of those signs are is really
helpful as well. And then one thing that I think
doesn't get enough attention is looking at the relationship that
your service member might have with substances. Rarely are we
going to see service members using illicit substances because of
the consequences of that. But alcohol can be part of
(44:46):
what military culture looks like, and it's harder sometimes to
identify when we've moved from a space of this is
what military culture looks like into excess and problematic relationship
with alcohol. So being mindful of mood changes, sleeping changes,
changes in the way that they're interacting with their loved ones,
with their colleagues, with their supervisors, substance use, all of
(45:09):
those things are things to be mindful of.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I think doctor Jackson, you've talked a little bit about
military deployment readiness. Can you explain what that means to
our listeners who might be unaware.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So it's fitness for duty and that relates to one's
ability to, at the drop of a time, be worldwide deployable,
and it is a military psychologist, social worker, whatever level
of behavioral health treatment you're at in for active duty personnel,
it's imperative that you're considering that disposition at all times
(45:41):
because we have to maintain a fighting force that's ready
to go when we need them to write, if the
balloon goes up, how many people can this particular unit
send off on that given day that they're assigned to,
And so we have to be mindful of what diagnoses
can't be treated in a deployed setting, things like bipolar disorder.
(46:02):
Of course, serious mental illness is not something that could
be treated in a worldwide deployable kind of status. Sometimes anxiety,
any sort of medication use, those kinds of things might
impact someone's ability to be able to deploy. And because
every service member is a soldier, sailor airmen first, we
have to always maintain that fitness for duty and readiness
(46:26):
to go.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
So if you're not able to maintain that status, then
your status becomes what.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
There are options there. So if you're not able to
go when the balloon goes up, there are options they're
called different things for different branches of service, but essentially
it is limited duty. So for a little while, we're
going to say maybe six months, you're not able to
do your job and we need to focus on treatment.
So we might offer you what we would see in
(46:52):
the civilian world to be reasonable accommodations, change in work schedule,
change and shift, ability to leave early in order to
attend behavioral health appointments, maybe some time off work altogether
to pursue a higher level of care like intensive outpatient
therapy or partial hospitalization. Those put some restrictions on the
(47:14):
ability for a military component or a unit to be
able to move that person or send them off very quickly.
So it affects the needs of the Navy, and it's
important for active duty clinicians. They all know that it's
important for them to be able to understand and make
those dispositions appropriately so that the units are able to
(47:35):
do what they need to do or get more people
without there being a specific personnel challenge or maning challenge.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
So as a military psychologist, a part of what you're
doing as a part of your care is assessing for
this fitness for duty.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Absolutely, now I want to be clear I'm no longer
a military psychologist. Yes, they'd be like, who is this
and why does she not get clearings from the public
affairs officer. I'm a former military psychologists and yes, absolutely,
it's at the forefront of most clinicians' minds. That's something
they need to be mindful of.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Got it. Both of you have already given us a
ton of resources, But are there any others that you
think somebody who's enjoying our conversation might benefit from.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Military one Source is a really great resource. It's one
that's widely known often amongst military communities because they have
a wide range of benefits to address the specific needs,
whether it's financial stressors, couples counseling, individual counseling that's needed.
We talked about the component specific or service specific family resources.
(48:41):
Military one Source is a broad umbrella that will take
any service member from any branch, veterans, or their family
members to provide them with access to some of these resources.
And as far as I'm aware, with military resource, you're
able to have some complementary session for individual therapy. You
(49:02):
do have to go through a process of applying for
those benefits and finding an in network counselor and things
like that, But those sessions don't get charged to you
for a certain number, and you'd have to speak with
a military one source representative to identify exactly how many
of those sessions you would receive without out of pocket
costs to you. But that's a really great resource as well.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Perfect We'll be sure to include that and all the
other resources that you mentioned in our show notes. We
could keep this conversation going on, I'm sure much longer,
but to close us out, could you both let our
community know where we can find you.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
My website is Dkseking dot com and I am on Instagram, TikTok,
Kcsking across the board, Facebook, all across the board kcs King.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Our website is Epiphany Psychotherapy dot com and I can
be found on Instagram at doctor period D Jackson.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
In casey, I know you've recently released your book The
Life of a Military Spouse. Your dreams matter too. How
would you like for folks to engage with this body
of work.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
I would really like you to go out and purchase
and just support the book because I believe this book
would be a great help to so many military spouses
who've thought about giving up who are at the point
in their life they said, you know what, I'll just
do nothing. My dreams don't matter. I don't know a
(50:29):
spouse that has been told and maybe there are many
that have been told, Hey, make sure you take care
of yourself. Whatever your goals are, you can achieve those
goals as well. You're more than just a military spouse.
You're more than just your children's mom or dad. You
have goals, you have dreams, and those do matter too,
(50:53):
and they don't always have to be on the back burner.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
There's a way that you can achieve those things you desire.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Will said, well, thank you both so much for joining
me today. We've been wanting to have this conversation for
a while, so I'm so glad that we were able
to talk with both of you. I'm so glad doctor
Jackson and Casey were able to share their expertise and
experience with us today. To learn more about them and
their work, visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls
(51:22):
dot com slash Session three twenty four, and don't forget
to text two of your girls right now and encourage
them to check out the episode. If you're looking for
a therapist in your area. Check out our therapist directory
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory and if
you want to continue digging into this topic or just
be in community with other sisters, come on over and
(51:44):
join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner
of the Internet designed just for black women. You can
join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
This episode was produced by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and
Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennis and Brad. Thank
y'all so much for joining me again this week. I
look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
(52:07):
Take good care which friend are you and your sister circle?
Are you the wallflower, the peacemaker, the firecracker or the leader?
Take the quiz at Sisterhoodheels dot com slash quiz to
find out, and then make sure to grab your copy
of Sisterhood Heels to find out more about how you
(52:28):
can be a better friend and how your circle can
do a better job of supporting you. Order yours today
at sisterhood Heels dot com.
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