@TunedOut



Yes, I'm posting a lot because there are so many things that I've wanted to process over the past 20 years and haven't. I do take many breaks throughout the day, but lately I've been posting a lot to just get all of this stuff out somewhere. I hope the VA can help me process at least a little bit of the stuff that is all welled up inside me.

I was afraid of retaliation if I said anything.

Sadly, when I attended a MST support group at the VA a while back, there were both veterans and uniformed active duty in that group with us. I looked around the room and cried. I kept thinking, "If only I said something years ago, maybe this would have prevented at least some of these veterans and enlisted from getting harmed." Some of the younger uniformed military personnel - all from different branches (I was the only one from the Marines) - reminded me of me being so young. We never had those support groups back then, and today I kept thinking about how brave those soldiers were to come forward and seek treatment. I wept, thanked my therapist for suggesting the group, and explained why I couldn't return.

And you're right, my fear of authority is based in reality.

I kept thinking about the careers I could have had, the friends I could have made, the family I could have formed. All dreams gone after a few MST experiences and a broken pelvic bone. I tried to run, but the best I could do without pain all these years was to walk fast, or maybe jog a little. Tonight, I ran out of breath walking home from dinner with a neighbor. This is not the life I thought I would have at 45.

When I tried to call a non-crisis hotline not too long ago, the combat veteran from the USMC explained how they had a ritual of fighting one another when getting advanced into an E-4 (Sgt.) rank, and how such rituals probably extended elsewhere. I dissociated a little, so I couldn't hear what he was saying in response to my disclosure of MST, which they had on their record. I have since changed my phone number and never contacted that student-run veteran's non-crisis hotline again. Elusive, the USMC combat veteran almost sounded like he was making excuses for those combat soldiers who may be prone to rituals involving MST. It scared me, made me cry, and I woke up from a night terror screaming and covered in gobs of sweat. It was the night after I had spoken to him. It occurred only two months ago, when I was staying in a hotel room and waiting for my apartment to become available in the new state I had relocated to. It wasn't an easy transition with that conversation looming in the background of my mind.

Then, in an act of forgiveness and love for our fellow brothers and sisters in arms, I wondered if any moral injuries may ensue after discharge. I wondered if combat veterans or otherwise who commit MST while in service feel sorry for their actions, but cannot say anything out of fear of incrimination somehow. I wondered if their training and their combat culture may have anything to do with "rape culture," and if such actions caused them to experience moral injuries when trying to fit in and save face with their unit. I wondered if they avoid the VA because they cannot disclose this and have it on record. And, I wonder if there is a statute of limitations for non-judicial crimes that were committed years ago. I wondered what restorative justice would look like for them to actually come forward and apologize privately to their victims, or privately via video that screens out their faces, etc. I truly think that it would be so healing for them to seek treatment as well as for them to apologize to their victims. Even if one could just come forward and apologize.

I wondered if that's what the USMC combat veteran elusively meant during his phone conversation with me, or if that is just wishful thinking on my part.

I'm torn to pieces from the betrayal wounds I had experienced from our own brothers in arms. How was I to fight alongside someone who held my back down instead of having my back? I could never trust them in combat situations, and maybe that was the point they were making regarding their dislike of female or "weak" male enlistees. I wondered so many things throughout the past few decades, and none of those questions got answered. Instead, I see more and more soldiers and veterans coming forward about their MST experiences that still occur to this day.

Why is this still happening?

Movies like G.I.Jane remind me of what others had expected of me after MST. I love all parts of that movie except where the female character was sexually assaulted during seal training by her Master Chief. Although she was brave enough to gut it out, many male and female victims of MST are not. Did our PTSD from that, or our fears, or our reluctance to come forward, or our lack of being able to fight off our brothers attacking us make us weak, less than a leader, and less than a veteran upon discharge? Did society, our families, or fellow military families still serving shame us during homecoming?

My homecoming felt shameful, and I avoided family. That was the first step to my healing back in 2017, when I found the courage to come forward and seek treatment at the VA.

I have no idea what happened to the female Marine who reported her MST and got her attacker sent to the brig. Was she discharged? Did she receive further scrutiny on the job after disclosure? Did her pelvic bone break, too?

Why did the other Marines question me about my experiences, and then apologize to me? I was on bed rest, ill and unfit for duty, ashamed and dissociated, hidden and afraid. Showering with crutches and striking pain shooting down my pelvic bone to the bottom of my fractured foot only made my shame worse. Naked and showered, I felt dirty and alone. A fellow female marine had to help me put my clothes on, and consoled me when I cried in pain. She cried with me, which helped. I can't even remember their names. I can't even remember the questions that were asked of me. I only remember saying that I don't remember.

And a lot of me does not want to remember. I just want to grieve the losses, and I want to move on with some positives in my life. I also want to tell anyone to please take my ideas for research and run with it, because this MST thing needs to stop, and the potential pain that MST offenders may be going through might relate to moral injuries and their rituals, or some other reason. Maybe that stuff is all supposed to be contained within their security clearances, so maybe military psychologists can at least contain such research in secret, but still conduct it nonetheless so that the MST can stop, and so that such offenders in arms could get the healing they need to prevent them from behavioral misconduct in the future. Maybe serving as a female or transgender or short male soldier might be more fair, and maybe we might work harder together to defend our nation with the duty, honor, and courage that we were told was part of our training. How is MST a duty? Or honorable? Or courageous?

This is all I can say, but I had to get it out.