Kim Mills from She is Fierce
Kim Mills is a writer that’s been living the military lifestyle for close to 20 years. Through her writing or storytelling and sharing her personal experiences, military families everywhere have connected to her work at She is Fierce. She speaks about deployments, anxiety and what she has learned from living the lifestyle.
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Special Guest
Kim Mills is a writer and military family member living in Edmonton, Alberta. She is well known in the Canadian military community for her storytelling and is a frequent guest speaker at events hosted by Military Family Resource Centres. She is also the author of the Way Home series of books.
Highlights
- Advice for a new military spouse/partner.
- Important to ask questions of your partner.
- For deployments, you take everything with a grain of salt.
- 6:51 What has helped her deal with anxiety.
- 14:32 How to live with the risk that comes with the lifestyle.
- Social media and the high level of connectedness.
- 20:20 The great parts of the lifestyle.
- Really need to put effort into the lifestyle to be successful.
Quotes
“I couldn’t have made it this far without, you know, building into my community and doing so took real effort.”
– Kim Mills, She is Fierce
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Links
Thank you
- This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
- Thank you to Organized Sound Productions for their help bringing this podcast to life.
Transcript by Otter.ai
Intro
This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
Kim
I couldn’t have made it this far without building into my community and doing so took real effort. And that just doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because you go out of your way to make sure that you’ve created a community for yourself. In doing so you create a community that others are a part of, too, and everybody wins from that.
Intro
The military lifestyle is all encompassing. It’s difficult, but rewarding. Dynamic, very, very dynamic. Unpredictable. You are in the Canadian Armed Forces, or a family member connected to the military. You know, the lifestyle can be a challenge. The military lifestyle is always changing. In this podcast, we explore the world of deployments, postings and transitions. This is the military lifestyle. Here’s your host, Jon Chabun.
Jon
Kim Mills is a writer that’s been living the military lifestyle for close to 20 years. Her writing or storytelling, sharing her personal experiences, military families everywhere have connected to her work at She is Fierce. I speak with her next about deployments, anxiety and what she has learned from living the lifestyle.
So the podcast is called The Military Lifestyle and we’re all about sharing experiences, telling stories, helping people prepare or deal with the lifestyle. And today I’m speaking with Kim Mills from She is Fierce. Thanks for coming, Kim or connecting online.
Kim
Yeah. Thanks for sitting in front of your computer for this interview.
Jon
Yeah. So go right into it. What advice would you give to a new military spouse or partner?
Kim
Well, first question is is just whether or not the couple themselves have really taken the time to talk through all the possibilities, and that they’re comfortable with them to make sure that they’ve, you know, sat down and looked at the career ahead, the specific trade, but also just reading up on what some of those job requirements might look like, the absences, the moves, any specific stress, I mean, every job out there has its own stressors that you need to take into account and really being open and upfront with each other about what that looks like, can solve so many issues down the road. There are many spouses or families that kind of go into this where the member either wasn’t upfront themselves with what was going to be required or they just weren’t aware of what they needed to prepare their families for. And it’s more of that lack of real preparation or understanding that leaves people scrambling. So big on communication and talking things through and making sure that you have all that you need to be best prepared. So that’s usually my first go to is sitting down with your spouse at some point in the very beginning of the process and being sure that this is something that you as a couple of your family is prepared to take on.
Jon
Yeah, definitely the word communication popped out right there. Communications definitely important. How do you approach communication with your partner?
Kim
We’ve been doing this long enough and our expectations with each other pretty clear. We’ve been married 19 years this spring, my spouse has said 20 years in the forces. I’m pretty upfront with asking all the questions that I think I need not necessarily related to his job or what he does, but relating to what we’re going to need to do. What that’s going to look like for us is usually my first question. And that just kind of helps remind. I’m aware that my spouse is doing a job that whether or not he’s been given information, it might not, you know, be top priority for him to remember to pass everything on and he I just not understand what would be useful for me to know and what wouldn’t, because he’s coming at it from a very different perspective. So I ask questions, I don’t assume that he will tell me things that I need to know. Because he might not realize that it was important for me to know. It’s also that he, you know, just like I will forget to tell him stuff that happened in the morning of that day, he would certainly forget to tell me things that he heard six hours previous. So I asked questions. We sit down when there’s a major event coming up and try to make sure that we’re on the same page. I’ll ask as many questions as I can think of, I’ll make notes even if I during the day, I realized that I’m wondering how this is going to get done or whether this is going to happen to talk to him about. I’m hoping that he does the same with me, this job doesn’t lend itself to a lot of, you know, hey, is it okay if this happens, because we don’t always get that kind of option. So it’s not really important if he asks me something, unless he has a choice. He’s not always going to ask me hey, do you want this to happen? Because chances are it’s going to happen whether I say yes or no. So sometimes it’s just a matter of asking what it’s going to look like long term. And you know, what other events are there? And if I’m looking for support than just asking him, you know, do you know where I could find that? And if you don’t know, do you know who we could ask? So really, all of that is just a roundabout way of saying that we try to take the time to sit down and hash things out as best we can when he’s home. And that way, we’re not taken up to off guard if he’s not home.
