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This is the first episode of a podcast called Empowerment Unleashed, which focuses on military sexual trauma (MST) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The hosts, Dahlia and Sydney, aim to shed light on the often silenced and misunderstood aspects of MST. They discuss the definition of MST according to the VA, which includes sexual assault or threatening sexual harassment experienced during military service. They also talk about the symptoms of PTSD, such as nightmares, depression, substance abuse, and difficulty with emotions. They highlight that MST affects service members from all backgrounds and genders. The hosts mention the barriers to reporting MST, including fear of repercussions within the military and lack of support. They emphasize the importance of seeking treatment, as the VA offers free treatment for mental and physical health conditions related to MST. The hosts share their personal stories and express their desire to create a community and provide resources to hel Welcome, listeners, to the first episode of Empowerment Unleashed, Thriving Beyond Trauma. This is a series chronicling the remarkable journeys of China over military sexual trauma, otherwise known as MST, and navigating through the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. I'm your host, Dahlia, and this is Sydney, my co-host. Say hi, Sydney. Hi, everyone. Welcome. Sydney and I are collaborating on this project to shine a light on critical aspects of military sexual trauma that are commonly silenced, misunderstood, discredited, and overlooked. These discrepancies that are commonly silenced, that are commonly overlooked, they're of great personal significance to both of us for different reasons. And we want to share those with you today and try to inspire some hope and collaboration and a sense of community. Through these episodes, we will share also our personal experiences, because they are quite different, but this is essentially what brought us together to start collaborating on this project. So, are you curious about what MST encompasses? Yeah, that's what I was about to ask you. What exactly is MST? What's the definition of it, and what is our definition, or how we feel about it? Sure. So I think that many people have different definitions of MST, and what is important is to understand how also the VA defines MST for different purposes, right? And so, because I think that there is not always a very well-rounded definition of what it is, and some people may think that their incident does not fall under MST. But so the way the VA defines it is sexual trauma as a sexual assault or threatening sexual harassment experience during military service. Can you repeat that for me? Yes. So, sexual assault or any threatening sexual harassment experienced specifically during your military service. Yes. So this includes sexual activity during military service that is against your will, unwelcomed, or when you are unable to say no. Examples provided by the VA are pressure or coercion into any sort of sexual activities, sexual activities without consent, so you could be asleep, you could be intoxicated, anything else that would provide you not being able to consent. And later we could get into exactly what the definition of consent is. Right. Being physically forced or overpowered, touching or grabbing in a sexual way that made you feel uncomfortable, or any unwanted sexual advances or comments sexual in nature. Correct. Yes. So it impacts service members across all branches, across all races, ethnic backgrounds, ranks, sexual orientations, and genders. So it's important to know that this doesn't just apply for certain people. It's kind of like COVID, it doesn't discriminate with any of your demographics. Right. And then it's not just that one bad night or that one bad statement made by someone or that one time that one person slapped your butt. It's, you know, the PTSD part of it is symptoms like nightmares, disturbing memories, difficulty feeling safe, paranoia, depression, numbness even, so not feeling anything, substance abuse, isolation, difficulty with emotions, self-doubt, self-blame, any sort of sleep disturbances, whether like falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early. Not being able to fall asleep. Yes. Physical health problems, like I'll share the story about my leaky bladder. I went to a class to figure out like why me, a 30-year-old woman with no kids, has a leaky bladder. Like why is my bladder muscle, why are the Kegels not doing it for me? And it's because of trauma. Instead of having a weak bladder muscle, I have an overactive, an over-stressed, over-strained bladder muscle. And this is all because of the traumatic things I experienced and that's just one of my laundry list of symptoms. Right. And it's important to note also that it can look very different from one person to another. But then also you can have symptoms that are very, very similar. And this is not an exhaustive list of all the symptoms. So it definitely manifests in its own way with each person. And so it's important to understand that. It's also important to know that about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 50 men report experiencing military sexual trauma. But what I like to say, what we like to say, is that these are only the numbers that are being reported. So think about the many, many