Many of us take life for granted—celebrating holidays and birthdays, putting down roots and watching them grow, enjoying family gatherings and lasting friendships, and pursuing personal and career goals with a clear path toward happiness and prosperity.

For the heroes among us—the military families who work tirelessly to keep us safe and free—life looks very different. Unpredictability and constant change aren’t occasional disruptions for veterans, service members, and their families; they’re a way of life. Navigating these challenges requires strength, resilience, and an unwavering commitment every single day.

Centerstone’s Military Services Director, Anna Goletz, is a military spouse and is familiar with the unique mental health issues that military families face and uses this experience to help other military families in need. “We get many calls about military related issues such as the stresses of moves, changing schools, deployment, how to help a service member with their PTSD, how it is affecting their relationships, or their depression and anxiety,” says Goletz. “Whatever the mental health issue is, it affects the entire family.”

Long-term mental health injuries

The stresses of military life can disrupt marriages and families. Military life can cause uncertainty and breaks in routine, which can cause family members to experience high levels of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and long-term mental health and wellness injuries. Many spouses feel it will hurt their military partner’s chances of promotion if they would seek help for stress or depression.

Separation, brokenness and uncertainty

Deployed service members are physically separated from their nuclear family. Often, depending on the job they do, they may not have access to the internet to communicate with their spouses, children, parents, and friends. Relocation is often a part of the active duty military life for a family and is very disruptive considering children will have to change school systems and make new friends. Not to mention, spouses have to worry about navigating a new city while trying to plant roots. Further, finding extracurricular activities, a new place of worship, and other similar activities can strain any family.

Spouses and broken career paths

Military spouses often deal with the inability to continue or finish their education which can lead to broken career paths and a particularly hard time moving up the career ladder. Constant moves and lack of support can be debilitating. “Military spouses work diligently to find positions that are remote and transfer friendly, which is not always conducive to working and raising a family in a new city,” Goletz adds.

For example, in some states, licensed professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers, and therapists have to submit an application for licensure for each state and go through many hoops to work in that new state. Clinicians and other licensed professionals must also know all the regulations in their location, reapply for licenses and hope to qualify, which can create more challenges for their careers. Fortunately, this trend is changing for the better with more work from home positions, military and civilian resources, and support groups for military spouses in similar career fields online.

Centerstone’s Military Services is here to help

The good news is that military families do not have to go through these stresses alone. Centerstone’s Military Services offers services nationwide for active duty military members, veterans, spouses, and their families. Support services provide counseling, therapeutic retreats, couples and family counseling, online support groups, classes and workshops. Services are available regardless of the era served or discharge status.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health after deployment, Centerstone can help. Call 1-877-HOPE123 (1-877-467-3123) for more information about our military services.