Jon
What would you tell someone looking back on your first deployment? What would you tell someone who’s going through that experience?
Kim
A lot of times what I say is to just take everything as it comes. In the She is Fierce community, we’ve asked other people who’ve been doing this at least as long as me some much longer, what their advice or suggestions are. A lot of us, I find, have learned that you take kind of everything with a grain of salt, not to get your hopes up on certain dates or times or expectations like that because things change. And then also just to be very proactive about what’s coming, things that are very practical. And you can find a lot of them in that deployment app or various lists online. The She is Fierce community has a pre deployment checklist as well. Be very proactive and very practical about the kinds of things that you’re going to need. Things like your power of attorney and benefits, information updated. And all of those little things that there’s so many ways that you can check to see what’s needed, but it just going to save you so much heartache down the road, if you’re as prepared as you possibly can be. Absolutely, things are still going to catch you off guard, but the more prepared you are, the easier it’s going to be going into it.
Jon
So tell me about your experience with anxiety and living the lifestyle.
Kim
It’s one of those learn lessons that I had to find a way that it was going to work for me and certainly everybody who struggles with anxiety or depression is going to have their own their own challenges, different things that will work for them and different things that won’t. It certainly took me a long time to try to find habits that worked best for me, I found that having a regular exercise routine helps keep me grounded. And so I try my best to stick with that. I certainly try to be proactive when it comes to seeking support and help that often times we look at mental health support as something that we do and we’re in crisis and I try to look at it more like something we do proactively. You know, just like getting a regular physical checkup, we can get a regular mental health checkup. There’s lots always going to be lots of new ways that we can learn how to look after ourselves new new tools and tricks and on how to best manage that kind of thing. So, I mean, when it comes to practicality, I don’t spend a lot of time on the news when my spouse is away or really in general. I’m not a big news junkie, my spouse I are not people that engage in constant communication when he’s deployed. Not that we don’t communicate. But we did come from a generation that originally didn’t have access to constant communication. And I think that kind of helped us get to the point where I’ve learned how much communication is good and how much kind of just adds more stress when we just don’t have somebody to talk about, or I’m worried about always getting home to the phone, missing calls, that kind of thing. We’re a lot more relaxed, I think when it comes to communication when he is away, which helps me. I know that not hearing from him is still good news. I don’t have to worry, unless I hear that I should. That’s how I’ve learned to approach it. And I think that, again, that comes just from personal experience. It works for us.
Jon
With the anxiety. When was the first time that you realize that you had this condition.
Kim
When I say in my late teens is what I would have started seeing someone that would have Formally kind of address that, but I would say that I’d known whereas it might not have had an actual name to it. It’s something that, you know, my extended family struggles with in various ways. So it’s not surprising, everybody will experience it differently. But it’s not something that I was ever surprised that I had or that snuck up on me. The kinds of things that caused me anxiety or panic has changed over the years and I’m sure will continue to, but sometimes the things that I think will cause me panic don’t and the things that I don’t worry about, end up causing me the most grief. But the tools and tricks I can use to overcome that have have stayed pretty steady. I’m not opposed to using medication when I have to and that has happened on and off throughout my life. For the most part I have been able to manage with various supports. Yeah, things like regular exercise, knowing you know when I’m starting to, to worry more than usual and finding the way Is that I know will help distract me or move me past it. My spouse has become over the years much more understanding as he really learns what that looks like to recognize that the anxiety isn’t necessarily logical and can’t be logically fixed. And again, like I would go anywhere from, you know, deep breathing techniques, or a moment of mindfulness or some time of relaxation all the way to when it’s required that you just take a couple Ativan and close your eyes for a few minutes. So I’m not opposed to either of those. And I’ve learned over the years, which ones are necessary, at which point so.
Jon
Something like anxiety, kind of wonder. So it’s obviously something that maybe you’ve always had, but when you’re living the lifestyle, it’s probably a factor in your overall, I don’t know, good mental health. Is it? Not sure if I’m being accurate there, but does the military lifestyle can it potentially I guess anything could trigger?
