Is it really eleven years ago that a nineteen-year-old mother of two was left alone while her husband was sent off to hurry up and wait for a war half a world away? A young girl, playing house, suddenly thrown out to the wolves that is known as the real world; terrified, angry, and forced to face it all.... ready or not.

All these years I've been apprehensive about expressing what I went through in any detail. It would be selfish, so I've thought, to feel it was so traumatic for me when my ex-husband and so many other soldiers had a real war to wage while my own war was "only" emotional. Needing a shrink wasn't nearly as important as my husband needing armor on a tank! So I downplayed it all these years.

Sure, I've told people that it was one of the most difficult events of my life. But somehow I never felt that my turmoil could, or should, compare to that which my ex-husband experienced.

The truth is, first and foremost, that no matter how much pain, fear, anger and loneliness I went through while "on the homefront" during Desert Shield and Storm, I am thankful that it did happen to me, if for no other reason than it was what caused me to finally seek out the help that got me diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and later also with Schizoaffective Disorder. For years my mother had tried to get me help, but I resisted with every bone in my body. I didn't need to be fixed, it was the rest of the world, I was just fine.... the typical denial.

But one lonely night, about two months after my then-husband had gone off to Saudi Arabia, I was sitting alone on the couch, the boys tucked into bed, the TV on.... drinking strawberry daiquiris. Getting drunk. I wasn't even really a drinker. I enjoyed certain drinks, but I had done the "getting drunk thing" when I was a much younger teenager, and by then had outgrown it. And I certainly wasn't one to sit around and get drunk alone!