Nine or 12 months away seems like forever, but counting down the days is really a helpful coping mechanism for families.

If you have kids, you know that a deployment countdown is even more essential. I have a 4 year old and he understands four different

The chains are fun to make!

periods of time: now, later, tomorrow and later than tomorrow. Telling my 4 year old that someone would be home in 9 months means nothing to him. But with a countdown calendar, kids are able to see each day pass.

Here are a few ideas for countdown calendars that have a little more flair than a calendar with “X”s through each day.

Construction Paper Rings:

This can be a fun craft to make with the kids. You take a strip of construction paper and tape/glue/staple them into a ring, hook the next strip of construction paper through the first and form the next ring. The results will be rings linked together to form a giant garland.

Just don’t lose your marbles!

Expert tip: if you have young kids and you are doing a full 12 month deployment, 365 rings is a lot of rings to expect them to make, so plan on make a lot yourself. 

 Anything in a Jar:

 This is my favorite countdown for younger kids because it really helps kids visualize the amount of days and has less emphasis on a calendar or counting large numbers. Every day, we would move a marble from a big jar of marbles to another box. As you go, you can not only are counting down with marbles, but you can also see the number of marbles in the box increasing.

Candy in a Jar:

Each day that goes by tastes so sweet!

This is a variation of the jar idea. I know lots of people have done this with Hershey’s Kisses (a kiss from your servicemember) or other candy. Mrs. Mommy from Letters Arranged into Words that Tell Our Story has a great explanation of how this worked for her family.

Counting down in numbers: 

For older kids it may be unnecessary to make a full scale physical calendar but it is still fun to see the number go down each day. I have seen many families write or paint a permanent message on a chalk board with a blank space to change the number of days left. Letting your child change the number each day involves them in the countdown process and slowly but surely the day gets closer.  Jennifer from The Toy Box Years has a great tutorial on a chalkboard countdown on her blog.

Expert tip: Remember to be aware that changing the number of days is much more obvious when counting down with numbers, so be sure to add extra just in case. 

There is an app for that: 

If your family is as plugged in as mine then someone has a smartphone and maybe multiple people. There are lots of free countdown applications that can be a fun reminder and helpful for keeping you motivated.

Expert tip: Some families use the application from the beginning and do one of the more involved countdowns when the homecoming day gets a little closer so that they are only using the more elaborate countdown for 60-90 days. 

Photos courtesy ttrygve, alexkerhead, lori

You will have an opportunity to participate in live video chats, ask questions and chat with us and other military spouses. I think this will be so much more personal, and we can really get to know you and answer questions that you have.

Our first Hangout:

Military Spouse Blogger Roundtable

Tonight, June 13th, at 8 CST

We’ll be talking about deployment and methods of coping, tips and advice from military spouse bloggers with years of experience. We will focus specifically on emotions surrounding deployment and how to manage on an emotional level.

If you have a specific question for our round table, you can submit it on the Military Spouse Central Facebook page or leave us a comment below.

Tonight’s Featured Guests

Kristen Smith, Army Wife

Kristen Smith translates the challenges of military life into opportunities at her personal blog, White Gloves, Optional, and as the blog coordinator for Army Wife Network’s Loving A Soldier Blog. Married to Army CPT(P) Kevin Smith for six years, Kristen embraced Army life by utilizing her experience in nonprofit marketing to start her own business, KLSmith Photography, and lending her skills to nonprofits that serve the military community. A strong supporter of peer to peer leadership, Kristen also teaches Army Family Team Building and takes an active role in her unit Family Readiness Groups.

Kathryn Sneed, Air Force Wife

Kathryn Sneed is a 25-year-old Christian military wife and stay-at-home mom. Kathryn’s husband is in the United States Air Force and they have been married for four years. She is currently stationed at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. They just went through their first deployment (he just got home in May) and they enjoy being a career military family. Kathryn has a 2-year-old son named Adam who is the highlight of her life. Kathryn started the blog Singing through the Rain in order to chronicle daily adventures, life lessons, happy, sad and frustrating stories of military spouse life.