Kim
Absolutely, I mean, sure when my spouse is deployed, anxiety over news reports or anxiety just because you haven’t had communication in a while or anxiety over, just in general if that if the person that’s away on the deployment is the one that you most likely or most regularly go to when you have issues or need to debrief with. If they’re the ones that are away, then that is immediately just a loss of a certain support network, which is difficult. Can the military itself lend itself to anxiety? I mean, absolutely. But I think any job can, any job has the potential of having danger or and it also depends on you know, what specifically triggers your anxiety whether it’s physical health, whether it’s travel whether you know, danger. For some people, they have no issue with hypochondria or anxiety around their physical health but they may be terrified anytime their family is driving. A lot of time anxiety just has no purpose at all. So when I tried to describe it once to somebody it was that if someone has never experienced just chronic anxiety, if you can try to describe the feeling you get when you’re driving in your car and someone say like either cuts you off or pulls in front of you, and you have to slam on your brakes and you kind of get that feeling in your throat like there’s, you’re you’re really really anxious did it last maybe a minute or less before you realize that the incident is over and you can move on and living with chronic anxiety, especially at a time where my anxiety levels are really high. It could mean living with that feeling of intense panic, you know, right there at the base of your throat for days at a time. There’s nothing in front of you happening. There’s no you know, immediate car accident that you’re worried about. There’s nothing coming. It doesn’t have to have a logical reason. Well, certainly I think that you know, you can find things that increase anxiety in the military, especially if the person is isolated and in a new community where they haven’t found supports to be able to work through those. But in and of itself, when anxiety is part of a mental illness, it doesn’t have a cause. So I don’t know that, you know, one particular job or lifestyle would be harder than the other. Because I, at least that’s how I see it for myself. I’m pretty sure if my husband had another career, I would still be an anxious person. I just find other things to be anxious about.
Jon
And when your husband’s deployed, can you give us a few examples of places he’s gone?
Kim
My husband has three deployments to Afghanistan. He went on the very first one in 2002. And then he went again and in 04-05 and then in 07-08. While we were in Kingston, he deployed on Op Impact. Upcoming is I don’t even know the name of it, but it’s in Europe. Yeah. So sometimes they have been more dangerous than others. Obviously, he is, you know, a combat arm soldier. So that factors into some of them, but not all of them for his last deployment, I often kind of said that the danger level at that point was really the same as when he had to drive the highway to work every day when he was at home.
Jon
I guess that’s true.
Kim
Then it really has more to do with that the absence then then the danger.
Jon
So that danger element, the risk lifestyle, how, how do you approach the risk that comes with the job because it’s more than a job, right? It’s, it’s a lifestyle, and it’s not just the military member, it’s the military family member.
Kim
I’m never gonna say I knew what I was getting into. But, I mean, I married a military member before 9/11. So I think the idea of me ever saying that I knew what this was going to look like is a little far fetched because none of us saw most of that coming, but my spouse enjoys his job. Similar to you know, the common phrase you’ll hear people say is that you know, if a firefighter trained their whole career and then never went to a fire, they would be miserable. And it’s not because they are hoping someone’s house burns down. It’s just that that’s what they do. And that’s who they are. And the same goes for my spouse, he likes his job, and he trained to do the job that he has. So if he did that for however long but never had the opportunity to do it in an operational setting, then he would be pretty miserable. That’s something that I knew. I continue to know about him when it comes to, you know, when he’s away, and the element of danger is higher. Looking back on those times, I don’t know that I really just allow myself to dwell on that. Some days are harder than others. But I was fortunate enough that during those particularly high levels of danger on deployments, there wasn’t a big following of social media and constant news. And so it was easier to kind of get on with your life and not focus.
Jon
So this is the connectedness. You talked about social media. Everyone’s connected so often, like you’re basically connected 24-7 it seems, and there’s instant updates in the world. Is that good? Is that bad?
Kim
I think that it could be both. I don’t think that social media is inherently a bad thing. I think there’s amazing social connections to be had on social media. And people have found ways to find the community that they enjoy and be part of it, find people that they enjoy and support them. You know, if you live in a small community, you might not find. You might find great friends, but you might not find people who share the same interests as you. But we are fortunate enough to live in a global community right now, where we have access to all kinds of forums are where you can find people that are very similar to you and what in what they’re interested in. For example, and this is what I saw the other day, I was talking to a friend who’s really into felting, arts felting like creating things with felt. I didn’t know it was a thing until I seen her do it. It’s quite pretty. Then I found that there is online a group specifically for Canadian Forces families who are into felting. Art. So if you’re posted to say Meaford, or somewhere small, and you might not find other people who are interested in that, but we are fortunate enough to have this global community where you can go online and you can connect with other people who have that very specific interest and talk to them about it. So I think that that aspect is great. Can it backfire? Absolutely. They found in various ways that people can end up getting information before it was officially given to them. And that’s obviously you know, a significant problem. I think that it can definitely increase worry or anxiety by the families when they see a lot of information out there. And it’s hard to to figure out what of that information is related to them, or their partner specifically. We see a news article about a child being targeted at a mall somewhere in southern United States, it’s hard not to then fear our own area to, even though it might not necessarily be related. We have that same struggle. I think when we’re looking at, if we can see all kinds of information thrown at us all day, every day about dangerous military situations, it can be hard to filter out the things that aren’t necessarily related to us or our partners specific circumstance. And I think it just raises your anxiety altogether. If all you ever see is dangerous or scary situations, then it doesn’t matter where those situations happen. That just increases our anxiety. So it all depends on how we use social media and whether or not it’s a benefit or not.
