Thanksgiving is just a few days away! As we are getting ready for our small Thanksgiving. Even though we may be hours upon hours away from family we still enjoy having Thanksgiving together. We are big family people (love having all of our family around during Thanksgiving) and as much as it's hard to not be around our extended family we do enjoy just eating together. It's small things like having our spouses around for Thanksgiving that we miss so much during deployment. 

I'm also thankful that Military Spouse Magazine gives out the opportunity each year for people to nominate a deserving military spouses. As I watched "Oprah's Favorite Things 2012" the other day when she surprised 30 deserving military spouses (MSOY finalists) it made me realize we can all make a difference in our communities. Listening to some of their stories made me tear up, thinking maybe I can make a difference. All of the spouses were so inspiring and so were their stories as to why they started their organizations. This organization is how I am working towards making a difference in the lives of our military spouses. 

We are very thankful for our fans and our readers! What are YOU thankful for?

First blog post, I never know what to say or how to start it. I figured it would be a good idea to give some background information as to why I started this non profit organization. There is no better place to start a story than the beginning right? So here it goes....

It all started a few years ago, I was diagnosed with agoraphobia with panic disorder. For those of you who don't know, it's the same anxiety disorder as Paula Deen has. As I read her book I kept thinking (hey! I know that feeling!) and how she persevered through her disorder and now, well, I think we all know how insanely popular she is. Who doesn't know Paula Deen? I married my husband who was Army and we arrived at his duty station. A few months went on by and I started meeting some new friends and found a few other friends who suffered from panic attacks as well. I thought that was nice to have someone to relate to with my anxiety.

Fast forward a few years and a few deployments later. I had played around with the idea of starting a non profit organization for spouses who suffered from anxiety. I thought at the time that there wouldn't be enough of a need to justify having the non profit. So it went on the back burner until a few months ago.

My husband got PCS orders and we went to our new duty station, no big deal it happens when you are military. You can't stay at one post forever eventually you will have to PCS. I found a beautiful home for us to live in and it seemed like a nice area. For some reason the new duty station brought back all my anxiety and panic attacks that were very well controlled. After having multiple attacks I thought to myself, surely I can't be the ONLY person who suffers from them. I had at least two other friends at our previous location that had them as well.

I decided to research military spouses and if they suffer from any mental health disorder such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD. I found that there was a study conducted (before 2007) and there were quite a few spouses who suffered from mental health disorders. I was quite shocked that number was significantly more than 3. I thought for a minute thinking since that study I had been married and both of my friends were married after I was. So maybe there are more and so I decided to research some more. I found that new studies were showing secondary PTSD in military spouses. I was overwhelmed by the numbers as it took a few days just to have everything sink in. I decided it was time to just sit down and get this non profit organization started.

After writing up my plans for this non profit, I decided to start up a Facebook group to see if there were spouses out there right now that suffer from anxiety disorders. Sure enough we received quite a few requests to join the group. It was a little overwhelming to see this dream of helping others start to come to light. My goal is to help any spouse going through any mental health disorder and work with them and let them know we are here for them.

Hopefully you understand a little bit better now about why I started this non profit organization. Some military spouses are normally afraid to receive help (anyone can be afraid to receive help for fear of it showing that they are weak) or are unable to go to the doctor themselves because of their anxieties. The spouses are often overlooked and this issue is normally "hush, hush" between spouses. It's time to bring awareness onto the situation and help those who stand behind the ones that serve our country.