Abusive Remorse and What That Means

Geri asks:

I would love to know how or why abusers feel no remorse, guilt, sorrow or shame at how they treat others?

Some do. Not all, and it's rare, but some do. I think it has a lot to do with different brain disorders, like narcissism (NPD) and sociopathy, Sometimes those people don't have the mental capacity to feel remorse. Others who have a chemical dependency on drugs or alcohol feel remorse after the fact but are incapable of feeling anything for anyone because of the chemicals in them.

Then there are people like my mother. I think she strongly believes that everything she did was in my best interest because she didn't know how to deal with an unruly child. No matter how much she tries to claim I'm not a "real" redhead because it's not carrot orange or ginger (my hair is a subdued red, I'll give her that much only) I always had that redheaded attitude.  She couldn't stand that about me. I was rebellious and independent starting at a very young age.  Hurting my feelings or insulting me only made me more so.  Taking photos of me when I was crying in order to prove to me how ugly I was when I cried and other such incidences caused such a rift between us that I continued to both rebel against her and seek her approval for the rest of my years living at home.  It's the 'gas-lighting' abuse that is so often talked about and represented in emotional trauma and abuse.  That was a perfect example of gas-lighting in my childhood.  It brought about confused emotions. I both loved and hated my mother.

My brother was abusive - I assume - because he'd been abused. I don't know if he was abused by a babysitter or someone closer to home (my money is on the one perverted sitter we had who made us change clothes in front of her all the time and introduced us to pornography when we were very little) but he was only abusive because he learned it somewhere and was warped by it himself. It's a learned behavior at 7 years old, not an inherent one. However, my brother grew up in the same household as I did and I don't think he wants to feel remorse because it would mean admitting what he'd done all those years ago. Of course he doesn't want to admit to it - he's in denial. But he learned the same 'lying' lessons I did. I'll explain.

My father did the best that he could, too. For a long time I channeled all my anger at him because he would spank me. It was, to me, the only form of abusive that existed. It was the 80s and that was the only form of abuse that was talked about. They weren't very nice spankings, I'll admit. I'm sure he would too. I learned early on that if I were going to get into trouble for something that I'd done, it was better to lie about it because I was going to get spanked no matter what. He would say that the spanking would be far worse if I lied, but I would run the risk of him not finding out because I was unable to distinguish the difference between the "you broke the vase" spanking and the "you broke the vase and lied about it" spanking. All I knew was that I was getting spanked. If I lied and got away with it, there was no spanking. For him, now, I think he feels remorse. I don't know how much, or if he's remorseful for spanking me every time he thought I deserved it, but deep down inside I think my father was actually the more loving of my parents and I failed to see it because he was more physical. He also didn't know how to show that he loved me because I was his daughter and he didn't want anyone to ever think he was molesting me or having an inappropriate relationship with me in any way. That was constantly a fear for him. It drove more of a wedge between us because I didn't understand that at the time, but I genuinely think he tried.

In the end I guess it's a smaller percentage that will ever feel remorse for causing pain to others, but there are some that do.  We can't lump them all together in one large group.  Saying "they're abusive so they don't feel remorse" is every bit as damaging as not forgiving those who have done the damage to us in the first place.  Forgiveness isn't for the offender, but for the forgiver.

I don't see my father because he's still with my mother, and because the damage has been done. I'm certainly not innocent in everything, but I can at least admit fault. I was a Hellion. That doesn't mean I deserved the abuse.

2006, with my mother and father.

Interview October 9th, in spite of everything

So I'm still going through with my live interview on October 9th. Now more than ever, I need to be able to talk about what it means to survive human trafficking. I need to let people know that it DOESN'T END just because someone gets away. Attacks still happen, from family, from friends, and even from the traffickers. I've been an unwilling party subjected to illegal and dehumanizing exposure on pornographic websites. I am an outspoken survivor - that does NOT make me immune.

Please tune in on October 9th from ANYWHERE in the world for my next interview. The information on where to find the interview is right here at this link...


https://www.facebook.com/events/914578908921223/

Abuse by Braces? Or Deserved Punishment?

