Paradise and Peril

The Hidden Trauma Military Families Carry in Wartime

In my first year of marriage, I lived on a tropical island surrounded by coral reefs, battered by occasional tsunamis, and anchored with a single sheet of hand-printed paper listing our bank accounts, credit card numbers, emergency contacts … and an evacuation plan.

It was an emergency plan I could grab to go – not abstract, not hysterical, not driven by fear. Created calmly for catastrophe by my military husband, a counter-intelligence officer stationed in Okinawa, Japan, focused on threats from North Korea. He sometimes deployed to Korea for months at a time. He knew, again and again (though unspoken), just how close we came to wars – averted.

“If I tell you to leave the island, go. No questions. No waiting for me. Just head back to Canada, no matter what the plane tickets cost. Use the credit cards. Call my folks if you need help.”

I can still see that paper in my mind’s eye. It was hand-printed on soft-hued stationery, a serene scene in the background that belied the paper’s purpose. It existed as a real reminder of danger lurking beyond the sparkling sea where dolphins played and rainbows of fish flitted around us during weekend snorkeling excursions.

There was paradise, and there was peril. We inhabited the liminal space between.

Photo by Shino Nakamura on Unsplash

In those days, I had nightmares more often than not. Terrifying dreams in which I crouched in trenches as gunfire zipped overhead, or Nazis marched me and other civilians up and off the cliff of a bascule bridge with rifles pointed at our backs. Dreams of bombs dropping, of my beloved new husband gone forever.

I’d awake in a sweat, the horrors too devastating to go on.

Nightmares are a hallmark symptom of PTSD.

I was not the one deployed to a conflict zone. Yet the proximity of potential war—its uncertainty, its waiting—had entered my nervous system. And I was only one small part of a much larger, often invisible story: the psychological toll war takes on military families.

My thoughts are with military families lately. Often misunderstood or dismissed by broader society, military families tend to be values-driven, self-sacrificing, and generally resilient units. They lay aside stability, security, and the possibility of deep connective roots to offer themselves in service of the security of their fellow citizens. They make sacrifices most of us would not for a larger cause they believe in, respecting a hierarchy of leadership they trust.

Or, at least that’s how it normally works.

Until wars are fought as distractions. Or imperialistic play. Or religious crusades.

Military families trust that their sacrifices – lack of roots, long periods of family separation, frequent relocations – are met with measured plans, end goals, and a larger purpose of increasing domestic and global security.

There’s a special kind of moral trauma when these ideals are at odds with reality.

When parents are sent abroad during active war, or when sons and daughters are deployed to combat zones, family remains behind, uncertain, afraid, waiting. Hoping, needing to believe it’s all worth it.

Perhaps the fear is suppressed. Denied. After all, the nervous system cannot function well under sustained stress. Dark humor is used to dispel tension. But the uncertainty lingers.

This chronic stress takes a toll on the children whose fathers are sent away, the spouses who are separated, the parents longing for a message. It causes chronic anticipatory fear, leading to a state of hypervigilance that leaves the nervous system constantly on guard against devastating loss. This chronic vigilance lives in the body. Children may develop headaches or stomachaches. Adults carry tension in their necks and shoulders. Over time, prolonged stress weakens the immune system and strains the heart.

During deployments, military families grapple with ambiguous loss, wherein their loved one is both living and absent. They are physically gone, yet psychologically present – a paradox that does not allow grief to move, and is seldom recognized or supported by society. Families must carry on as though all is normal, but unlike when a parent is away on an ordinary business trip, they work, study, and play under the ominous cloud of worry for their loved one’s safety, uncertain of return.

Military families often suffer vicarious trauma, an exacerbation of the stress many of us feel in watching war updates unfold on T.V., social media, and other news sources. Not only is conflict news horrible to imagine, but it has an added personal layer when you empathize with general human suffering and also know and love people in the combat zones. Military families may feel conflicted emotions about present military actions while desperately hoping for their loved ones’ safety. They may also receive more in-depth insights about realities on the ground that are not filtered for public consumption.

Upon return from combat, military families often suffer a secondary vicarious trauma as family members may arrive with physical and / or psychological injuries. Living with a changed family member – perhaps with a constant brooding anger, explosive outbursts, or panic attacks – is a new stressor and another ambiguous loss of the parent or partner they knew before.

Vicarious trauma is amplified when civilians jeer or deride military servicemembers due to opposition to a war they never chose, in which they may be a pawn, in a profession upon which their children depend for food and shelter. Nothing compounds trauma like a profound sense of isolation.

Having a parent deployed to a war zone has negative developmental effects, as well. Children experience attachment disruption, encode fear and anxiety as standard brain processes, leading to increased risk of chronic anxiety disorders, and may experience role strain and parentification as they step in to fill gaps left by the absent parent. This intrudes on healthy developmental trajectories, causing some of the precious lightheartedness of childhood to vaporize.

When wars and military interventions end, reintegration can be its own source of familial stress. Homecoming is not a straightforward merry reunion, as roles must be reestablished and renegotiated against a backdrop wherein family members grew and matured into new family spaces. The deployed person may have changed, carrying the imprint of conflict zone trauma and rigid military hierarchical authority with them. Young children may feel uncertain or unfamiliar with the parent who longed to hold them through all their days away.

And for some, the end comes not with tearful embrace, but in flag-draped boxes and public ceremony, with pressure for outward composure and bravery covering an internal devastation. Military family neighbors may struggle with survivor guilt when their servicemember arrives home while their counterpart did not.

If you are a civilian family, thank you for remaining in this uncomfortable space with me. In a world of hot takes and political social media tribalism, it is difficult to occupy liminal spaces that both advocate for peace and hold empathy for those on front lines.

Some have no choice but to occupy both spaces.

What our world needs today is the courage to face complexity, to hold compassion where virtue signaling feels comfortable, to see fellow citizens in full and curious humanity. To embrace one another with softness and kindness when traumas and stressors and losses we cannot comprehend create pain points we may not understand.

Even if war feels distant from your own daily life, there are families living quietly among us under its profound psychological toll.

To those who love or support a service member, whether your newly-minted adult child of eighteen or your co-parent and partner of many years, know that you are seen. You are held in our hearts. The complexity of the space you occupy is not invisible, not judged, not rejected. We may not fully understand, but we extend to you compassion and connection.

May your fears be allayed.

May your family be whole.

May resilience rise to meet you in these trials.

And above all, may we all – around the world - know peace.

from my heart to yours ~

Deborah