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Sufferer It’s complicated - I’m a 64 female USMC veteran. My PTSD goes back to early childhood and my brother’s murder

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beakerless

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I’m a 64 female USMC veteran. My PTSD goes back to early childhood and my brother’s murder by another US Army soldier when they were serving in Vietnam in 1970. His death literally silenced me for a few months. I was 12. My parents noted that I wasn’t talking but I was always drawing so they put me in oil painting classes. Art became a safe voice for my most painful emotions and I slowly stepped back out into the world. 7 years after my brother’s death I enlisted in the US Marine Corps. Back then there wasn’t any mechanism for even reporting sexual harassment. It was just a part of women being Marines and pretty much happened daily. I was stalked, verbally harassed, physically assaulted, woke up one night with a man dressed all in black with cammo paint on his face standing at the foot of my rack, and then 8 years and 5 days after my brother’s murder the body of one of my friends who was supposed to have gone AWOL with 3 male Marines was found in a ditch in another state with her throat slashed. We received no emotional support, there was no memorial service and my sister Marines stayed as far away from acknowledging what happened as they could. That was how it was being a female Marine back then, don’t be connected to anything negative. I don’t remember ever not being afraid again but I made sure no one knew I was afraid. The next two years I lost my parents within 11 months and had my first child alone. The best way to describe my life for two decades is it was a slow motion train wreck. It took 24 years to talk about my friend and a couple male Vietnam veterans I met while trying to better understand my brother’s death pushed me to get therapy and health care through the VA. That was 22 years ago. I don’t struggle as much with the PTSD and major depressive disorder but the fibromyalgia is difficult to deal with at times. Aging with PTSD seems like it may be challenging but I’m financially stable and will have access to civilian as well as VA health care next year. I up-cycle clothing and do torn paper portrait collage art. The art has always been a kind of active meditation for me. When the world is too intrusive I have headphones and earbuds that are sometimes streaming music and sometimes just discouraging people from trying to strike up a conversation. Music through headphones are really helpful to deal with vibrations which really put me on edge.
 
As was told to me, once?

Welcome to our leaky boat! Grab a bucket and start bailing!!! 😎

SemperFi Sis



PS… Not a whole helluva lot changed between us in 20 years. 4:5 raped in their first year, most of the rest swept up later; there was a mechanism to report sexual assault, but you had to be about stupid to use it. Meanwhile expect to get NJP’d for breaking yourself if you were injured, or a big chicken dinner if you fought back well enough to cause them injury. Snort. Right way, wrong way, & the Marine Corps way.
 
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hello beakerless. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

i always hesitate to tell a marine that i am an army vet. in both genders, the rivalry and one upmanship can be a bit intense for my tastes. i'm sorry to hear that your tour was so rough. the army quite literally saved my life in 1973 when i enlisted. it was my very first experiences with three meals a day and a bed of my very own and my first honest shot in life. the street life the army rescued me from made the 300 to one man/woman ratio no biggie for me. those gi's were pussy cats compared to the pimps, pedophiles, etc., i grew up with. they needed protection from me. even the marines, but not a one of them was going to admit they'd been played by a girl.

getting back on topic. . .

i'm 68 and my ptsd is still getting better. i am the only senior citizen i know whose memory is improving with age. the more i heal the repressed trauma of my youth, the more my memory improves across the board. healing can happen, even to old folks. hope it happens to you.

welcome aboard.
 
hello beakerless. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

i always hesitate to tell a marine that i am an army vet. in both genders, the rivalry and one upmanship can be a bit intense for my tastes. i'm sorry to hear that your tour was so rough. the army quite literally saved my life in 1973 when i enlisted. it was my very first experiences with three meals a day and a bed of my very own and my first honest shot in life. the street life the army rescued me from made the 300 to one man/woman ratio no biggie for me. those gi's were pussy cats compared to the pimps, pedophiles, etc., i grew up with. they needed protection from me. even the marines, but not a one of them was going to admit they'd been played by a girl.

getting back on topic. . .

i'm 68 and my ptsd is still getting better. i am the only senior citizen i know whose memory is improving with age. the more i heal the repressed trauma of my youth, the more my memory improves across the board. healing can happen, even to old folks. hope it happens to you.

welcome aboard.
I don’t engage in peeing contests with vets from other branches. You served is common ground, that’s all that matters.
 
Yep - not any better in the air force back in the day (or even today for that matter.)
I'm sorry you had to go thru that - and I get the fibro part also. It took me five years of fighting but finally got my disability thru the VA for the ptsd/fibro connection crap so that has made life easier

This place has been a godsend - just having people who get it makes all the difference in the world.
So welcome!
 
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