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I participated in events, but that doesn't make me an awful human being.

Dr. Irene Zoesch (US Army, 2014-2018) explains how treatment has helped her to reconcile events she was required to participate in.

Transcript

One of the things I've had to

reconcile for myself
with the moral injury

is really facing what I call
the dark side of the mirror.

That shadow self,
that sense that

I participated in events

that wouldn't be something I
would choose to participate in.

That doesn't make me an awful
human being.

It just makes it
part of my story.

And I can look at that now
with some abstract

because I've done a lot of work
with my therapy

to be able to navigate that.

But until I could label
what it was,

until I could really identify
and isolate it,

it was this dark cloud
that would just follow me of -

I'm not a good enough
person anymore.

I've somehow
sacrificed a piece of myself.

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