I mentioned yesterday that I had some pretty serious behavior issues as a child and teen.  I don't deny that.  I do deny that I'm still a 15 year old child who lies about everything, runs away all the time, and would do almost anything for attention of any kind.  I've clearly grown up.  I also stopped running away finally and take things head on in a way I could never have predicted I would only a few short years ago.  Surviving what I did in Scotland forced me down this road, I think.  If I'm going to actually get through the darkness and come out the other side a stronger person, it's going to take work. It takes the kind of work I would have been too lazy to put into myself a few years ago.  But I've been through Hell and survived.  Now I just need to survive the gate keepers and emerge the other side.

I'm reminded of a lot of things I had to deal with growing up.  One of them has given me a LOT more strength than I think I would have otherwise.  I realized when I was a 17 year old that I'd already had everything taken away from me, and I had nothing left to lose.  I lived in an empty bedroom aside from the mattress on the floor and the sheets that covered it.  I had no books, no papers, no pens or pencils, no friends, clothes, shoes... all I had was what I wore every day to school, and washed every night while wearing my one wool nightgown.  It wasn't that we were poor.  I'd had everything taken away from me because I was a perpetual runner.  My book "The Miller Miles" actually tells of one adventure I had when I ran away at 17 years old.  But I did have something in my possession that most kids in my position didn't have.  I had braces.


I didn't have a full set of braces.  Rather, I had two metal band brackets on two of my molars that came equipped with little metal tubes between my teeth and my cheek flesh.  They were there to host the body of "headgear" to push my teeth backwards; headgear that looked almost identical to what you see in the stock photo here.  Not surprising, I don't have any photos of me in my headgear.  I also had individual braces on several of my other teeth, but not on all of them.

I remember when it all started, the orthodontist was really nice.  He found out I always had a crush on Cary Grant the actor, and told me that Cary Grant wouldn't smile to show all of his teeth because he was a boxer before he was an actor.  He'd had one of his upper middle teeth knocked out and they all grew together to close the gap. He was embarrassed about his teeth, so he didn't ever want anyone to see them.  I was mesmerized.

I'd always wanted straight teeth. I'd been teased terribly about my teeth and hated them terribly. My mother had gone through extensive dental work years before, starting with braces and ending with an EXTREMELY expensive jaw surgery to bring her lower jaw forward about a 1/4 of an inch I believe.  She had an under-bite before that and wasn't comfortable with having her photo taken before that.  She gained a level of self-confidence she'd never known after everything was done. I was so proud of her! She was my role model. I wanted to be just like her as soon as I could be.  I wanted to be prettier with better teeth like she had been.  Orthodontists were magicians.  I'd been the 'ugly kid' in the middle of what my mother called my 'awkward stage' for almost a decade. I needed to feel better about myself.  I wanted braces.

There were all the usual threats, of course.

• If you step out of line, we'll stop with the braces.
• If you run away again, we'll stop your braces.
• If you talk back, we'll stop your braces. 
• If you do basically anything wrong, we'll stop your braces.

Totally understandable.  Braces were expensive.

They were threats I'd heard a million times for a million other things, like self defense classes when I was 15.  I really loved those classes, but I never even got my yellow belt because I ran away from home and they stopped letting me go.  It was, of course, completely understandable.  I'd have done the same thing in their place to be honest.  I didn't deserve something fun or special when I was being a brat.  I also wasn't allowed to be in the elite choir anymore at 16 in spite of my passing the auditions with flying colors, which wasn't easy.  I had skipped too many classes.  Like I said, I was a brat back then.  I had some serious personality and behavioral issues. Here I was 17 and finally being fit for something I'd always wanted - my braces.  Of course, I'd also always wanted to take Karate classes or something similar, but I screwed that up.  I'd also always wanted to be recognized as having a special talent or gift, for being special, for getting into an elite group, like that choir class - and I screwed that up too.  It was basically compulsive. I couldn't help but screw things up.  It's what I did.  It was a part of who I was by then.  It was as though I was terrified that something would actually be a positive in my life, so I had to mess it up before it could turn into something good.  Honestly, I think a lot of that stems back to my very close childhood relationship with my brother, who took advantage of that bond and molested me when I was 4 years old.  He had been my best friend. I'd idolized him.  After that I stopped waiting for him to get home from school.  