others that have not been reported. Right. And that happens, I think, quite often because of our environment. Being in the military, not having access or not having the resources, or sometimes if it happens that your attacker is within your chain of command. That poses a lot of barriers for you to be able to feel comfortable with reporting that. Because there's ways that they can impact your military career. And it's not as if you can just say, you know what, this is not an environment that I need to be in. I'm going to leave. It's not just as easy as just making the decision. I need to get another job. I need to switch positions. There's so much that goes with that. And then other things like being stationed overseas, not having your family's support, not having friends, not knowing anyone. I mean, how many times have both of us been stationed overseas? You get there and you're just in this completely new environment. You don't know the language, the food, the people, the time zone is different. And then not only that, you're thousands of miles away from your family. You can't drive 24 hours across the ocean. It's crazy. I think one very personal barrier to me, and it's more of a cultural thing, is being away from my family that I'm very close to, my parents and my brothers. I felt a sort of guilt if I said something that they would not be able to as much as they wanted to to come and see me and be with me and take me out of this environment. And so part of the reason why I didn't tell them for many years was because I didn't want to put that on them. And that made it even more difficult for me to figure out and to sort out and to cope with. Now that we've touched on it, we will come back to it as we're sharing our stories and other episodes. So I want everyone to know that the VA does provide treatment for mental and physical health conditions related to MST free of charge. So if you're a veteran or you still act at service or reserve components, guard components, if you've suffered any medical, physical or mental symptoms due to an MST, the VA will give you free treatment. I didn't know that. Yes. So you can just walk into the VA and be like, hey, I need to speak with a mental health provider. Yes. That's the idea. I don't know exactly how far or how long these programs have been in motion, but essentially this is what the VA is putting out. And we will have more information as to where I got this from. So I'll give information about the website so that you can look at them also. That's awesome. That's very fascinating. So to continue, as Dahlia said, my name is Sydney, and I would like to start us off with saying that it's important to know these are not the views of the military and we are not any sort of mental health providers. We're not therapists. We are two girls who happen to have served and have happened to experience these things, and we want to share that with you. We want to share you the things that we've been through, the things that have helped us to overcome or to really live with our symptoms, our leaky bladders, our insomnia, whatever our symptom is that day or all the time. We want you to feel less alone. We want to foster resiliency and provide helpful resources, create a community. So you don't feel alone. And the stories that we're going to share are very, very personal. They are our stories, the things that we have been through, our most painful days we are sharing with you. So they're not shared lightly or without reservation. It's difficult to, as I'll share in my story, to think, like, am I a victim? Can I be a victim? I didn't grow up thinking that, you know, this is going to happen to me. No one planned for this to happen to them. Right. And so then you have to shift, like, to am I a survivor? But, like, do I even think I'm a victim? Right. Like getting over those kind of mental barriers, and I think that's even a heavier or a much larger barrier when you're in the military and you have all these constant demands and you have people telling you, like, you can do this. Like, you're in the military. You're strong. You're, you know, you've been deployed. It's, you know, so there are all of those other extra factors of the military that are added that makes this even more difficult, and not only makes it more difficult, but hardly anyone talks about it because there's so much. And no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to hear about the hard-R word of rape. Like, who wants to go sit around and wear a T-shirt that says, I've been raped? It's difficult to talk about, and then even difficult to cope with internally, and then externally with friends. We only met and shared our story through a group where we had to meet. We had to share our story with each other. So, otherwise... We have to be friends. We have to. You'll hear later how I forced her to be my friend in the elevator. Not in a weird way. No. But then to go from victim to survivor to thriving, to living with these things, but also thriving after these events. It's not one-size-fits-all. The things that work for me maybe won't work for Zoya or for you, but they might also. There are good or bad days. So, we're hoping with a little help, a little community building and resiliency that we can have more good days than bad days. Absolutely. Cheers to that. Cheers. Coffee cheers. Coffee cheers. So, I have had this reference show up in my life a few times. It's