Military spouses often can’t talk about their mental health. One of the reasons why is mental health stigma. Just like their partners, military spouses serve their countries, and it means they “are not supposed to complain”. There’s fear of judgment and fear of negatively affecting their partner’s military career. The more fear is involved in someone’s ability to seek help, the more debilitating mental distress can be. It breeds feelings of helplessness and despair. So, in this post, I decided to focus on 5 reasons why therapy is good for military spouses and how their fears and worries can be addressed.
Therapy can help cope with change
As a military spouse, you most likely face regular relocations. And that comes with many changes in your life whether it’s a job change, children changing schools, leaving your friends and family behind, etc. These relocations are stressful. Unresolved or untreated stress can negatively affect mental health in the future.
It’s especially hard if you need to “keep it together” for your family.
However, therapy can help make your readjustment easier. During sessions, you will share your struggles and hardships with your therapist, and together you can come up with the coping strategies tailored for you.
Also, therapy provides you with time when you can focus on yourself and your well-being. It is a form of self-care.
During therapy, military spouses will receive the support they need
As I’ve already mentioned, lack of support is something military spouses (myself included) struggle a lot with. When we are dealing with stressful situations emotional support is very beneficial. However, it can be difficult to share our struggles with others. There’s fear and shame involved. Also, other people will not necessarily know how to help you in your unique situation.
Therapy will assist you in your journey. You can be sure that each session (if it’s a good quality session of course) will provide you with valuable information about yourself and a “toolbox” full of helpful strategies.
Therapy is confidential
What you talk about during sessions will stay there. Every therapist values their reputation and confidentiality is one of the main aspects of our work. So, if you have worries about your seeking help negatively affecting your spouse, rest assured it won’t. In fact, telehealth or telemedicine helps you feel even safer, as you don’t even need to leave the house to receive help. To learn more about what situations a counselor should report by law, click here.
Counseling will help military spouses work on their relationship
Although any relationship requires more than one person to thrive or to fail, you are the only person you can change and have control over. Therapy may help you understand yourself and your needs better, and find out the best ways how to communicate those needs to others.
Last but not least,
Therapy can help military spouses understand their feelings of sadness and frustration better and learn how to cope with them
It takes time, knowledge, and dedication to understand some of our feelings and emotions. Sometimes we have subconscious beliefs that drive our feelings. And those beliefs can be challenging to uncover on your own. That is when counseling comes into place. Again, feelings that are not resolved get trapped in our body where they build up and transform into different psychological issues.
Tell us about your experience with counseling if you’ve had one. Did you find it helpful? If you have more questions about therapy don’t hesitate to write us: info@marriedtonavycounselingservices.com.
~ Tren
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