I guess it was inevitable that I'd screw up the braces too.  I couldn't help it.  It had become my trademark in a way.  I couldn't finish anything.  I couldn't allow something good in my life.  I would sabotage anything and everything, including friendships with classmates.  I would get close to a friend in school and suddenly abandon them, terrified that if I didn't, they'd just beat me to it.  It was that summer when I ran away with Byron Miller (see: The Miller Miles) and didn't take my headgear.  When I was made to go back home (the book details what happened, how long I was gone, and how I got back home - as well as the revenge I took on Miller afterward), of course my shot at straight teeth was gone.  The orthodontist appointments were toast.  That includes all of them, meaning I'd never see an orthodontist in order to get my braces and metal molar bands removed.  

For a long time I picked at the braces with my fingernails.  Occasionally I would split a nail to the finger.  Once or twice I broke wires that would shred the inside of my cheek.  Eventually I would have a bracket come lose from a tooth and dangle by wires inside my mouth, occasionally getting trapped between my teeth when chewing on food.  Never once did I complain about it.  I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.  I'd been called a 'baby' for complaining too much as a child.  There was no way I'd complain to them about something that I'd clearly caused myself, my mother would say.  By the time I got the final metal band off of my back molar, I was 22 years old and had been living on my own in another state for a number of years.  

(Photo from 2002, approximately 2 months after I removed the last bracket.)

(Photo from April 2019 by Blair Wacha, in Austin TX on a charity work trip.)

It wasn't until 2015 I finally tried braces again.  I got Invisalign - because I couldn't stand the idea of having metal in my mouth ever again.  Now, even though I haven't worn my retainer in about 2 months, my teeth are beautifully straight.  When I look at old photos of me, I barely recognize the person I used to be.  It's more than just the straight teeth, it's the attitude toward life in general.  

It's been a while since I've really talked about the braces I had as a kid, and that's for good reason.  Too many people told me that what they did was 'child abuse' but I knew that I'd deserved it.  I didn't hold up my end of the deal.  I didn't stay at home to be screamed and yelled at constantly, and I ran away.  I put myself in a dangerous and precarious place because I wanted a sense of freedom and couldn't find it anywhere.  A part of me also wanted to die.  I was a 17 year old kid who had been through a lot already, and nobody knew the secrets I was holding on to.  Nobody would have believed me or cared. I was already a liar about so many things, why would anyone believe me at 17 years old with the history I had?  So instead of telling anyone what I was going through, what I had gone through, or what I was scared to admit to, I kept everything inside.  As my parents reminded me frequently, they "couldn't believe a word that came out of [my] mouth anymore."  I had nobody I could turn to.  

Was it considered abuse to leave me with the braces?  Was it abuse that made me think it was my own fault and that I deserved it? Maybe... and I still struggle with that to be honest.  I didn't hold up my end of the deal.  As a seventeen-year-old kid I already knew I wouldn't be able to, but I wanted to make the effort anyway.  I honestly tried, until my young and underdeveloped and Ritalin-stunted brain snapped yet again. 

My teeth are straight, and the brackets are gone. But, as surprising as this might be, I still have just a tiny smidgen of brace glue attached to my left incisor from over two decades ago.  I'm reminded of the metal in my mouth every time my tongue flicks over the tooth. 

Unsupportive Parents and the Damage they Cause

I grew up with a mother who compared me to an aunt she felt wasn't very pretty. She told me how it was such a shame I looked so much like my Aunt Debbie with the red hair because she never thought my aunt was a pretty lady. I disagreed wholeheartedly and loved my wacky aunt very much. She wasn't much older than we were (she was from my paternal Grandfather's second marriage, to one of the most wonderful women I ever knew, my step-grandmother Irene). In fact, I dare say I may have idolized her. She was so cool she even taught her cats how to use the toilet instead of a litter box in the 80's, before people even knew that was a thing. She was AWESOME!

My mother went so far as to tell me how horribly ugly I was when I cried, and one night while sitting at the dining room table something was said or done that made my tender heart break. When I began crying, my mother ran to grab the Polaroid camera so that she could document the moment and show me (forever) just how ugly I was when I cried. Of course all it did was make me cry harder, and burned a horrible moment into my memory. To this day I can't look people in the eyes when I'm crying. That "ugly cry" expression so commonly used today is one I was familiar with well before its time, much like my aunt's cats and the toilet training. Only one is funny, while the other is devastating to an 8 year old kid who wants nothing more than acceptance and love from authority figures - aka 'parents'.