Jenn Pineo, Army Wife

Jenn Pineo is a military wife and aspiring author. She wrote the Letter from a Military Wife and many other beautiful pieces about her experience as an Army wife. She went through deployment with her husband while they were first dating and then spent the next six months living across the country from each other. Twenty-eight days spent in the same place was still enough for them to know they were meant for each other. She currently lives in Eglin, Okla.

Krystel Spell, Army Wife

Krystel is the creator of the popular blog and community Army Wife 101  and Co-Founder of the  24 hour video community for Moms and Military Spouses RealMilitaryWives.TV. The mother of two shares her random life with content on everything from life on a military base to videos of her dancing around her home while her children are in school.

We may have a few more surprise visits too so tune in to make sure you don’t miss out!

To Participate

Be sure to join Google+ and add Veterans United Home Loans to your circles — you will need to add us in order to watch the Hangout. It takes 30 seconds and is very simple. Follow these steps to get set up on Google+ account and add us to your circles.

Starting at 8 p.m. CST you should go to the Veterans United Home Loans Google+ page, where you can receive an invite to a hangout.  Follow the link the notification provides and you will arrive at the hangout! Google+ may prompt you to install a plugin, which is quick and should work with all major browsers and operation systems.  Once you’re connected, get ready to start hanging out!

You can also watch the hangout live on the Veterans United Home Loans Google+ page without participating in the video chat. You can submit questions and watch it all happen.

When a spouse hears of a close call, they may be overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. Here are some ways to help cope with the challenges of distance and dangerous work:

Knowing that your service member’s job is dangerous and having to face how dangerous it really is are two totally different feelings.

Avoid Worst-Case Scenarios and Gossip

Longtime military spouses often advise those going through a deployment to avoid the news. Any word of a plane, helicopter or maritime crash or report of an ambush, IED, RPG or other attack can send spouses into a panic. While spouses can’t always avoid alarming news, they can take some deep breaths and talk to their understanding community before ruminating themselves into worst-case scenarios. Be sure to talk to those who are calm and comforting as opposed to exposing yourself to hearsay and rumors. No reason to fear a close call for no reason.

Handling the News of a Close Call

If the fear comes to fruition, a spouse may be overwhelmed with their inability to steal their spouse from dangerous circumstances and comfort them. It’s not something those at home can control, so focusing on the things they can control can be of help. Consider:

• Writing a letter or creating a list of the good memories you have with your spouse. It may seem counterintuitive, especially when walling up emotions can be much more attractive, but focusing on good times can help you appreciate every day and take each day one-by-one, close calls one-by-one, until the time apart ends.
  

  As joyful as a phone call from your spouse can be, there is often a bit of anxiety mixed in.

• As the negative thoughts and images start to go through your mind, interrupt them and focus on something you can control. Imagine a plan for your next gardening project, art project or picking out a new book to read.
• Keep Busy. Military spouse LDCampbell was on the phone with her deployed husband when she heard a bomb explode just before the line went dead. For five days she had to wait to hear news from the Navy. Through the agony, she tended to her son and made sure they both stayed busy with extracurricular activities and quality family time.

Little Things to Remember

The main piece of advice is to remain calm and focus your mind on positive things. Here are a few helpful tips:

• Draw from what you can. You may not be able to hold your spouse’s hand after a close call, but you can take a handwritten letter and feel the presence of the hands that wrote it.
• The silence around a close call is agonizing, but laughter can be your friend. Get social and try to enjoy yourself as you hope for the best.
• Live every moment as if it may be your last.
• Surround yourself with people who understand. Spouses are relieved when they find they are not the only ones dealing with the circumstances and that their reactions are not crazy or even out of the ordinary.

Photo courtesy of The US Army and redeye^

If that’s the case, here are some fun ways to distract the mind a little and cope with the hardship of deployment.

From gardening to puzzles, finding a “go-to” when you need a distraction is key during deployment.

