The Military Woman and so much More
Business:Careers
“Never in a million years did I think that was going to happen,” Tina Casanova explains regarding her experience with sexual assault. Tina was raped on active duty after her first deployment as a Petty Officer in the US Navy. The assault occurred at a party, and Tina’s assailant was a friend. When the attack occurred, Tina checked off all of the boxes: she said no, tried to rationalize with her attacker, and attempted to fight him off. She followed all of the rules, but she was raped anyway, and she still feels personal responsibility for the experience. She explains that even now, she blames herself for poor judgement in friends, drinking too much, and trusting the wrong people.
Tina went back to work two days after the attack. She spent years trying to suppress her emotions and relied on a “fake it till you make it” rationale to explain them away. But her attempts to cope weren’t working, and her family members and friends wondered why Tina seemed to be experiencing symptoms of PTSD even though she hadn’t had any traumatic experiences while on active duty. Finally, Tina decided to confide in a close friend, who gave her the validation that she needed to start healing. Since then, she has found additional support and solace from family members and has started the journey towards acceptance and recovery.
More recently, Tina has been training for a 76-mile run, which is the next step in her healing journey. Although Tina has been contemplating this run for years, she was finally triggered to act when Vanessa Guillen’s remains were found last June. Vanessa was yet another military woman who experienced sexual assault; however, unlike Tina, she was murdered after the fact. Tina is running 76 miles to represent the number of days it took Vanessa’s family to find her remains. She will begin her run on April 22, the one-year anniversary of Vanessa’s death.
Tune into this week’s episode of The Military Woman and So Much More for an emotional conversation with Tina and host Sharika LaBrie about finding yourself again after a sexual assault. Learn about Tina’s journey towards recovery and how she is working to show women across the country that #silenceisnotstrength.
Quotes
Links
76 Mile Run for Change
http://www.thepinkberets.org/
https://www.rainn.org/resources
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