Being put on Ritalin (illegally) when I was four and then (legally) when I was five also didn't help matters. I wasn't a kid anymore, I was a zombie. I never developed any interest in participating in sports, and part of my brain contributes that to my zombie-fied state, and part of it contributes that to my lack of interest in the world at large. Why would I have no interest in the world at large, you might ask? Well, that's a common theme among abused children. Anger, confusion, trouble in the teen years with lying, running away, rebelling... they're all earmarks of someone troubled at a young age who didn't get any help. I was constantly concerned that I would do something wrong. I didn't do great in school. I had what some would call 'extreme behavior' going from hot to cold (from being a good kid to throwing a "Hell Fire" tantrum). I had constant stomachaches without any clear cause and spent LOTS of time in the nurse's room at school. All of these things are signs of a child who has been abused in some way. These signs and what to watch for weren't common knowledge when I was a kid. In the 80's that was just the universal language of being a brat. Now, modern medicine knows otherwise. Now, modern medicine would have known what was going on, if anyone had been bold enough to report it. While I lashed out at my parents for what my own brother had done to me, and even lashed out at my brother when I got a little older, my brain had no idea why I was doing it.

As a teen I began lashing out even more - rebelling to the point of refusing to take my Ritalin. At 15 I took myself off of the highly addictive substance after an eleven year dependency. I did this on my own by refusing to take them anymore. Knowing my mother counted them, I'd either hide them in the trashcan under discarded bits of paper towel or yesterday's newspaper, or I'd flush them in her toilet just to get a little sense of accomplishment, thinking "if only she knew" as I angrily shoved downward on the little silver handle. That was when the Shrinks started.

Of course my parents took me to shrinks. I was skipping school, lying about anything and everything, wearing black, and - whether they knew it or not - thought a lot about suicide. It was all the drug dependency and withdrawals, I realize now. I was never really suicidal, but I certainly wanted people to think I was because I wanted someone to care. I was constantly not wanting to go home, more afraid of going home than anything and not really sure why other than knowing that both of my parents were terminally angry at me for the years of behavioral problems I'd been exhibiting since an early age. It caused a lot of anxiety and worry in me. I skipped classes, and my grades dropped drastically. Right before I turned 16 my grade point average was somewhere around a 1.6 I believe. I stopped caring quite so much about what I looked like around then. Shrinks put me on all kinds of medications, including one called Klonopin, which - as it turns out - is actually an anti-seizure drug. I didn't ever have seizures as a kid, so this perplexes me now. I was also put on Paxil, which is an anti-anxiety drug. A child of 15 experiencing enough anxiety to be put on heavily controlled and addictive drugs clearly has something else going on to cause that kind of anxiety. Instead of treating the problem, they decided to treat the symptom. Paxil, for those who don't know, is similar to Xanax. Finally, I was put on Prozac, a very powerful antidepressant, as well as a treatment for OCD and panic disorder. What need would a child of 15 have for such drugs? Clearly there was something very wrong with me, and I wasn't talking.

Why should I tell this shrink, I clearly remember thinking to myself. It was obvious that my parents had gotten to her before I ever had a chance to talk. This lady wasn't going to believe me or trust me. She didn't know anything about me except what my parents told her - and my parents had been telling people for years that I was addicted to drugs and sexually active. Neither were true, of course. I was still very much a virgin at 15 years old, and to this day I've never had any drugs that wasn't prescribed to me except the few times I tried marijuana, which I turned out to be allergic to. Don't get me wrong, I had PLENTY of friends who did drugs, but I was always the one sitting back laughing at their stupid antics rather than feeling like I needed to participate. They might have been doing drugs, but with the exception of one person, they were pretty respectful when I told them I wasn't into it. I laughed hysterically as "T" would describe the psychedelic ooze on the walls or that "D" was suddenly missing his nose. I rolled my eyes at the ones on acid, complaining about the dragon chewing on their shoe laces. But never once was I even tempted to try. Never once did they try to pressure me, knowing full well I'd walk out of there if they did. "J" even defended me once when someone called me a chicken for not wanting to smoke pot with them. He told them 'that's not how we do things here' and to this day we are still friends. Of course he's more 'straight edge' now, with kids of his own. I still trust J with my life. If anything were to happen that I thought he could help me with, he'd be one of my first calls. Always. I also wasn't a drinker as a teen. You see, enough of my life was being controlled by everyone else. I already felt like I couldn't control anything. I already knew that people in my life were angry with me. I knew I'd already gotten in trouble enough - some for things I'd done, and some for things I hadn't. The last thing I needed to do was start drinking alcohol, which I didn't even like the smell of, and getting into more trouble with people who were so angry at me they could hardly look at me.

