Military life can be a lonely life for some. Too many of our military leave their positions in the military to a life of the unknown. A life of the unknown and fear where they feel that being a civilian after enduring a few deployments and seeing things, hearing things and being exposed to things that we are not aware of, is harder than they thought when they originally enlisted or trained for. Is it any surprise that they struggle with strong bouts of loneliness? Unless they have somebody that they can offload how they feel, how do they get it all out? They love coming home to their families, but there are some things that they just want to keep to themselves or they just don’t want to ‘talk about it’.
At Phone My Friend, I do get members of the military calling me from time to time.
We don’t necessarily talk about the horrific things that are going on in their head, but we do talk about their life, their everyday going’s on. They like to talk as I listen with very open ears and a big heart. I also don’t have the distractions going on that their partner might have such as trying to attend to the children, cooking dinner or keeping the home clean. I can type to you via online chat or over the phone with no distractions.
It also serves as a very safe place when you share your thoughts with somebody that doesn’t know you, or that lives with you.
Sometimes when we share our deepest thoughts with somebody that we know, they might look at you differently or you feel that they are looking at you differently. Sometimes it just feels safer to share with somebody over the phone that can not hold it against you, repeat it or keep checking on you, when you just don’t feel like responding to their questioning. The next day you might be having a great day and hearing them ask “how are you today?” can trigger frustrating feelings of “why do they keep asking … I want to be left alone”. They are then left feeling “I can’t win for trying”. Everybody feels like they are losing.
Chatting on the phone or through my online chat allows them to just ‘vent’ …
about how frustrating they find civilian life and how their lack of patience, influenced by the military such as “hurry up and wait” affects their life. Of course I am not here to give them any tools on how to fix their mental state of mind, but just having that one person that they can call to offload their frustrations helps and allows them to release pent up anger as their words flow, which in turn helps relieve that lonely feeling. Feeling lonely takes it’s toll on our minds and causes people to retreat. To shut down and in turn it hurts the ones that are close to us that want to help us, but just don’t have the time to actually just listen. Or to listen without offering unwarranted advice or words of discouragement.
They mean well, but men especially, instead of just listening, just want to ‘fix it’. Not everybody wants fixing, they just want to be heard.
The video above unfortunately doesn’t have such a great and glorious happy ending as let’s face it a makeover isn’t going to make a person all of a sudden become non alcoholic. The guy above did relapse a few days after filming, but vowed to keep trying to fix his life.
But no matter what we are faced with, just taking the first step on the road to recovery is process. Making that first phone call to Phone My Friend or submitting an online chat request is placing your best foot forward. Just talking or typing via the online chat, non stop and letting it all out is very cathartic for most.
There is a reason why I love my job and why I love to hear from my callers as their words of gratitude keep me going, knowing I can be there for them, when they feel that nobody else will do right now.
So call me today and tell me your story!
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