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Some Facts About Military Sexual Trauma & Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

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What exactly IS MST?

VA uses the term “military sexual trauma” (MST) to refer to sexual assault or sexual harassment experienced during military service. MST includes any sexual activity that you are involved with against your will. Examples include:

• Being pressured or coerced into sexual activities, such as with threats of negative treatment if you refuse to cooperate or with promises of better treatment in exchange for sex

• Sexual contact or activities without your consent, including when you were asleep or intoxicated

• Being overpowered or physically forced to have sex

• Being touched or grabbed in a sexual way that made you uncomfortable, including during “hazing” experiences

• Comments about your body or sexual activities that you found threatening

• Unwanted sexual advances that you found threatening

Not a diagnosis

It is important to note that MST is an experience as opposed to an actual diagnosis or mental health condition.  However, veterans may experience mental health conditions, such as PTSD, depression, and/or anxiety, as a result of MST.  The type, severity, and duration of a veteran’s difficulties following MST may vary and depend on factors such as the following:

• Whether they have a prior history of trauma

• The types of responses from others that they received at the time of the MST

• Whether the MST happened once or was repeated over time

Yes, men too

National data (from VA program) reveals that about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 50 men respond "yes," that they experienced MST, when screened by their VA provider.
Although rates of MST are higher among women, because there are many more men than women in the military, there are actually significant numbers of women and men seen in VA who have experienced MST. In fact, over 1 of every 3 Veterans who tell a provider they experienced MST are men.

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Correlation

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most common mental health diagnoses among MST survivors. Other mental health diagnoses that are frequently related to MST include depression and other mood disorders and substance use disorders. MST has also been found to be associated with a variety of physical health conditions.

Fortunately, people can recover from experiences of trauma

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What you may not know

Some of us go through many of these responses, sometimes for years, without realizing they are responses to trauma. Example of trauma response symptoms include:

• Depressed mood

• Intense, sudden emotional responses to external stimuli

• Feeling angry/irritable most of the time

• Feeling emotionally numb or having difficulty experiencing emotions, such as love or happiness

• Trouble sleeping (e.g., falling/staying asleep, nightmares)

• Difficulties with attention, concentration, and memory

• Maladaptive substance use

• Difficulties with interpersonal relationships (e.g., feeling isolated or disconnected from others, trouble with employers or authority figures, difficulty trusting others)

• Again, each individual may respond to the experience of MST differently, and the list above is not intended to be exhaustive.