Milwaukee VA Medical Center

Deanna O'Neill

“If I wouldn’t have gone through the VA, I truly believe I would not have lived,” said Deanna O’Neill.

“My heart was so broken. My life was so broken. If I wouldn’t have gone to them, I’d be dead. They made me see what I had been trying not to see for so long. I didn’t get to serve my country. No, I didn’t get to do that. No, I was raped. And I buried that for a lot of years. Didn’t talk about it or tell a lot of people. But once I got to the VA, I couldn’t stop talking.”

After years of pushing her military sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress out of her mind, it all spilled out back in 2013 when O’Neill, 55, lost everything and broke down. That’s when she came to the Milwaukee VA and found sobriety and people who cared.

Now she’s telling her story so others might give VA a chance.

“I know there are people like me who might not trust the VA, but I would tell them, ‘Put one foot in front of the other, keep walking, and get to the people who really care about you,’” she said. “They are the most caring and compassionate people I met and they gave me my life back.”

She lived through years of tragedy before getting to this point. The pain started early, she said, when her mother was accused of killing her father.

“She was acquitted, but I know what she did. That affected me so profoundly. He was in the military, and was a police officer. I wanted to join the military so he would be proud of me.”

She joined the Army in 1979 and was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for training. She was raped there by a supply sergeant and her first sergeant.

“They did horrible things to me, between the two of them,” she said. “I hurt my Achilles tendon and was in a cast, so they would pull me off the range and into their office, and that’s when it would happen. No living person should go through that. They told me, ‘You will give it up, girlfriend.’ The one time it was the worst sexual assault that you can imagine. It was horrible.”

She finally reported the rape to her chain of command. The soldiers lost stripes but stayed in the military.

“The first sergeant got knocked down from an E-8 to an E-4 but there were a lot of repercussions,” she said.

“I was so scared at the time because I got orders and he told me wherever I went, I would be sorry. He said he’d follow me, gut me and kill me. I was afraid for my life.”

O’Neill left the Army in 1981 and tried to put it behind her.

“I didn’t want anything from the military and didn’t ask for anything from the military,” O’Neill said. “It got better for a little bit. I met my husband, had my first baby. It got better, but it was always there. I didn’t do drugs then. That happened later.”

The couple divorced and she married a man who physically abused her. He broke her leg in 1994.

“That’s when it happened. They put me on Vicodin, and it gave me that euphoric feeling that it was alright; I was going to be OK. It helped drown all the other stuff.

“It just got to the point where I was taking Vicodin so much, I couldn’t function. I was losing my family and had to do something, but I wouldn’t listen.”

When it got bad, O’Neill went into treatment at a civilian hospital to no avail.

“I made it hard for them. I acted up and acted crazy. I knew there were things I needed to say, but did that so I wouldn’t have to. Thing is, they didn’t understand the first thing about PTSD or military sexual trauma.”

And then it got worse.

“A lot of really crazy things happened,” she shrugged. “I lost my job, I lost my apartment. All these memories were all of a sudden there and I wasn’t prepared for it. I lost my family, my friends and everything I knew. My life was just a s--- hole, and by that weekend, I just realized I could not love myself anymore.

Sara O’Hara, a therapist in the women’s program at the Milwaukee VA, said O’Neill’s journey is typical.

“People who experience MST years ago are so busy going to school, working, raising a family and staying focused on that,” O’Hara said. “But years later, the more down time you have, those memories come back.

You try to suppress that kind of memory and oftentimes they come back stronger through nightmares and intrusive thoughts. People try unhealthy alternatives – whether it be drugs or alcohol – to help them forget and cope, but eventually it catches up to you.”

With nowhere left to go, O’Neill came to the women’s program May 2, 2013, at the Milwaukee VA’s domiciliary. 

Deanna O'Neill and family

“I tried to play games for the first week,” she admitted. “You don’t get to be 50 without pulling something, but boy was I surprised. They said, ‘Huh-uh. You know what you are supposed to do.’ They didn’t let me get away with anything, and boy am I glad.”

O’Neill starts sobbing.

“This is where I really get emotional, and it’s because of these people at the VA,” she said. “When I couldn’t love myself anymore, they would love me. When I couldn’t feed myself anymore, they were going to feed me. When I couldn’t cry, they were going to be the shoulder to lean on. They were all of those things. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. They care more about me than I care about myself. And they aren’t going to let me go until I am OK.’”

O’Hara said many women who come to VA feel the same way.

“Many female veterans feel like, ‘I don’t have a voice. I’m broken,’” O’Hara said.

"We start by listening to them, finding where their strengths are and building trust that way. If someone comes into the program with no clothes or not even a hairbrush to comb their hair, we get them clothes, we get them hygiene products."

“What I remember about Deanna, and this is true of a lot of people who come here, they struggle with emotional regulation,” O’Hara added. “She had a lot of anger and her emotions were up and down, but she had been through so much in her life. That’s very understandable. Once someone learns some healthy coping skills, it makes it easier to engage with others, and then you build on it.”

O’Hara said watching veterans build on the success is the most rewarding part of the program.

“You see that light bulb come on, something clicks, and the person is able to implement a skill and they want to build on it further,” she said. “In Deanna’s case, she completed the program in layers and was fully committed to building on her sobriety and taking on more. The more you put into treatment, the more you get out of it, and she was highly invested in making changes.”

O’Neill stayed in the program for four months and took advantage of every therapy group.

As she got better, she repaired her family relationships. VA and Disabled American Veterans helped her file for benefits and disability. She moved back in with her sister, and they live together in Green Bay, near O’Neill’s two daughters – Dana, 33; and Jenna, 25.

“I was hoping and praying for her for a long time,” said her older sister, Maureen. “We were all very worried, but the VA was life-changing for her, and I was just so thankful.”

Now she gets to be a grandmother to her two grandchildren, Jayden, 9; and Maya, 4.

“They call me Bamma,” O’Neill beamed. “They are the best thing that ever happened to me besides my own children.”

O’Neill starts to cry again.

“All those years I didn’t or couldn’t talk about this, and I got to the VA and couldn’t stop talking. And they never stopped loving me and never stopped caring. I’m not giving up. I’ve got too much life left to live.”