Military Sexual Trauma: Mental Health and the Reporting Problem

Military Sexual Trauma ("MST") refers to psychological trauma following any sexual activity during a period of military service that was against a veteran's will. Qualifying stressors include not just physical force, but also coercion and repetitive sexual harassment.

Unfortunately, MST is a widespread problem in the United States armed forces. The VA states that 25 percent of women and 1 percent of men who receive VA medical treatment report experiencing MST, but the problem is actually much more pervasive. In a survey conducted during a study in 2014, 41 percent of women reported experiencing MST. 

The Department of Defense's (DoD) Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military for Fiscal Year 2015 states that there were 6,083 reports of sexual assault involving service members in 2015, but it estimates that 77 percent of incidents go unreported. According to DoD survey, veterans who decline to report incidents of MST do so for a variety of reasons including: wanting to forget about it and move on; thinking it was not serious enough to report; taking other actions to handle the situation; fear of retaliation; thinking that nothing would be done; not wanting more people to know, and feeling partially to blame. 

Yet, it's not just experiencing MST that forego treatment. 60 percent of military personnel who experience mental health problems do not seek help. The most highly cited concerns by such individuals are confidentiality, being treated differently, and not wanting to be seen as weak. More simply, it's not uncommon for people on active duty to think that seeking assistance will ruin their careers. For whatever reason, that stigma carries on after service and continues to prevent many veterans from getting help. 

The truth is that many veterans struggle with mental health. That shouldn't be shocking to you, but nobody really wants to talk about it. It's also become very apparent to me that those issues can be equally (and sometimes more) debilitating than physical problems. 

I say it's time to put an end to the military's rampant mental health stigma. Seeking help doesn't mean you're weak, it means you're human. The VA provides veterans with resources to treat MST, PTSD, and other mental  health issues.

For more information about VA disability compensation for MST, click here.