about lambs and lions. I was in church, and we started going to church together on the same day. One of our friends from group brought us with her. But this is the day where I happened to go alone that Sunday, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, I have for the past year been wanting to scream from the rooftops these things that I've been through to help someone else, to have them not be me, not feel as alone as I felt. And the song they were singing was called Gratitude by Brandon Lake. I remember. And he says, because you've got a lion inside of those lines. And I was like, I've got a lion inside of my lines. I can do this. That was God through Brandon Lake telling me, like, be a lion. Be a lion. Yeah. Be a little lamb. Be a lion. Be a little lamb. So, then I saw the movie Argyle coincidentally that same weekend, I think. And the main character, Ellie Conway, is being criticized for living her life as a lamb instead of a lion. And she later replies to these people who are criticizing her, let this lamb roar. And so, this trauma has made me feel like the little baby lamb, like the ugly duckling that's been rejected. But inside, I feel like I'm roaring and I have a lot to say. So, I think I want my lamb exterior to roar like a lion. I agree. And I agree with that. Yeah. Exactly. You've got the baby going on. She's got it going on. And so, I'm glad that this was kind of our, you and I had been away from the church for a while for different reasons, and we didn't know each other. We had just been away from church for a while. And it just coincidentally happened that we were both invited by this one friend, and we both decided to come. So, this was our first reintroduction to church in a long time for both of us. And I think that it was very powerful for both of us. And I didn't really know about this story or how this one time that we went to church, this first time that we went to church, I didn't know how powerful that had been for you, like in a very, very personal way. And so, hearing you talk about it here, I was like, wow. I remember being there, and I didn't have the same experience, but I had no idea that you would have this beautiful experience, and thank you for sharing it here. So, I feel like from that moment, we both kind of started to become a little bit closer, even though we were still in the same program. But after this, we started saying, let's go to church next Sunday. So, I think that really made this connection happen and this podcast happen in a big way. Yeah. The next Sunday after this is when Daya came to me and said that she had an idea for a podcast. And I was like, woo! Yes. And she was like, I'd like for you to help me with it. And are you interested? Obviously. Absolutely. So, that's how this came about. But our podcast, the goal and what we are looking to accomplish in this, I think is evident in our mission statement, which is Empowerment Unleashed, Thriving Beyond Trauma. The podcast is dedicated to navigating the path of healing from sexual assault in the military through courageous stories, expert insights, fostering resiliency and community support. We aim to inspire strength and promote positive change to not just survive, but thrive after trauma. Absolutely. And this is super important because military sexual trauma is absolutely a pandemic. I've seen it personally on the enlisted and officer side and through myself and through friends that I've happened to. How about you? Yes, the same here. My sexual assault was when I was enlisted, years and years ago. And now, with all those years behind, as I start meeting new people and making new friends, I hear about their stories. And their stories are similar to mine in the sense of the struggles that they have had to face, the challenges. The challenges with therapists, with providers, with inmate people in their closer circle of trust. Struggles with feeling that people don't believe them, or they describe them, or that they question you. Like, are you sure that happened to you? Like, that person doesn't seem like they would do this. Or, you know, you were drunk. Are you sure that that's what it was that you didn't do? So, I'm telling you, there's been, from my sexual trauma, almost 16, 17 years ago, to now and seeing, having these conversations with people who have experienced MST in the recent years, in the recent three, five years. And just to see that they have to fight so much to be believed, to be supported, to be... The military, in general, just has such a long way to go with this. Often times, the person who suffers the MST is not well protected. You know, the regulations, the laws, are not very supportive. And, you know, people turn in guilty. Right, right. So... And there may, you know, and often times they make it so hard for you to prove it. Mm-hmm. Because you have... But they simply need you to bear the burden of proof. Right. Right. So, it's definitely been heartbreaking to see the level of challenges and suffering that military sexual trauma, ones who have experiences, still have to just prove themselves and fight so much. When, internally, like, it feels like you're dying. Mm-hmm. You know, it feels like you're being, I don't know, like, put in a cage. Mm-hmm. Like, prove everything from this small little cage that we put you in. But we need you to go at it, go get at it, and go and show... And you're probably crazy. Right. Yeah, that's