Use Music for Stress Relief

You can decide how deep you indulge, but music can be a very therapeutic way to distract yourself. Sing along to some cheerful or inspirational songs and belt out some stress. You can also reconnect with an instrument to practice or pick up one as a new hobby.

Keep Social

You can host a girls/guys night with fellow spouses where you all enjoy each other and have a mutual sense of understanding. Treat yourselves to movies, sports, games or just pure chitchat. Another idea is to befriend some of the new spouses in the unit. Recall how lost you may have felt and use this time to mentor another.

You Need to Treat Yourself

About once a week or so treat yourself to some pampering. Perhaps it’s getting a massage or manicure/pedicure, buying a new video game, getting a fancy haircut, eating at a nice restaurant or whatever else you typically don’t do.

Invest in Your Education

It is healthy to find a release, just don’t over think it!

Use the extra time to enroll in a certificate or degree program. Not only does it keep your mind in the books, but it is also a way to invest in your future. There are multiple scholarships and programs such as MyCAA for military spouses.

Free Your Mind by Reading and Writing

Whether it’s the classic novels or the trashy magazines, allow yourself to get caught up in a fantasy world. If it’s not enough to read, try and write your own novel or simply make entries in a journal about your daily thoughts.

Relax with a Movie Night

Rent and watch every chick flick or man movie that you’ve always wanted to watch and make a night out of it. Pop some popcorn, cuddle up with a blanket and enjoy yourself. You can also brighten your mood with inspirational movies it you need a boost of optimism.

Stay Busy and Get Fit!

Stay Busy with a New Hobby

You can perfect the art of quilting, knitting, antiquing, scrapbooking, or whatever hobby you’d like to do for fun. Not only can you use it as a distraction, but you might also be able to turn it into a profit-making hobby. Throw yourself into a new project or even make a long term goal that you can work towards. Now is the time to start scrap booking, dive into volunteering or start training for that marathon!

Be One with Nature and Garden

Not only can gardening be a stress-relieving distraction, but it can also be a great way to get outdoors and in the sunshine.  You can learn to appreciate nature as well as gain the rewarding experience of creating your own beauty.

Puzzle Yourself When You Need a Distraction

A nice word, crossword or Sodoku puzzle can be a quick way to engage your mind. You can distract your mind and strengthen it at the same time.

Art Therapy

Take up drawing or painting to process your emotions or use as a simple distraction. You can explore your artistic capabilities and produce something beautiful to share with others later.

How do you keep busy during deployment? Do you have special projects, long term goals or other hobbies that you take up to help keep busy during deployment? Let us know in the comments! 

Photo courtesy of tcp909, theKelleyScope and Ev0luti0nary

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop people from claiming they understand as they try to counsel you. When Military Spouse Central, hosted by Veterans United, inquired on facebook about the most hurtful things military spouses have heard, an overwhelming number of responses mentioned things said about deployments.

You knew what you were signing up for. Get over it. My husband goes away on business trips all of the time. You must think about him dying all of the time.

Sound familiar? These comments can be hurtful and frustrating, but there are ways to maintain your mood as you approach the challenges of distance.

Keep Competition Out of the Emotion

There is no question that there are differences between your neighbor’s spouse leaving town for a week and your spouse going on a year-long tour of duty. There is also no denying your neighbor’s entitlement to miss their spouse. Sometimes conflict will arise when spouses try to define that entitlement by declaring their situation as better or worse.

On the Journey of a Navy Wife blog, spouses had a great discussion surrounding the “one-up” mentality of missing someone. One commenter who posted under the name Sailor Bride said: “I hate the one upper. Significant others are ALWAYS trying to one up each other–because they miss them more, they’re gone longer, their job is more dangerous, or they have children, so they’re entitled to miss them more.”

Each situation has its own challenges, but rather than argue about the severity of each situation, try to meet each other on the level of caring for someone to the extent of missing them.

Enable Yourself to Miss

Missing someone does not make you weak and was definitely not a right you signed away when you supported your spouse’s decision to enlist.

