Discussion: Coping Strategies

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How Families Cope

How Families Cope Program Transcript

BETSY FLANIGAN: I think his returning was much more difficult than his being away, as far as affecting the family dynamic. Although we missed him-- I certainly missed him terribly-- but when he returned, he was this very strong military person who took no excuse. Neither of us realized that he was an alcoholic at that point. And perhaps it wasn't as pronounced then. I can't remember. But yes, it affected things certainly. And it would've been better if he had not been drinking.

DESMOND W. FLANIGAN: I haven't had a drink now in six years. The reason I stopped was because my family came to me, my wife and my daughter came to me, and said, dad, you are drunk. I didn't realize I was an alcoholic until then.

But thinking back, I realize that it affected them, that they must have been on tenterhooks whenever dad came home, especially on a Friday night. And dad had a couple. And dad would either get very morose and angry and yell.

And I thought that we enjoyed the military. But there was that undercurrent, that kind of fear is, what the hell do you gotta do tonight. And I didn't realize that.

BETSY FLANIGAN: I think the main thing was his being strict. And it's hard for couples, no matter whether they're military or not, I think to come together and agree on how to discipline certain things.

DESMOND W. FLANIGAN: One of the things that helped our family, in the army culture or the military culture, is the natural support system. Betsy had nothing to do with the military until we married. She came onto post. She was almost immediately welcomed by the other wives.

MICHAEL WILKINSON: Some of the services that are available for family members, not just military members, is Fleet and Family Services. They have a lot of programs. One, they have a program that helps new parents.

KRISTIN WILKINSON: Both of my children had different experiences with the military. And both of them, I think, had different reactions, different effects from living the military life. Our oldest daughter, Brittany, my stepdaughter, has a chronic medical condition. She was born with respiratory papillomas. And she required multiple, multiple surgeries since she was an infant.

And this was a chronic condition that also resulted in scar tissue on her vocal cords, which permanently damaged the vocal cords. Therefore, she cannot articulate. And she cannot get out a full speech. Therefore, she has a lot of whisper. She has a lot of raspiness in her voice.

How Families Cope

MICHAEL WILKINSON: For somebody with her condition, not able to speak as much, it was very hard. So she didn't make friends as fast. It hurt her more, just because the one stable person, which was me, wasn't there the whole time. And I was gone for so long.

KRISTIN WILKINSON: As she got further into her adolescence, it was starting to decrease. The surgeries became less because she was starting to grow out of this condition to a point. But the damage already to the vocal cords had been there. So we had looked at different options of getting some replacement vocal cords and having some fat deposits placed into the vocal cords to strengthen them.

It was hard because she was tired of going through the surgeries. And she was tired of not having a voice. She was tired of having all those things, and she was frustrated to have to constantly go to see her medical doctors.

We got to the point where I sat with her ENT, her ear, nose, and throat specialist, and he explained to me that she cannot whisper, which she tended to always revert back to because it was more comfortable. She didn't want to put the effort out to making her voice stronger. I sat down with her, and I went through exactly what the doctor told me. She said, no, that's not true. If my dad was here, I could listen to what he had to say.

MICHAEL WILKINSON: We have a good father daughter relationship. And when I was deployed, I think she missed that.

KRISTIN WILKINSON: When Michael would come back from the deployment, he always wanted things to be fun. He wanted to enjoy the time with the kids. He wanted everything to be happy, everything to be wonderful.

But he came back during a time once where Brittany was grounded. And he didn't want her to be grounded anymore. So he says well, it's OK. Well, let's go ahead, I just got back from deployment. Let's go ahead and all go out to dinner. And let's all go-- It's OK. How about if we end her grounded two days early. And that was really difficult because she would sit there back going, my dad's home. My dad's home. And I would sit there and look like a fool.

In the beginning, it was extremely hard because we were just newly married. And I was fearful that well, if I really made her angry, and we really had a bad relationship, what's it going to do to our relationship because we're so newly married and we're in this deployment situation and we have this brand new baby? I just sit there and let it go.

And then finally, about the third one I said, we can't do this anymore. It's just creating havoc. And Brittany's just getting away with a lot of things. And she's just standing back there thumbing her nose at me. And it didn't help her grow as an

How Families Cope

individual. And it was keeping her from learning the responsibility and what she needed.

And for Bella it was-- she was a baby. But still, babies still needed to have the routines. And he wanted to break some of the routines sometimes because he just wanted to spend time with her. And so she threw something across the room, wasn't a big deal.

So sometimes it was really, really hard. Because I had to be the disciplinarian. And sometimes it just was really hard when he'd come home, and he'd want to do things very differently.

So how we ended up coping with it was I started emailing him when he was on deployment. And I started telling him, this is what's going on. This is what the rules I set in. And I need you to follow it when you come home. And once we started really getting into that cycle, it started working much better. And so it really helped our relationship, and it helped keep things consistent for Brittany and for the girls.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

How Families Cope Additional Content Attribution

Images used with permission of Kristin Wilkinson.

Flanigan , D. (n.d.). Flanigan Images [Photographs]. Images used with permission of Desmond Flanigan.

MUSIC: Creative Support Services Los Angeles, CA

Dimension Sound Effects Library Newnan, GA

Narrator Tracks Music Library Stevens Point, WI

Signature Music, Inc Chesterton, IN

Studio Cutz Music Library Carrollton, TX

How Families Cope