Unveiling the Struggles: Impact of Military Deployments on Families' Mental Health - Essay Example

Military personnel experience multiple deployments to different parts of the world during times of crisis, such as wars (Einhorn, 2011). Soldiers assigned to such missions stay away from their families for long periods. Due to the unpredictable nature of war and such crises, these families are left in agony with mixed feelings about their loved ones (NLM, 2011). Prolonged subjection to such moments causes anxiety and can lead to other mental issues.

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Children are the most affected people belonging to military families (Sogomonyan & Cooper, 2011). When one parent or both go on missions, their children develop stress because they are not sure of their parents' return. This condition worsens when reports of the deaths of soldiers are delivered to the country. Therefore, this aspect has led to multiple impacts on these children, and they include the following: children may develop mental health trauma and depression due to worrying so much about their parent/s (Sogomonyan & Cooper, 2011). They develop academic problems, which lead to decreased performance at school (Sogomonyan & Cooper, 2011; Falk, 2015). Most of the time, the children are overwhelmed with sadness; thus, extra care ought to be taken as soon as these traits are noticed.

Wives also suffer from stress in cases where their husbands are members of the military and are out on a dangerous mission (Lester et al., 2016). In periods of pregnancy, such stress poses a threat to the survival of the unborn child due to the risk of a miscarriage. These men who are directly involved in military activities also suffer from mental disorders such as Post Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) due to the nature of their work. They can physically be injured or die in the mission, leaving their families with limited financial support.

References

Einhorn, C. (September 27, 2011). Looking after the soldier, back home and damaged. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/looking-after-the-soldier-back-home-and-damaged.html?pagewanted=all

Falk, J. (November 20, 2015). The health impacts of war and armed conflict. Medact. Retrieved from https://www.medact.org/2015/blogs/the-health-impacts-of-war-and-armed-conflict/

Lester, P., Aralis, H., Sinclair, M., Kiff, C., Lee, K.-H., Mustillo, S., Wadsworth, S. M. D., ... SpringerLink. (2016). The impact of deployment on parental, family, and child adjustment in military families. Child psychiatry & human development, 47(6), 938-949.

NLM. (January 31, 2011). Public health and war. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/digicolls/phfgtw/essay.html

Sogomonyan, F. & Cooper, J. L. (May 2011). Trauma faced by children of military families: what every policymaker should know. National Center for Children in Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.nccp.org/publication/trauma-faced-by-children-of-military-families/