Jon
Do you feel like you need a strategy to go forward with social media and the level of connectedness?
Kim
I have a personal rule of it. I don’t watch a read things if I know that they’re going to upset me needlessly, if I feel like I’m aware of a situation that’s happening, and part of this is I took a really interesting course on compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma offered by Tend in Kingston. It really solidified for me what I was starting to learn about myself, which was, I was easily kind of emotionally driven by things that I would see or read about or, or even talk to other people about when I was out in the community. I still work on an ability to be able to just say, I don’t need more information about that. I don’t need to click on that article, or read more about that situation. I understand that it happens. But I don’t know that it’s benefiting me personally. The same comes with I specifically do that with fiction. I don’t watch war movies, even nonfiction documentary is necessarily because I just know that it’s going to increase my anxiety to levels it doesn’t need to be at. So just kind of a self awareness to be able to say no, you know what, I don’t think that I would benefit from watching, seeing, having that part of my social media appetite. I will remove things from my social media if I think that they’re just causing me more anxiety than benefits.
Jon
What are some of the real great parts of the lifestyle that you’ve gone through in the last 20 years?
Kim
We love living in Kingston. We love the experience of moving, the road trips back and forth across the country. We moved from Edmonton to Kingston and back again, which meant we drove actually through the states on our way through both times, we had the chance to visit cities we never would have got the chance to visit otherwise. We tease our kids all the time. And they mentioned somewhere that they haven’t got to go. My kids the other day were saying that their friends were teasing them because they never been to Jasper which is just a like a mountain resort near here. And so we sat down and and asked them all the places like you know have have your friends ever been to like Arlington or the Lincoln Memorial, or the Smithsonian, or Manhattan on Christmas Eve, or have they ever been to downtown Nashville or have they gone to the Navy Pier in Chicago or have all the places that they’ve had the opportunity to visit, which really just happened, because we were moving and we had the opportunity to go through those places. The last deployment, him and I had the chance to use his HLTA period to visit Thailand, which again, was something we never would have had the opportunity to do otherwise. And I think most of all me, we’ve met a community where I’ve traveled all over the country doing this job now and the people that I’ve got to see and the couches I slept on, and, you know, the friends that have picked me up from the airport, taking me out for dinner, showing me around their favorite spots where they’re currently posted. We’ve got to meet a pretty amazing community. So I think that’s probably my favorite part of all of it. There’s tons of bonuses out there to being in the forces and certainly there’s challenges like any job, but I’ll be the first to admit that absolutely. It’s It’s given us opportunities that we never would have had otherwise.
Jon
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Kim
Um, I think that if anything, all I wanted to share is that I couldn’t have made it this far without, you know, building into my community and doing so took real effort. On our part, we had to be willing to show up and watch kids for friends so that they could get some time off and we had to be willing to be the birth partner for someone while their spouse was away and, and put actually no real work in to try and create friendships. But those friendships are what have gotten us through this far. We have been infinitely fortunate in the ways that people have helped us I can’t even begin to describe all the various ways that people have supported us and encouraged us and done things for us that got us this far. And that just doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because you go out of your way to make sure that you’ve created a community for yourself. In doing so you create a community that others are a part of to and everybody wins from that. Everybody has their own ideas of what they like it a community, it’s certainly not always going to be the same as what I would want. But once you know what you’re looking for in a community, there are probably other people out there who want the same thing. So I just encourage people to make that a priority so that they have the people that they need around them.
Jon
Thank you very much, Kim, for your time today.
Kim
Welcome. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.
Jon
You can learn more about Kim Mills at her website sheisfierce.net. She also does public speaking and is active on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, to name a few. She’s the author of the Way Home series of books, you can find those for sale on Amazon.
Extro
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Military Lifestyle. To learn more about this episode and to check out our other resources like the deployment app, go to Esquimaltmfrc.com. A special thanks to True Patriot Love Foundation for funding season one of this podcast and to Organized Sound Productions for bringing our idea to life. Please share this podcast with your military family or with someone living the lifestyle. Subscribe to The Military Lifestyle on your favorite podcast app. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.