Ask for Help

In 2009, I deployed away from my children for a year combat tour in Iraq. I wanted nothing more than to come home and have their little arms wrap around my neck. I yearned for it with everything I was.


And then I came home.

Coming home was so much harder than I ever imagined. There were food battles because my oldest wouldn’t eat. There were epic tantrums from both of us trying to get her to eat.


There were short tempers and slammed doors. There were hurt feelings and bad thoughts.

There were days that I am ashamed to admit I wanted to be back in Iraq. Where the laundry wasn’t piled up, where the kids weren’t screaming, where there wasn’t dog shit in the middle of the living room.

I tried to smile. I tried to handle everything. I waited for things to get better.

They did not get better.

At some point, after my fourth or fifth month of riding to work, crying my eyes out because the kids were screaming when I left them at daycare at 530 every morning, I walked into my commander’s office. I said, Sir, I need to go home. I just need to clean my house.

I went home. And I cleaned my house. But that didn’t make it better. I was the executive officer. I couldn’t let things fall apart. And yet, my life, the life I’d yearned to go back home to, was falling apart.

I remember the day I decided enough was enough. I couldn’t fix my kids if I was a disaster. I couldn’t run my family if I was crying every day on my way to work.

I asked for help. I started talking to someone who told me that life back here gets overwhelming.

Yes, I took medication. I was afraid. I didn’t want it in my records. I didn’t want to trigger a mental health evaluation. But I needed help. Because I was not okay.

Slowly, things started getting better. I can still remember the first time I was relaxed enough to laugh with my kids. I’d forgotten how to laugh with them. It was like a light came on in my soul, a light that had been doused in darkness.

Things slowly started gettting better. One day at a time. Little by little.

It’s been almost three years since I came home from war. I no longer need the medication. I don’t have to talk to anyone on a regular basis. But I had a good friend who had gone through some of her own stuff tell me that sometimes, it’s okay to not be okay sometimes.

I tell you this story to say that even though someone might look like they have it all together, maybe they don’t. Or maybe they had to walk through hell to get there. I won’t tell you I ever thought about ending it all but there were some pretty dark days when I couldn’t see the light any more.

Please, ask for help. Don’t let the darkness when you’re sitting at the bottom of the well drag you under. There is daylight out there. You have to fight for it. You have to believe there is a way out of the well.

All I’m saying is ask for help. And don’t stop asking until you get it. It takes so much more strength and courage to ask for help than to suck it up and drive on. Eventually, that ruck sack gets stuffed too full of the bad. Start unpacking it before it gets too heavy and drags you down.

It’s suicide prevention month for the Army. Let’s all help shoulder the load of our brothers and sisters who are going through tough times. And if you can’t, if you need someone to help share the load, find someone. Call a chaplain, call a MFCL. Call your squad leader, your commander, you battle buddy.

But don’t give up the fight. Ask for help.

these are my own words and thoughts and do not represent DoD or US army policy