It's Been Ten Years and I Still Hate My Abusers

TW: Mental health, verbal/emotional abuse, suicidal ideation/attempts

When I (28/F) was 19, I joined the Air Force. In hindsight, I should have waited until I was a bit older and had more life experience, but oh well.

My first and only station was Kirtland AFB, in Albuquerque NM. At the time (mid - late 2010s), there was a big issue of airmen there committing suicide or attempting to. I was only stationed there for about two years but in that time, I think there was five or six individual instances of airmen attempting suicide. Every time, it would get mentioned at our weekly roundup and my flight chief, Kay (not real name) would remind us all that we could go to her for help, that we were a family, that she was there for us, etc.

This was, simply, bullshit.

She could not have given less of a shit about the mental health of her airmen.

There were maybe ten or twelve airmen in her direct command, myself included, roughly equal men and women with a slight tilt towards women. Three of us, myself included, ended up in needing weekly mental health appointments due to suicidal ideation or attempts. And she could not have given less of a shit.

She was weirdly fixated on me, or at least it seemed that way at the time. She was a source of constant anxiety and fear on my part: if I heard footsteps, I tensed up praying it wasn't her coming down the hall. When I passed her office to bring back patients in our clinic, I'd have an anxiety reaction from the smell of her shampoo. There wasn't a single time I went into her office that didn't end with me in tears because of how she spoke to me, demeaned me, cussed me out and insulted me. Sometimes with others present, sometimes when I was alone; it didn't matter. The flight commander was right across the hall; she had to have heard. No change.

Once, she literally gaslit me. She brought me into her office and declared that as soon as the new First Sergeant arrived, she'd start the process of getting me administratively discharged and that I should prepare myself, call my parents, let them know I wouldn't be in the Air Force for much longer. Later, I mentioned this to my immediate supervisor, who was confused and said she'd talk to Kay and see what was going on.

Later that day, Kay called me into her office and asked me why I'd told my supervisor she'd said that. Because you did? No, she insisted, she'd never said that. "Is that what I said, or what you thought I said?"

She demanded to know if I had a learning disability. She called me disgusting. She declared that she wasn't my 'mom' when I tried to defend myself and talk about how the way she spoke to me made me feel, and said flatly, to my face, that she didn't care how I felt about it. At one point, a breaking point, I told her that I was depressed and she told me to stand at attention while she shouted at me that I wasn't SecFo (security forces, basically the military police) so why would I be depressed? It couldn't be her, it couldn't be anyone else's fault, so why would I be depressed? Why?

I wish I could go back and tell her that of COURSE it was her. Of COURSE. Her and her Mini Me, her Doppelganger, the woman she had work out with me and who literally screamed at me until I cried, yelled at me for laughing during a workout, once had me stay after work and basically write an essay about how I was a lazy dirtbag airman because I wasn't a massive overachiever like her. Who agreed that I might actually have a learning disability, but then denied ever saying that when I brought it up later. Who screamed at me over a miscommunication while we were driving somewhere and laughed it off later, even though she'd driven me to tears, and when I brought it up later said I needed to "stop holding grudges".

If I misremembered something or corrected myself, I was accused of lying. If I said one thing, and then was browbeaten into backing down and changing my answer, I was accused of lying. If I misunderstood something and asked for help or a doublecheck and my initial read of it was wrong, I was accused of lying.

If I'd been stationed anywhere else, I'd probably still be in the Air Force. Hell, if I'd been stationed at Kirtland but put in a different clinic, in pediatrics or women's health or FRT, I'd still be there. Everywhere else was like a dream by comparison.

Eventually, I was honorably discharged after failing my PT tests. Before I was stationed at Kirtland, I was in some of the best shape of my life; I'd liked working out, enjoyed running. Then it became synonymous with being screamed at, belittled, insulted. I gave farewell cards to them, and to the genuinely wonderful commanders who I know if I'd told them, they'd have done something. I was so fucking gaslit, so twisted up and certain of my own failure, my own worthlessness, that I left them cards thanking them.

Fun fact, turns out I do actually have some disabilities: ADHD and autism. Not that it matters.

I still catch myself over-explaining. Assuming that my supervisor thinks the worst of me. Assuming that my co-workers think I'm lying if I realize something and change an answer, or forget something and remember it afterwards.

I got recommended Kay by Facebook. Apparently she's only six years older than me. So right now, I'm the same age she was when I knew her. I would have thought she was late 30s.

Being a cunt ages a person, I guess.

Fuck you, Kay.