Confessions Of A Military Spouse: At Times 'Incapacitated With Sadness'

By Molly Blake


In April 2011, a young Army wife posted a chilling comment on her blog that began, "If you are reading this, you should know that I'm dead."

The 27-year-old woman continued, "at least I hope I'm dead ... it would be awful to fail at your own suicide."

The woman reportedly received treatment and didn't kill herself, and her blog post helped put the spotlight on a serious issue: the mental health issues of military spouses.

While there has been much written about the suicide rate among soldiers (in July 2012, 38 soldiers committed suicide -- more than died in Afghanistan that month), the suffering of military spouses has received relatively short shrift. That's changing.