“I hate when you talk about missing your husband and people say, ‘Well, you knew he was going to get deployed.’ Yeah, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. It’s very insensitive,” said Sara Holycross, a reader from Military Family Central.

To miss someone is to realize you’re without access to a significant support of your wants and needs. It’s a natural response, so rather than let people make you feel weak or bad for telling them you miss a person, embrace the reality that you have a very special bond with your spouse in which many won’t experience in the same way.

Telling Spouses They’re Missed 

If you’re without access to chat, email, Skype or other communication tools, and you just need a way to cope with missing your significant other, try finding a fun way to tell them you miss them. Consider:

• Write a letter for every day or send a creative care package
• Deck out a calendar or create another system for the both of you to count the days until you reunite (tentative of course).
• Buy or create little “souvenirs” throughout the day to show that they were a part of it all
• Create fun photos/stories through Photoshop or compiling your images
• Seek refuge in an article of their clothing, blanket or favorite location and send a picture with happy memories you recall

About one in five military members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan report PTSD symptoms, but only half typically seek treatment, according to a 2008 study by the Rand Corporation.

Spouses can face an array of challenges when a loved one begins to exhibit symptoms of the disorder. But there are paths to treatment and help for spouses and service members alike.

Recognizing PTSD

Traumatic, shocking or disturbing events can cause PTSD. Witnessing deaths of fellow service members or surviving a life-threatening event may cause PTSD, too. Mainly, PTSD anxiety is rooted in reliving the traumatic event.

Several symptoms may come and go, but the disorder will remain. Common symptoms can include:

• Nightmares or sleeplessness
• Extreme apathy
• Hypersensitivity, especially to loud noises, commotion or crowds
• Anxiety, irritability
• Inability to concentrate
• Detachment from people
• Intense flashbacks

Talking to Your Spouse about PTSD

If these symptoms sound familiar and occur frequently your spouse may have PTSD, which requires professional help. Take a sensitive, affectionate approach that shows you care. Something like, “It seems something is bothering you. Let’s talk to the VA and our primary physician” can be effective.

If you’re a wife talking to your husband, your words could either trigger a macho response or guide him in the right direction. Men with PTSD have tendencies to get embarrassed, tight-lipped or aggressive. Tell your husband that together you should seek help for the sake of your marriage and family.

Getting Help

Therapeutic treatments, which may be covered by the VA, are designed to help PTSD veterans talk through their symptoms. Whether a veteran chooses group, family, exposure or cognitive therapy is up to him or her. Guidelines for talking to doctors about PTSD may help, too.

Regardless of the treatment your veteran spouse chooses, be supportive.

At the same time, feel comfortable introducing your spouse to additional treatment options. An abundance of veteran organizations make it their mission to get veterans helping other veterans. Veterans of Foreign Wars, Wounded Warrior Project and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are great resources to suggest to your spouse for developing connections with other veterans.

What may be seen as “alternative treatments” in treating PTSD have gained traction in recent years. Yoga and acupuncture introduce meditative or therapeutic relief, especially when combined with other therapies. With the finding that antipsychotic and antidepressant medications aren’t as effective as desired, some veterans pursue these alternative treatments in conjunction with therapy or medication.

Encouraging your spouse to maintain a healthy lifestyle is important to overcoming PTSD symptoms. If the timing for encouragement doesn’t seem right, at least ensure that your spouse does not pick up unhealthy habits. Eating right, exercising and staying employed are keys to good health and will possibly minimize PTSD symptoms.

With as much as 20 percent of veterans coming home with PTSD, spouses want to be prepared to help their veteran spouse deal with PTSD. The National Center for PTSD is loaded with resources.

Figuring out how to help your veteran spouse cope with PTSD may take time. Don’t try to rush your husband or wife to therapy. Remind them you’re there to help and show them affection when they’re ready. Together, the two of you can alleviate PTSD’s effects, and keep your relationship healthy.

Photo thanks to BBCworldservice via Flickr Creative Commons

Helping your military spouse through his/her PTSD symptoms can be a difficult road. But, what if your spouse is fighting a different battle? Breast Cancer. According to a 2009 study, military women are 20 to 40 percent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than other women in the same age groups.  Here’s how breast cancer and the military collide.