I was a very troubled kid, but no matter what I did wrong back then I was never as bad as my own parents made me out to be. By the time I was a teen, I'd already been through a lot that they never knew about. I developed a LOT of unhealthy coping mechanisms. I still carry some of those with me now, actually. I'm still dealing with them, regularly.

People might hide it, but they don't lie to say they had been abused. They lie and say they hadn't, quite often. However, actions speak louder than words. Behavioral problems stem from somewhere, and if you're able to track it down you might be able to heal from it. Facing it isn't easy. Talking about it is even harder. Dealing with it is a stretch for most. Not blaming yourself for it feels impossible. Having to do it all alone, without any family on the face of the earth actually wanting to believe that it ever existed is one of the worst feelings I've ever known. Yet I'm doing it, because I know it's the right thing to do.

For all of those struggling to face childhood trauma, or remembering things you've been told 'can't be true' just know you're not alone. Also, know that there is help available.

http://www.istss.org/public-resources/what-is-childhood-trauma/remembering-childhood-trauma.aspx

Me, age 12?

Look how naturally RED that hair is.

When Family Turns their Backs, How does a Survivor Cope?

Pardon the typos.

Saturday was my mother’s birthday. I wrote this to her using Twitter last month and thought I’d share. Maybe she’ll see it. Maybe she won’t. Either way, I actually DO care.

I don't blame her. It wasn't her fault. It was normal for a little sister at 4 years old to be entrusted to a 7 year old big brother while outside playing in the 1980s. That was life. Mom couldn't be there 24 hours a day. She wasn't a helicopter mom, but she had no idea what was going on. If she blames herself, that's entirely on her. I don't blame her a bit. I don't know that I even blame my brother. He was only seven years old. He shouldn't have known the things he knew. I certainly don't blame me, I was only a four year old little girl. My mother also wasn't there when I was 11 and he was 14, when he propositioned me (while nude) to have sex with him because he was curious to know what it was like. She wasn't there. She doesn't know. I didn't tell her. That is in NO WAY her fault.

Maybe someday she'll figure that out. Maybe she won't. But that's her issue, certainly not mine, and I can't hold myself responsible for her actions or self-blame.

Happy birthday, Mom.

P.S. She always hated being called "Mother." 

Thank You for your support

Thank you....

I'm really struggling and isolating myself a bit. I'll snap out of it eventually but I'm pretty freshly traumatized so I have to figure out how to process this stuff before I can really talk about it too much. However, please know that even though I didn't react to very much yesterday, I did see, read, and mentally process every single comment you guys left on my social media posts yesterday. The outpouring of love and support is something I have to admit I'm not anywhere near accustomed to receiving. Your kindness, your generosity, your love and compassion... you have completely taken my breath away.


Also, I'm beyond exhausted from PTSD flashback nightmares, so I had to use an image filter to get rid of the massive circles under my eyes. I'll get there, I promise. It might be a struggle right now, but as so many of you have reminded me, I've been through so much. It seems unfair that I'm now being handed this steaming bowl of cow manure, but at the same time you know my strength, and some of you have told me that you don't know how you would deal with something like this. That's understandable. But if that's the case, I would also rather it be me than ANY of you wonderful souls, because maybe I can take the burden from someone else this way.


All my adult life I've done all I can to make people believe I'm stronger than I am. As a very dear friend of mine told me yesterday "what is that except the very definition of courage?" I don't call myself courageous or brave or even bold and confident. Honestly, I'm none of those things. But I am a writer, and I'll continue telling the truth and my story for as long as I physically can. I made a promise when I first started out to always talk about the hard stuff, in my own time, and to never stop until I find the girls I left behind.


That friend of mine just told me the key words to do a google search on and I would be able to find dozens if not hundreds of posts by that same person that include photos of me. This will be a long, arduous, horrible, horrendous fight, but I've got this. And with your support, encouragement and love, I'll go so much further than I could have otherwise.


