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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I need advise for helping MIL
BIL goes to OCS later this summer. Apparently he is set to deploy shortly after he finishes. We don't know where yet, and obviously these things aren't set in stone but MIL is already starting to freak out. She did fine when E was gone but he was in a really safe place and his job was fairly cushy. And this deployment will be about twice as long as E's was.
So I need ideas of ways to help her stay calm. She was on anti anxiety meds when BIL went to college and she still needs them from time to time. I'm really worried about her. She started crying during Easter dinner about it and it hasn't even happened yet. Any advise would be greatly appreciated!
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Re: I need advise for helping MIL
1. She needs a counselor she can speak to on a regular basis. I'm talking weekly or bi-monthly.
2. There are several web site that have chat forums for parents of SMs. Many of them deal with deployment. This board is a big help to many of us during deployments. Maybe one for mothers would help her.
3. Your BIL needs to sit her down and have a long talk with her. Yes, it's hard to send your child off to a war zone. However, she needs to work on trying to control her emotions. Ruining a happy family day because you can't control your self and you haven't been able to cut the cord is not ok.
Double and triple the bolded. I'm certainly not qualified for sound advice but per past discussions with my MIL who is also clingy (however not to the extreme that you describe), she was concerned mostly about feeling left behind. A's OCS was especially hard on her because the first 4 weeks there was practically no contact at all. Once A was able to call, write and kept her in the loop, more regularly she calmed down a bit. I would assume it's always going to be hard for her, being his mother and all, but hopefully she can get help to better express her emotions and keep on with her daily life. Good Luck!!
Ditto all of this. Especially #3.
Honestly I did an eye-roll about the crying at Easter thing because it just sounds really over dramatic. My MIL can get like that sometimes (like at our rehearsal dinner when she wailed "my baby is leaving me") and H just walks away. So I have a lack of sensitivity for mom's who can't handle their grown adult children making life decisions.
I have been trying to find some of these forums by googling. Do you know any particularly good ones? I mainly lurk here and this board has been a big help to me, so thank you ladies.
btw I am not at this point emotional about his impending deployment, it is more situations arising in his personal life that since he is an adult I cannot have a say without alienating him.
Sometimes I think it's much harder to wait for a big life change than to actually deal with it once it's happened. Hopefully she's being dramatic now, but once he's gone she'll settle into the reality of just dealing with it. But yes, absolutely, encourage her to talk to a therapist. If her anxiety is affecting her ability to enjoy her life now and the time she has with him before he goes, and will likely inhibit her ability to proceed normally while he's deployed, she definitely needs some professional support.
Good luck!
Military.com and militaryfamilies.com have forums my mom lurked on when I joined the Army.
Here is a link to a list you may find helpful. http://militaryfamily.about.com/od/familyandparenting/tp/Support-Groups-For-Parents-Of-Servicemembers.htm
Also, there is a group call Blue Star Mothers of America. They have local chapters in quite a few states. You may want to look them up to see if they have a chapter near you.
Thanks ladies. I appericate all the information.