“I will never marry anyone in the military,” author Brandy Woods Snow once told herself.
She laughs now when recalling those famous last words. Her husband, still active in the Army Reserve, once promised her he’d be in for only six years; it’s since been 27 years, and they’ve been by each other’s side for 24 of them.
“I’ve enjoyed the lifestyle… sometimes,” Snow said in an interview with Military Families Magazine. “It has its ups and downs.”
She understands both of those intimately, particularly the traumas that often affect military service members as well as their families.
“I think it’s almost impossible for a solider to come home from an active-war theater and not have issues that they deal with,” she said. “There’s not enough awareness about combat/veteran PTSD. Families kind of get lost. It’s hard when your spouse is gone and you’re worrying for them and you have three kids.”
In Snow’s family, that burden fell onto her, and her mental health suffered. In 2013, she finally broke beneath the weight of it all.
“I had the wheels fall off the bus; I was the one in our family that went through an utter shutdown,” she said. “I was fine one day and the next day I was just a mess.”
Snow had grown up with a traditional and tough Southern mentality, and seeking help felt embarrassing. When Snow reached out to set an appointment with her doctor, she didn’t want people to know. She finally asked her husband to accompany her to the appointment because she knew she would need someone else in the room to ensure she told the truth of just how bad things had gotten.
“There’s such a stigma around this, when there shouldn’t be. Mental health is physical health to me.”
She also began to turn intentionally toward writing, long a calling for her. “I’ve always written. I was around six years old when I asked for my first typewriter. I still have a little box in the attic of stories I’d typed up.”
She began working on her first book, “Meant to Be Broken,” in 2017, and when it was published the next year, she never looked back. She has published 11 books and novellas since, with more on the way.
Her latest work, “For Now,” is a young adult contemporary novel and released in September this year. In it, PTSD and its effects on families takes center stage. Two teenagers —one whose father suffers from complex PTSD and another who is working toward a prestigious fellowship— come together to learn more about the ways these traumas shape families.
Discussing combat PTSD’s generational effects was one of the main drivers for Snow.
“There’s a light starting to be shed on military families — not just the soldier, but us trying to take care of the soldier and take care of the house as well.”
She hopes this book can serve as a beacon, both for families who have come through stressors like these and those who may not yet realize they need help.
“I wanted to show a book that was mental health positive. In the end, reaching out for health is what it’s all about and it’s okay. It’s okay not to be okay.”
“For Now” is available through Amazon. For more on Snow’s latest books and work, visit www.brandywsnow.com.