Thank you.

Curl Up and Die

I wanted to crawl back under the covers and hide. I wanted to cry myself to sleep, but sleep had already eluded me for the last 7 hours I'd been laying in bed. I didn't know what I was going to do. I couldn't think. I panicked. This was the last thing I needed... yet again.

"THEY" had surfaced somewhere new. Those horrible photos that had been taken of me while I was being raped. THEY were accompanied by paragraph after paragraph of explicit detail from the perspective of one of my rapists. THEY included phrases like "you don't know how many times I've [xxxxxx] to this story" and "This is all a true story!" Of course it was. I lived that story. I lived that nightmare. I lived that day that would make Stephen King's "Carrie" seem like a fairy tale and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" seem almost realistic by comparison. Yet it wasn't fiction. It wasn't something I could turn off with a remote control. I couldn't mute the memories, I couldn't make the screen go black when the violence became too much to bear. I couldn't walk out of the room if I didn't want to see it anymore. Instead it played over and over in my head like a broken record. Every word I read made me shake just a little more.


It was the kind of website I'd normally NEVER have an account on, but I couldn't contact anyone through this forum unless I had an account. As much as I did NOT want to sign up, I knew I had to if I was going to do anything about it. I scratched frantically at fresh hives. Stress wasn't good for hives. I was pretty sure complete panic was probably worse for them.


I started by posting on some of the forum 'rules' posts about my issue while being incredibly vague. I simply stated that some of my photos had been posted without permission. I felt dirty even saying they were 'my' photos, because they weren't. I didn't take them. I didn't want them. I wanted them to disappear forever; to not exist at all. But they were photos of me whether I liked it or not. I posted the same thing on several threads, pleading for help. Finally I clicked on an admin's name and found an email address I could write to. I wasn't sure where to start but I knew I needed to do it. I couldn't wait.


I took a deep breath. Panic settled in deeper instead of alleviating at all. How many people had seen this? How many people had saved those photos to their own computers? Oh my gosh... the fake last name they gave the character was so insanely close to my original last name that this had to be someone who personally knew me. It wasn't a name I gave out to people unless it was someone I trusted with my life. The details of what happened, the character names of the rapists... they were all accurate. This was someone who was actually there when it happened. This was one of my rapists telling the story of what he and his friends had done to me. Panic settled in deeper. My hands shook. My arms shook. My cats surrounded me on the bed, each staring at me in concern. They wouldn't leave my side. I didn't realize I'd been crying that hard until I went to push one of them off of my left arm so I could type and noticed all the water on his head and back. I'd been hysterical.


That was when my roommate knocked on my door to let me know the bathroom door was locked, he didn't know how that happened, and he needed in there to go to work. Everything I was going through had to be put on the back burner so that I could attempt to open the bathroom door. I struggled, but my hands were shaking and I couldn't think. I tried the old trick of using a hanger to push the button inside, but it was a different kind of lock and that wasn't going to work. I tried again and again, until eventually I burst into shaking, hulking, heaving sobs and banged my head on the bathroom door, completely defeated. Finally I went back to my room and closed the door. Some time after that he managed to get it unlocked, but I remained where I was, trying to figure out what I was going to say and do. I wanted and needed this down NOW. I needed to send the email.

Good morning.

A friend of mine reached out to me this morning to let me know that some of my photos were being used on a forum. I didn’t know what kind of forum or what kind of photos so I clicked on the link provided and found a whole New World I didn’t know about.

I am a survivor of human trafficking. Not only have I survived human trafficking, but I survived five months of daily torture and rape. The photos being used were taken without consent. I am not a celebrity, I am not a porn star, I am a real live breathing person. What’s more, even more disturbing, someone is pretending to be me and commenting on this thread that I enjoyed it?! I can assure you I did not. But as twisted as this whole thing is, the names of the other people are accurate from what my trauma-brain remembers. Of course I couldn’t read the whole thing. I vomited after a few paragraphs, remembering what I actually went through that day in particular. It’s something I’m not a fan of remembering.

