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“The science on the subject is pretty clear: according to the New England Journal of Medicine, rape is about four times more likely to result in diagnosable PTSD than combat."
During those years at the end of my teens and the beginning of my twenties, I was constantly sexually ha- rassed on the street and sometimes elsewhere, though harassed doesn’t convey the menace that was often present. The former Marine David J. Morris, author of a book on ­ post- ­ traumatic stress disorder, notes that the disorder is far more com- mon and far more rarely addressed among rape survivors than combat veterans. He wrote me, “The science on the subject is pretty clear: according to the New England Journal of Medicine, rape is about four times more likely to result in diagnosable PTSD than combat. Think about that for a ­ moment—​­ being raped is four times more psy- chologically disturbing than going off to a war and being shot at and blown up. And because there are currently no enduring cultural nar- ratives that allow women to look upon their survival as somehow he- roic or honorable, the potential for enduring damage is even greater.” In war the people who try to kill you are usually on the other side. In femicide, they’re husbands, boyfriends, friends, friends of friends, guys on the street, guys at work, guys at the party or in the dorm, and, the week I write this, the guy who called a Lyft and stabbed the ­ pregnant driver to death and the guy who went into a bank and shot five women and the guy who shot the young woman who took him in when his parents kicked him out, to name a few examples of the car- nage that made it into the news. Morris calls PTSD “living at the whim of your worst memories.”
September 14, 2025 at 8:22 PM
kchar60.bsky.social
So beautiful!
July 1, 2025 at 11:18 AM