Military Has Me Singing

A little while ago at work I had to give a training over stress-management. To be clear and obvious, I am in the Navy. It is no secret that the military is one of the most stressful jobs in the country followed by physicians, personal assistants, and first responders. As reported by Military.com in, “Military Deaths by Suicide jumped 25% at end of 2020,” that by June 2020 128 deaths occurred by suicide. Keep in mind that was before the pandemic. It is my personal belief that more occurred that were not reported. No, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems that I hear of a new one almost every month from the grape vine, because someone who knows someone, who is on that ship.

To compare my own experience and what makes military life so stressful is a compilation of multiple things. You are cut off from you support group from birth, you are worked into the ground, toxic leadership, duty days, and overall, the military pretending they care about your mental needs, but constantly proving that they do not. I could go on and on about these topics for days, for now I will continue the matter of stress.

I was selected to give stress management to my division as we found out one of our leadership who had been removed from the ship was going to be coming back. I will leave our grievances about this man aside and just say he is awful. The training that I gave covered things that people could do to manage their stress to include working out, eating a healthy diet, maintain a hobby, religion, friends and family, and meditation. All these things have science backing them up to help stress. Did I myself practice them? Not even one.

I wish I could be the type of person who runs out their stress but finding the time to do so is the biggest constraint. Time impacts my ability to meditate, plan healthy meals, maintain my hobbies, or make times with family and friends. I juggle working navy life, going to school, and maintain my house. The most that I have time for after just feeling too tired to do anything else is to watch some shows on Netflix with a bag of popcorn. Who knew there would always be so much laundry to fold?

So, what do I do to manage the stress that just piles on? I rage scream music on my 30-minute commute.

I’m not talking about actual metal music where they are meant to be screaming. I can’t say I have every been a fan of that genre of music. I’m talking about screaming through, “A Whole New World,” or “As the World Caves In.” I have always been a fan of sad or sweet music that held soft melodies and hidden smiles. Sometimes, I will try to sing them as they are supposed to be sung (I am not a great singer), most of the time though, I will sing these sad melodic songs as if the wind is trying to steal every single word from me.

I can’t really explain why this ritual calms me as I go to work and picks me up when I drive home after a hard every day. I never sang like this before the Navy although that mostly had to do with my brother always telling me that my singing was awful. Ever since I have started rage singing on my commute however, I feel like I can face most of the days and decompress by the time I get home, so I am not a complete mess for my dogs and partner.

When it comes down to it though, even if it is something as small as singing in your car, find what works for you and do it. Even if strangers passing by give you strange looks because they can hear you even with the windows rolled up.