http://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/male-survivors-of-sexual-assault-quoting-the-people-who-a
(read a first-hand amazing account)
When Jeremiah Arbogast entered the home of his former boss, a
Marine staff sergeant, he was wearing a body wire hooked up by the
Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which was listening from a nearby
car.
"I need to know what happened," Arbogast told the staff sergeant in
2001. "I need to get help. I can't get help if I don't know what
happened."
The man began to coolly list everything he had done to Arbogast, recounting his rape.
"I don't know what possessed him to just be like, 'I did this, this
and this, and that's that,'" Arbogast said. "No remorse, no nothing."
Arbogast got his rapist's full confession on tape, but the process
severely traumatized him -- again.
The staff sergeant was convicted by court martial in 2002, given
merely a "bad conduct" discharge from the Marines. But Arbogast's ordeal
went on for seven more years of severe depression, nightmares and
insomnia. He had trouble concentrating; his mind would wander back to
the rape. He swung abruptly from rage to numbness. He got divorced. Then
got remarried. He drank. Nothing worked.
Jeremiah
Arbogast wearing his Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation Ribbon, Good
Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Global War on
Terrorism Service Medal.
In 2009, Arbogast aimed a gun "right dead in the chest, where my
heart would be, where my pain was." He missed and became partially
paralyzed.
His wife told him, "You've got a gift now. You've been given a new life in death and you've got to do something with it."
Men accounted for only about
12 percent of reported military sexual assault cases in fiscal year 2012. But
more men than women are sexually assaulted each year in the military, given that men make up some
85 percent
of service members, notes Michael Matthews, a close friend of Arbogast.
Matthews' own experience as a veteran and victim of rape served as the
catalyst for
"Justice Denied," a documentary about male military sexual assault survivors.
Back in 1998, when Arbogast joined the Marines just after high
school, no one was talking about these issues. He started as a motor
transport operator, and later served as a lance corporal in a weapons
training battalion. He was preparing to deploy to Okinawa, Japan --
until he was assaulted.
"I served honorably," Arbogast said. "The rape trumped it."
Arbogast was unconscious during his attack -- doctors believe he may
have been drugged -- and he didn't report it for months. "I'm trying to
explain this to base counselors, and it was just eating me alive," he
said. "I could not believe what I was going through ... It spiraled my
world out of control."
After he confronted his rapist and went through the court martial, he
didn't want to go near a base, but every six months the military
brought him back to check on his health. It took him five years until he
could formally retire from the Marines on medical grounds.
Then he had to face his demons in civilian life. His daughter was
just under a year old, but he couldn't connect with anyone. He tried to
move forward, marrying his daughter's mother in 2004.
"As much as I love my daughter, I didn't have the relationship with
her that I should have," he said. "I ruined a lot of relationships."
Arbogast and his wife divorced. He withdrew from the world, unable to
trust others or himself. He went from being uninterested in sex to
engaging with a "chronic," endless string of faceless female partners.
"The myth is that men can't be raped, so when this trauma takes place,
it plays with their mind so bad," he said of men who become victims of
sexual assault.
When he met his current wife, Tiffany, he was sure his experiences
would chase her away. But it all came tumbling out. "She looked at me
and told me it didn't matter, she would love me regardless. As much as I
wanted to believe her, I couldn't," he said.
His downward spiral continued. On Oct. 1, 2009, about four months
after they were married, Tiffany took his handgun, planning to keep it
in her car while she was at work.
"I thought I was poison to everybody I was around, or anything I had
ever touched," Arbogast said. "I was dragging people down again, it was
starting all over ... I decided that's when I was gonna end it, stop
being a problem to everybody else."
That afternoon, he got his 9mm handgun out of Tiffany's car before
she left for work. "I told her I wasn't gonna do anything," he said.
Hours later, he was sitting on the ground beside the car, "trying to
make reason of why my life was the way it was."
He raised the gun to his chest, but because he had been drinking,
slumped at the last second. The bullet tore through his high abdomen and
blasted out through his spine, damaging his spinal cord. He lost 60
percent of his blood, and woke up a week later in the hospital from a
medically induced coma.
His depression only deepened over the coming months, until his wife
told him that he had a gift. Arbogast now had the understanding to
spread awareness and speak for three groups that often suffer in
silence: military sexual assault survivors, suicide survivors and people
with disabilities.
"Something clicked," said Arbogast, now 32. "I didn't want anybody else to go through it."
"People don't understand why it's a gift," he added, reflecting on
his whole experience. "But many people die and never realize what they
really had, what their purpose in life was. My life was spared to give
me a purpose."
Not that his recovery has ever been easy. He says, simply, "You can't undo a gunshot wound."
Though grateful for his military health care and benefits, he has
relied less and less on medical facilities. "When you're in a
wheelchair, you get so tired of being poked and prodded," he said. "One
day I just said, 'enough. I need to live my life.'"
He has become involved in Paralympic and adaptive sports and is a
decorated athlete in cycling and swimming. He had never skied in his
life before he became a paraplegic; now he loves it, terrorizing the
slopes in a monoski, a bucket chair with a ski attached. Recently, he's
been learning how to get around with braces.
Arbogast has just begun to talk about his experience to his daughter,
Brianna, who's now 11. "I'll tell her, 'Daddy tried to kill himself
because he didn't want to be here,' and she'll say, 'I want you here.'"
Brianna helps him move around their house, which is not accessible
for wheelchairs. "I'll tell you what, it's extreme hell," he said. "I
can't even get into the bathroom safely, my wife has to get me a roll
stool and roll me. Just think of all the places in a house when you're
in a wheelchair you can't get to."
He said it's difficult for military and sexual assault survivors,
especially men, to speak out about the issue. "We don't talk about
sexual assault because it's 'complex,'" he said. "Complex? You try and
come live for just an hour in my complex life."
But he feels strongly that the discrimination and misunderstanding he faces are worth it if he can help to save someone's life.
"I've been through life and death," he said. "There is gonna come a
time in your life when you have to say enough is enough. You're letting
that perpetrator who assaulted you rent your life for free. You're
becoming a slave to what they've done to you."
Others may see his experience as a reason to want to give up. But he
says it's the reason to keep living. "It's all the tragedy and the
triumph between where I was and where I am today."
Several organizations have been trying to help the Arbogast
family raise money to adapt their home, but so far, the funds have
fallen short. Click here for more about the project and to donate.
This article is part of a special Huffington Post series,
"Invisible Casualties," in which we shine a spotlight on
suicide-prevention efforts within the military. To see all the articles,
blog posts, audio and video, click here.
For a review of warning signs someone may be at risk of suicide, click here. For a list of resources to get free and confidential help, click here.
If you or someone you know needs help, call the national crisis line
for the military and veterans at 1-800-273-8255, or send a text to
838255.