Lily Burana is a lovely force of nature, and at this time of year when we celebrate veterans, it seems only fitting to celebrate their often long-suffering spouses as well. Burana wrote a great book a while back called "I Love a Man in Uniform," about her marriage to an Army veteran who was deployed.
"Love is great," she jokes among friends, "but it ain't no match for PTSD."
Last week, in honor of Veterans' Day, she wrote a typically light, humorous and reflective article for the New York Times about "The Quiet Side of Being the Soldier's Other Half," linked here.
She also wrote on her blog:
"I've been blessed with an adventure-filled life that has taken me many places and transformed me in many ways, but nothing has moved and transformed me more than my experience as a military wife. The grit, ritual, passion, dedication, resilience, and sacrifice have left an indelible mark on me.
This Modern Love column may be my final word on my experience as an Army wife--though you never can tell. When I saw it online, I started shaking and cried, mostly out of a deep gratitude for being part of the military family."
More germane to our purposes around here, though, what's particularly refreshing about Lily Burana -- on top of her smarts and humor -- is her delightful candor about how she and her husband each struggled with their own forms of PTSD. And how that experience challenged -- but ultimately did not extinguish -- their marriage.
Burana's book is smartly subtitled, "A Memoir of Love, War and Other Battles." And while "I Love a Man in Uniform" isn't technically "about" PTSD, as with many servicemembers' marriages, PTSD can turn out to be the elephant in the room. Marriage is difficult, deployment takes its toll on both partners, and trauma -- even from other sources -- tends to be cumulative.
In "I Love a Man in Uniform," Burana talks about her experiences with EMDR, therapy, medication, and Neuro-Emotional Technique, a form of chiropractic. In subsequent conversations with her, she credits EMDR with doing much of the "heavy lifting" where PTSD was concerned. EMDR "gave me the will to live," she says, "It significantly improved my quality of life."
"I know what it's like," she says. "I felt worthless." "My story has an encouraging ending, so I'm happy to share it. I'm going to put a face and a name to it" -- what so many others go through. "I went about as low as you can go," she said, before EMDR started turning her life around.
Like many military spouses, she talks of the pride of seeming "capable on the outside," but "dying on the inside." She also talks about how as her husband got his own PTSD from combat treated, "it served him beautifully." It became "a better life for him, too."
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Editor's note: In addition to being an author, Lily Burana used her background as a burlesque dancer to create "Operation Bombshell," "the world's only burlesque school for military wives." (It doesn't involve nudity or a striptease.) According to the Operation Bombshell website, linked here, Burana started this light-hearted recreational program, "after enduring her own 'deployment blues'.
"Burana's husband, then an Army Intelligence officer, was fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Burana longed for something to lift her spirits. Later, during a little "retail therapy" lingerie shopping, she found that the salesgirl was herself a sad, lonely military wife, and Burana wished she could offer her some cheer and healing distraction. In that instant, Operation Bombshell was born. The first Operation Bombshell class was held at Fort Hood, Texas in 2008."
For more about Operation Bombshell, click here. Or watch this endearing clip from Fox News about the program. (And for more on EMDR, click here.)
Photo credit: Laura Byrnes.
