A father sees stress of transitioning from service

A father sees stress of transitioning from service

Steven:

But I did notice if there were times when she was maybe withdrawn or maybe insecure about dealing, not her own insecurity, but in perhaps what she may say, and people may take it wrong. I think she lost a little bit of the innocence that her friends still carried. Sort of a naivety about what's actually going on.

And while she had come back to the States, she was leaving very close friends, personal ties, [who] are still there going through the conflict. Then when they return, she deploys again. So, I think that entire social setting is much different than it is say with her friends who are not military or maybe not touched as much by the military. We all have been. It’s been a decade war. We’re all been touched [sic].

I think that was the thing. I think sometimes for her, shopping wasn’t as important. Some of the things that you would consider to be, you know, to fall under that area, I don’t think mattered as much. I think more people mattered more. But more to the point of how they felt, how they’re dealing, how they are coping, how are they addressing this type of stress a good deal of time. What we were trying to do is when you come back try to make it normal. But normal doesn’t exist. Normal for that had been peeled back.

Now, we were having a new normal trying to address how do we do this, how do we allow you to blend back in and give you your time and your space and then allow you to speak when you want to speak. That’s a challenge.