sad. That's sad. You have a cherry in your cake, or you have a cherry on top. You're crazy. So, we just want you to know that we understand, like, the frustrations. The 16 years of frustrations. Mm-hmm. And, you know, if you've had multiple incidents, the frustrations with that, you know. But we'll talk more about it in our personal stories. But, like I said, we are very, very aware of what this looks like. The MST part, the PTSD part, how it impacts all aspects of your life, personal, academic, professional. Mm-hmm. It's very challenging to now try and live your life, your normal life, achieve the things that you've wanted to achieve with this kind of, like, hold in your stomach. Mm-hmm. And, you know, or in your heart. Because it's that heavy. Right. And the amount of... I've had multiple occurrences, and the amount of, you know, friends, people that I considered to be my friends at the time, or colleagues or whatever that have said, you know, are you sure it wasn't an accident? Did that really happen? Like, and for your friends to not believe you, how is your family or your providers, even, your sharp reps, your health providers, are they going to believe you? And when you're initially opening up to someone you love and care about, and they doubt you, it makes it hard to open up to someone who you don't know, and it makes it hard for you to seek help or seek justice. And we just want you to know that you are absolutely not alone. Yes, for sure. And to reinforce an earlier statement by Sydney, our stories carry a very powerful element of promise and truth that is not for the faint of heart. And may trigger memories or emotions, especially for someone who has experienced or knows someone very close who has experienced this type of trauma. So we just want to make you aware that when we tell our stories, it will be pretty intense, because we're not holding back. We're really talking about what happened. Yes. These are our stories of things that actually happened to us. It's not made for TV drama or something like that. It's real, and it hurts. Right. With that, do you have anything additional to add? Let's share some resources. Okay. So Sydney and I have found a collection of resources through our research and wanting to do this podcast, and wanting to not only go out and say, well, this is my story, and then leave you kind of in high waters, right? We want to make sure that we give you some resources that can be useful, or you can get assistance. For example, the VA crisis line. You can dial 988 and press 1. The Women Veterans Call Center at 1-855-VA-WOMEN, or WOMEN, sorry, WOMEN, slash 1-855-VA-W-O-M-E-N. Caregiver support. I know we have a lot of caregivers who might be listening as well. Caregiver support is 1-855-260-3274, or call 9-1-1 for immediate assistance if you're having an immediate crisis. Yes. Please just dial 9-1-1, and then they will get you help that you need. Don't wait for somebody else to pick up or a call center to call you back or anything like that. And then, yes, there is an additional resource from the VA in the form of an app, and it's called Beyond MST mobile app. It is free. You don't need to make an account, and it offers more than 30 tools to support anyone who has experienced MST. Do you have the app? I did. I did download the app, so I can show you what it looks like. It looks like this. Probably not a good picture. Yes. It's kind of colorful, and it's like two little mountains with a moon. A nice Arizona sunset. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it just has a lot of tools. You can't see because of the light very well. But, yes, like I said, I downloaded it. It's free. It didn't ask me for an account, for my name, anything like that. And then you can find a list of these and other resources that we have found for you on our podcast website. Would you like to share the website? Yes. https://empowermentunleashed.buzzsprout.com And we're also going to be opening social media accounts. And we'll try to put this information in our YouTube channel once we have one. And on our website. We'll try to put it as many places as we can to make it as easy as possible for you to find. Right. So in our next two episodes, Dianne and I are going to share our personal stories in order to shape the rest of the podcast off the back of our stories by having our personal anecdotes as examples. So we're going to try to lean into how we overcame trauma and tie in the hope and resilience. This will likely be extremely difficult for some to hear. So as Dianne said, we have a purpose for sharing. And reach out to those resources if you need someone, if you need help. Our purpose for doing this is to help our own healing. To help you feel less alone and to help you heal. Horrible things have happened, but we are alive. We're in our thriving era and we want you to feel the same. Absolutely. And just, I want to thank you again for joining us for this very first episode of Empowerment Unleashed, Thriving Beyond Trauma. This is very meaningful for both of us. This is probably our third or fourth recording of the first episode because we just wanted it to be as perfect as possible. We still made a couple mistakes here and there. This is a learning process for both of us. We are not super tech savvy. Let me tell you, the times that we've tried to connect all these wires together, these microphones, it's just... It would bring someone in