“We don’t have to just survive.” Veteran Urges Seeking Support for MST
I stopped doing the heroin in 2011, so I had to learn, and I'm still learning now how to be human, and then we can build from there, and then we can give from a place of fulfillment, instead of depletion, depression. Like, that's a good place to give from, but when you're giving from, like, the bottom of the barrel when you have nothing left, I mean, what are you really giving?
I'm Jenny, U.S. Army. I served from 2003 to 2007, and my MOS was Combat Medic/Healthcare Specialist. The idealistic reason that I joined the military is 'cause I thought I was gonna really help people. My time in the army was generally negative. You know, don't talk about your feelings. Just, you know, drink. And then I just ended up on the convoys and shooting at people, and seeing kids detonate bombs, and so I had a really hard time when I came back being around children, 'cause the screaming would trigger me all the time. I couldn't sleep without drinking.
The military sexual trauma affected my mental health the most, because talking about the war is so shiny and glorified. The helplessness and the powerlessness is what really changed who I was, till my whole world fell apart after that. I didn't think I deserved love is the language I would use now. I was biding my time till I was, like, ready to kill myself, and then eventually, I got my compensation and pension from the VA so I could just sit at home.
Before I got mental health treatment, I dealt with my PTSD and MST by drinking and shooting heroin. So, there was definitely a moment where I had been up for, like, four days, and I was like, "This is not the life I want."
I had been going to mental health treatment. Starting in, like, 2007, my parents insisted on it. I went to my first writing workshop, surprisingly, on this Veteran artist retreat. They're like, "Get up on stage and read that poem," and I was like, "You want me to do what?" And then I just kept trying all the things. I was like, "Okay, there's an answer out there." I started facilitating the writing workshops, 'cause I had a goal of, like, how can we do this without hurting ourselves? So, then I got into theater for social change. So now, I'm in this world where I'm like, "Oh, we can create answers through this." The better I started to feel, the more I wanted people to learn what I was learning. I did DBT. I did CBT. I did cognitive processing therapy. I found cognitive processing therapy to be annoying, but I also found it to be helpful.
Sobriety brings me presence. Sobriety helps me be able to reframe, and use my skills, and do my breath, and lead the veterans that I am working with to tell their stories. But I really wanted especially the women Veterans to know that they could be empowered and they could be thriving, and we don't have to just survive. Happiness is accessible. Helping other Veterans does help my mental health journey.
Each therapy gave me a little bit more information on how to respond instead of react, on how to breathe, on how to feel my feelings in a really safe way, which is something that I found recently. I am most proud of the choices that I've made to put myself first. In the military, they say they break you down to build you back up, and then they kick us out, right, so now I'm rebuilding myself.
