Guilt.

Guilt.

I know this has been talked about before, but it is such a big part of MST, the more information someone knows the better.

At the art symposium that I recently had the opportunity to be at, that seemed to be the main thought from many of the women which I spoke with, the guilt of it all. I listened to numerous stories of horrific experiences, all of which none of them had any responsibility. One of the reasons that I do not believe that many self-help books that are designed to help with PTSD should be used for PTSD from experiencing MST is that many ask you to write what responsibility or choices you had in the trauma which are yours to own. I do not care if you ran down the street naked, if a guy (or woman) chooses to assault you, that decision is all upon them.

I understand the risk factors associated with many choices but that matters not. The ultimate choice, the person who did the choosing was the perpetrator. So let’s hit some of them, yes, being drunk diminishes your ability to do many functions, but so does sleeping, and being on certain doctor prescribed medications. Being with a bunch of military guys alone puts you at a disadvantage, but so does being shorter, so does going to your room alone, so does going to the bathroom out in a combat zone.

Why do we as survivors continue to find guilt in what happened? I can make the most stupidest choice, but that does not make it a “green light” to be assaulted or harassed. I personally do not write about male MST from the first person, because I am not a man. I do not know what it is like to be assaulted or sexually harassed as a man. But there are many responses which cross between men and women for MST experiences – guilt. The guilt goes across genders. Although the reasons behind the guilt can be different. Many of my male MST survivors have told me the biggest reason they said nothing and felt guilt is because they are men, they are supposed to “be strong,” to be the protector, not the weak link. But it is not weak to be an MST survivor. There is nobody in this entire world who can protect themselves from everything all the time. It is difficult for many people to come to the realization that they themselves are vulnerable, that picking through circumstances of the assaults to find what they “should” not do, or do to make sure they are never a victim is useless. Just as anything in life there are risk factors, there is a risk factor for driving but if you got blindsided while driving does anyone ever ask “what were you doing driving?” To actually live in this world is a risk.

It pains me to hear other women veterans who have not been assaulted or repeatedly sexually harassed to list any reason that they were not assaulted or harassed. The thought that any person thinks they can list why they were not a victim, I am here to reveal something, it was because someone did not choose to do that to you, that is the only reason. I have heard from “I did my job” to “I let them all know how it was” and other such statements that live in denial, it not only does not help, it is a lie, not purposeful, but still a lie. I will open my experiences up to help you with this, I did my job, and I actually did my job better than my male peers (they knew it, I knew it, command knew it, and every once in awhile someone from outside my squadron would remind them of it). Since doing my job well made me a target, does that mean that you were a slacker to not be a target? Doesn’t feel good does it, to be called out on something that is not true. Let us move on, after my rape, I pretty much told everyone if they even thought about assaulting me that I would say nothing, I would get my weapon for the night find them and kill them. It was not a baseless threat, I meant every word of it. Did that keep me safe, no. Did it mean that other tactics had to be used, yes. The only reason that my fellow K-9 handlers made it out of Saudi Arabia alive, had nothing to do with them. It was the fact that I thought I had seen one of them, I automatically (totally without thought) went for my weapon, thank heaven I had not been given it back yet because it was not him, I just thought it had been. I knew if I was given a weapon when I did see him I would kill him and I did not want someone (like this guy who looked like him) someone who was innocent to be hurt because of what others had done. That was the only reason, it was not that I thought that killing him was wrong, morally I knew that it was and I was completely willing to live with that for the rest of my life. I could not live with someone else being hurt (as in another guy, not any emotional pain of family member of the perp, I am sorry but their pain I did not care about), but someone who was just there or happened to look like any of them. I said I could not carry a weapon around them anymore, lucky them.

I also want to squash the “I did not allow myself to get too drunk to not take care of myself” – I have never had a drop of alcohol, did not help protect me. How about the I did not sleep around? I was a virgin when I was raped. I had someone who critiqued one of my memoir books state that because I did not go out drinking with the guys I purposely ostracized myself, pretty much telling them I was not one of them. Oh, yea, right, (sarcasm)but I did go out with them at times, some did not know that I did not drink until they ordered me what I loved, a pina’ colada, and I asked if it was virgin (without alcohol). But had I drunk with them, someone would have come along and said that I should not have drunk with them, making myself vulnerable.

That is the thing, that is what many do not understand, all the “should have” and “should not haves” mean nothing, it did not matter, so had I slept around then I was a slut and “deserved it?” Had I drunk with the guys “I should have known what would happen.” Had I this, had I that, had I not this, had I not that…No matter what this or that is, someone would try and used it to rationalize that what happened had something to do with my choices, it DID NOT! The choice was the perps and theirs alone, so the guilt is the perps and theirs alone.