Tired from War: My Story of Secondary Trauma as a Central Valley Service Spouse
By Jana N. Yost, M.A. (CMH, HSC), APCC, ECSE
For years, I thought I was just tired.
My husband served in the Army after September 11 and deployed multiple times throughout our marriage. Like many military spouses, I learned how to keep life moving forward. You do what needs to be done because there is no other choice.
Military retirement brought another major transition. We had thirty days to move from the Washington, D.C. area back to California while selling a house in Texas, navigating adoption, and figuring out what came next. I simply moved from one responsibility to the next without stopping to process any of it.
I was anxious all the time. I could not sleep through the night. I was on edge, easily irritated, and disconnected from people. Staying busy became my way of coping, but it also kept me from recognizing how much I was carrying. It was not until 2018 that I realized how exhausted I truly was.
I was tired from war. Tired from moving. Tired from years of uncertainty and constant transition. Tired from carrying responsibilities that many people never saw.
As I began studying secondary trauma, my experience started to make sense. Secondary trauma is the emotional impact of living alongside another person's trauma. While I was not the one deployed, military service shaped every part of our family's life. Over the last ten years, I have continued to study its clinical impact because lived experience and research both matter.
The Central Valley has always been home. It is where my roots are, where I learned the value of community, and where I continue to find support today. Sometimes community looks like a conversation over coffee. Sometimes it is a text message, a meal, a prayer, or simply knowing someone understands.
Community does not remove the challenges we face, but it reminds us that we do not have to face them alone. My hope is that every service member, veteran, first responder, spouse, and neighbor finds a community that helps carry the weight of life's hardest seasons.