tears. It would bring my husband in tears because he's an IT person. Yeah, I would say, I need to hire an ethics person. But I'm sharing this for transparency and to let you know that it is that important for us to get this right. And to bring this message, to convey this message to as many people as we can. Because if we can help just that one person who's on this day or day less and feeling alone or feeling lonely or feeling like they have no one to recourse or... Again, we both understand the isolation. We both understand the self-doubt. It's very valuable for us to be able to share these lessons. Until I went to my very first ever group therapy, about a year ago, just over a year ago, my first occurrence was in 2014 or 15 in college. And then I really thought I was alone. Probably the only, in my mind, I know this is unrealistic, but the only person who had been assaulted that I knew, or in my mind the whole world, the only person that had ever been assaulted. So going to my first women's group a year ago, so probably about eight years since the first event, did I realize I'm not alone in the world. There are so many other people out there. And especially, I think both our hearts are the enlisted, the lower listed, the ones who have recently come to the military. And facing something like this is just so overwhelming. My experience happened within the first six months that I joined the military. And I cannot tell you how overwhelming, how much I suffered with not knowing how the military works, not knowing who would support me, who wouldn't, where to go. And at that time, you know, it wasn't the time of the dinosaurs, by any means. I don't know. But at that time, the military wasn't really proactive about making sure that you know how to report, the different times to report, where to go. It just wasn't out there like it is now. Well, even at that, I remember being in basic training and AIT and getting all the sharp breaks and stuff. But when I got to my unit, and we still had to have, you know, like our annual training, we had to have the sharp break. But I remember something happened to my friend. And I texted my platoon sergeant and said, I won't be at work tomorrow. My friend needs to go and I need to help her with a medical issue. And he was just like, okay. But I had no idea where to go. I actually went to like some random office on post that has a sharp sign. And they sent me somewhere else to my unit sharp break. That was like for my entire brigade, not, I had no idea who my battalion rec was or my company rec if there was one. Sharp has made strides. Yeah. But, and this is not like to criticize the program or anything. But still, I think as, when I was a specialist, I did not know any better. But because of the things that I've been through, I have made myself incredibly aware. Right, right. And I try to make sure those around me are also incredibly aware of my attempt to overcome my faith. Yeah, but you're such a good friend and it's not, I don't think that it's overcompensating. I think that you're just doing what is right. Because, you know, the program is imperfect because people are imperfect. You know what I mean? And so maybe some, in some places the sharp program is better than others. Right, right. And people that are running it, whether it's civilian or green suitors. Yes. And so, with that said, you know, I don't want to, like, scare people and just think, like, be aware of everywhere you go. You know, hide your kids, hide your friends' kids, hide your wife. Right. Like, we have both had tremendous experiences in the military. We have both traveled to places that I never would have personally been had it not been for the military. Learned and grown. And met people. So much. I can't say, like... You met your best friends. Yes, yes. The quality of the people that I have met in the military. I have not met that, that much quality of people in the civilian sector. I was civilian for a few years before I came into the military, so I came in a little bit older. I wasn't the ROTC, you know. No, me neither. I was a hairstylist, and then I went into the military. I don't know what a hairstylist is thinking. I don't know if you were really surprised you didn't have, like, purple hair. I did, but I had French manicure. Oh, no. That did not go so well. That did not go so well. But, yeah. So, I'm glad that you're here. Thank you. I'm glad that you're here. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we will continue sharing. And if you want to please give us your feedback, we appreciate candid feedback. Please submit any questions or comments to empowermentunleashed at gmail.com, and we will read your comments. If you'd like to share your story anonymously or not anonymously, if you want to send us your story and tell us about you or... Again, we are here, and we're going to be here for as long as the Lord lets us, and you are not alone yet. We are here with you to show you that this is not something that you have to go through alone and scared and, you know, the only constant in the world is change. And, you know, a lot of times it's difficult to hear, but if you're in a good situation, that will change. If you're in a bad situation, that will also change. So, please reach out and join us for our next couple of episodes, which are going to be really great. Yeah, we look forward to it. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
