Close Menu
Honi Soit
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Trending
    • UTS elects new Chancellor
    • Out of the Deep: The Story of a Shark Kid Who Dared to Question Fear
    • Prima Facie: Losing faith in a system you truly believed in
    • Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report
    • ‘If you silence someone or shush someone, you can get out’: SISTREN is an unabashed celebration of black and trans joy. Is Australia ready?
    • Mark Gowing waxes lyrical on aesthetics, time, language, and his new exhibition ‘This one is a song’
    • NTEU wins wage theft case against Monash University
    • Turning Kindness Into Strength in ‘A Different Kind of Power’
    • About
    • Print Edition
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    • Writing Comp
    • Advertise
    • Locations
    • Contact
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok
    Honi SoitHoni Soit
    Thursday, July 10
    • News
    • Analysis
    • Culture
    • Opinion
    • University
    • Features
    • Perspective
    • Investigation
    • Reviews
    • Comedy
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    Honi Soit
    Home»Perspective

    A different kind of battleground

    By Caitlin McMenaminOctober 5, 2016 Perspective 3 Mins Read
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    When you’re diagnosed with a mental illness, one of the first suggestions that you’re given is to open up to your friends and family. “It’s important they know, so that they can help you heal,” the doctor said to fourteen-year-old me, sitting shocked in an unfamiliar practice in Gordon.

    A few months prior, the male lead of the school musical had declared his attraction to me. I was charmed – the lead wanted to go out with me. Next thing I know, he’s in my bright pink bedroom shoving his tongue down my throat, forcing his hand down my shorts, and forcing my hand down his. He went further every date. None of my friends had been with a boy before. I didn’t know much about sex yet, and although it felt off, I couldn’t pinpoint why.

    Then one day it was his birthday. “Please, it’s my 16thth…don’t I deserve a special birthday gift? Don’t you love me at all?” He begged. What followed is seared into my brain, sewn in with needles, and will be there forever.

    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the most prevalent anxiety disorders, affecting 8.3% of women and 4.6% of men. Sexual assault is one of the leading causes of PTSD in Australia. Why, then, as I’ve tried to take the doctor’s advice and open up over the years, have I been repeatedly met with a confused, “Isn’t PTSD what soldiers get?”

    When I say that I suffer from PTSD, I have to validate my claim, which feels humiliating and demeaning. I have to try to explain that what I went through was so awful it affects me in the same way a soldier is affected by wartime atrocities. It’s almost as if my experience needs to reach a certain standard of terrible to be legitimate.

    This exercise recalls the images in my head that I am constantly trying to avoid. I have to bite my tongue and try to convey that life after assault is a different kind of battleground; that every day I’m on edge, looking over my shoulder, vacillating between fight and flight. The difficulty of this exercise quickly caused me to stop telling anyone. Perhaps people are so hesitant to accept the fact that PTSD is linked to sexual assault because there is still a simplistic conception of sexual assault in the first place.

    Earlier this year I was sexually assaulted again, once more by someone I trusted. Thankfully, I’m older now and I have a better support network around me. I quickly confided in my close friends and told them what happened. I was disappointed when the flashbacks started; I thought I’d be fine this time because I’m in a totally different period of my life, and I was doing everything I didn’t do when I was 14. But PTSD is something very difficult to control. Talking is one of the only things that helps me – so the conversation needs to change.

    Instead of “Isn’t PTSD what soldiers get?”, I need to hear “I’m always here if you need someone to talk to, or just to listen. I can’t understand, but I’ll try my best.” I need compassion and respect. I shouldn’t need to justify why I get nightmares, why the simple things make me anxious sometimes, and why some days I’m ready to take on the world and others I just want to cry. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something I and many others will have to deal with for the rest of our lives. We should be able to talk about it.

    anxiety mental health Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD sexual assault

    Keep Reading

    Mental Health of NSW Workers on the Chopping Block

    The Music of Memory

    Turn Away Your Mirrors and Close the Doors

    What Was Your Name?

    Do you dream with your phone?

    Authenticating My Authenticity to Inauthentic Authenticators

    Just In

    UTS elects new Chancellor

    July 8, 2025

    Out of the Deep: The Story of a Shark Kid Who Dared to Question Fear

    July 8, 2025

    Prima Facie: Losing faith in a system you truly believed in

    July 8, 2025

    Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report

    July 7, 2025
    Editor's Picks

    Part One: The Tale of the Corporate University

    May 28, 2025

    “Thank you Conspiracy!” says Capitalism, as it survives another day

    May 21, 2025

    A meditation on God and the impossible pursuit of answers

    May 14, 2025

    We Will Be Remembered As More Than Administrative Errors

    May 7, 2025
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok

    From the mines

    • News
    • Analysis
    • Higher Education
    • Culture
    • Features
    • Investigation
    • Comedy
    • Editorials
    • Letters
    • Misc

     

    • Opinion
    • Perspective
    • Profiles
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Social
    • Sport
    • SRC Reports
    • Tech

    Admin

    • About
    • Editors
    • Send an Anonymous Tip
    • Write/Produce/Create For Us
    • Print Edition
    • Locations
    • Archive
    • Advertise in Honi Soit
    • Contact Us

    We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. The University of Sydney – where we write, publish and distribute Honi Soit – is on the sovereign land of these people. As students and journalists, we recognise our complicity in the ongoing colonisation of Indigenous land. In recognition of our privilege, we vow to not only include, but to prioritise and centre the experiences of Indigenous people, and to be reflective when we fail to be a counterpoint to the racism that plagues the mainstream media.

    © 2025 Honi Soit
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms
    • Accessibility

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.