In some circumstances, deployment can cause service members to miss out on important events: anniversaries, birthdays and even the birth of a baby. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to predict when a military member will be deployed.

Pregnant military spouses are forced to accept that their husbands will be away during the pregnancy, and perhaps, even during childbirth. During this time, it is important to develop a strategy and a plan for coping.

Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help

Just because you are without your husband doesn’t mean you should go through the pregnancy completely alone.
While your husband’s presence is irreplaceable, turning to a family member or close friend for support is a good idea.
According to Army OneSource, “Having a good friend to be a labor coach during the absence of a spouse provides a great comfort.”
Family members and close friends provide a support system that cares about you. Often, they can help soothe your anxiety and fears while your husband is away.

Take Advantage of Available Resources

Most military installations have a New Parent Support Program (NPSP). The program may offer home visits by NPSP staff, supervised playgroups, parenting classes and other parenting materials.
Remember, being a military spouse has its perks. Each branch of the military has its own resources for expecting parents.
Also, don’t forget to enroll in Tricare, the military health care program, to avoid expensive charges for your obstetric care.

Try to Keep Your Husband Involved

Good communication is the key to surviving a pregnancy apart from your husband. He will want to know about everything that’s going on with you and the baby.
Whether you’re using the postal service or communicating online with tools such as email or Skype, finding ways to share the pregnancy together is important. He will appreciate pictures, letters and anything else you’re willing to share.

Have A Back Up Plan

As a military spouse you quickly learn that anything can change at any time with little or no notice. Plan for the unexpected to happen well in advance. Have a backup plan and a backup backup plan. If you expect that your husband will be home for the birth, prepare yourself emotionally and logistically for the event that something may go differently than planned. The only thing more unpredictable than the military is pregnancy. Try to have a plan so that you can “go with the flow” if plans and procedures change.

Photo thanks to genue.luben via Flickr Creative Commons

The stress can make it a struggle to get out of bed some days. You’re not alone. Spouses everywhere are fighting deployment depression by finding ways to cope with the situation.

Here are some successful coping methods used by those who’ve been through it:

Don’t let a deployment control your happiness.

Schedule Some Activity

A weekly activity can give you something constant to look forward to as well as keep you moving and active. Some deployment depression can lead to and be elevated by weight gain, so joining a regular class at a gym or having a walk with a workout buddy can act as a double defense.

Reach Out to Support Groups

There are plenty of groups dedicated to deployment, depression and the military life in general. A blog on Military Money lists some great mental health resources for spouses to turn to including online sources. If you can’t get to a support group in your neighborhood the online message boards are a great way to connect with people going through the same thing.

Stay Social

Be sure to remain connected with friends or meet new ones by picking up a hobby or joining a club. They may not know exactly what you’re feeling, but a weekly coffee or lunch date is a way to get out of your own head and have some fun. Some spouses experience guilt when it comes to having fun, but consider it a way to take care of yourself and be in tip top shape for your spouse’s return.

Journal

Make sure you are meeting your needs to stay healthy in body and mind.

Missing your spouse gets harder when you realize you can’t always share the day-to-day life with them. Journaling is a way to release those urges and record details for when you do get the chance to speak. You can write out your feelings, your memories, fears or whatever else you need to soothe your mind.

Keep Busy

The mind can be your biggest enemy when it comes to fighting depression, so focusing on someone or something else can be a great ally. Volunteer somewhere or create a project for yourself, like redecorating the house. It could also be a great opportunity to take on some higher education. Check out our post on taking on new hobbies.

Take Care of Your Health

Eating right, aiming for eight hours of sleep, exposing yourself to sunlight and being sure to relax can help keep your health and mood intact. Taking little steps like eating a nutritional meal or taking a yoga class can go a long way toward helping you fend off depression.

Photo thanks to The National Guard via Flickr Creative Commons and Minimoko via Visual.ly Creative License