I’ve already written three books about my struggle to survive what I’ve come through with human trafficking. This part of my life has not been covered yet but I do plan to write another book in the future. I’m hoping you can help me get rid of this and anything else that might show up from these people before that happens. This is sickening.As a survivor if human trafficking I do talk pretty regularly on radio and podcast interviews about my experiences in survival. Things like this are quite damning to someone like me when it comes to getting a real world job. It also causes people to think of me as more of a sexual fantasy and puts my life in danger. I become a target for sick individuals who want to live out the rape fantasies that they have with someone who’s already experienced it. I have no desire to continually be in physical danger from these people.

I’m hoping you can help me with this. I’m still very much in a panic over this, as I’m sure you can imagine. If you need proof of my identity based on the photos, I would be happy to provide that. I do have a website. I would suggest viewing it on a computer as I haven’t perfected the mobile site yet.

authoramanda.wixsite.com/survivor

The character name in the story is Amanda [xxxxxx]. The name I go by is Amanda Blackwood. My maiden name was Amanda [xxxxxx]. Neither one are my legal name now since having escaped trafficking but clearly this shows some correlation in the story. It’s a little too close to home, obviously.

A gang rape that actually happened to me should never be someone else’s entertainment.

Moments later I noticed a message on that forum I'd just become a reluctant member of. A different admin was reaching out to me. I copied and pasted the email I'd just sent into a return message. Impatiently I continually refreshed the inbox, counting the seconds for a reply. None came. I finally willed myself to get out of bed and start getting ready for work. There was nothing more I could do but wait.


Hours went by before any sort of reply came. When it came, I had a new and terribly fresh wave of panic.

What had I done? Could the police or FBI have tracked this person down through the forum using an IP address? Since this was someone who had been involved in the crime, would it have been possible to prosecute against them? Now there would simply be no way to ever know. Would I have been willing to give the information to someone I didn't know so they could read the real life story of what happened to me and see the graphic photos? I wasn't sure. I second guessed myself, grabbed a tissue, and burst into silent sobs at my desk, hiding behind my over-sized computer monitor.


It's starting to sink in finally. The graphic details of my own experience with gang rape were published on a forum for the world to read at will. As much as it hurt, as deeply as that cut, it was only a single night of my life. It was only a few brutally long hours. It was one incident out of quite literally hundreds, if not thousands, of incidents similar in nature to what I had lived through.


I sat staring at my computer monitor reciting phrases to myself.   It was only one. One incident. One day in my life. It was years ago. I'm stronger than that. I survived that day, and many others. It's only PTSD, Amanda. Shake it off. It's nothing. So what if it was a notorious motorcycle gang, and someone I thought I could trust? Move on. Help isn't coming. It was all the poison I'd been raised to believe.


"Get over it."


The truth is, help DID come. I stepped up. I got out. I escaped and survived. I did it on my own. But when this kind of stuff happens, it's okay to not be okay. It's also okay to fight back with everything I have. That's sort of become my trademark. I might be a wreck at the moment, and I might want to hide from the world for the next year but I'll survive. That night - the night the whole thing is about? In the moment, I wasn't sure I'd survive that night. In fact, part of me was convinced I wouldn't survive. I think at the time I would have preferred death. But I did survive and now I am who I am because of bastards like that.

Because no matter what they did to me, I'm still stronger than them.

I still win.

Mysterious Hives Solved

Mystery solved.


For those who don't know, I've suffered for nearly 5.5 weeks with severe, massive welt style hives all over my entire body. I worked relentlessly on trying to figure out what the issue was. I went to doctors twice who put me on steroids that didn't seem to help me. I tried over and over to solve the issue. Body wash, fabric softeners, laundry detergent, soaps and other items were changed in the course of being a human science experiment. I tried oatmeal baths, Epsom salt baths, Benadryl creams, allergy medications; all sorts of stuff. Nothing worked. I couldn't figure out what was going on.
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It's a sudden and severe Nightshade allergy.
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Do you know what a "nightshade" is? I didn't. Well, not exactly. The term 'nightshade' may have been coined because some of these plants prefer to grow in shady areas, and some flower at night. But what exactly is THAT then?
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According to Google, a "nightshade" is a plant related to the potato, typically having poisonous black or red berries. Several kinds of nightshade have been used in the production of herbal medicines.
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Basically, Nightshades include tomatoes, white potatoes (which is any potato but a sweet potato), eggplant, bell peppers, chilies, peppers of any kind, huckleberries, and goji berries. While on the surface that sounds like it would be a pain to avoid these things, though do-able, the rabbit hole goes deeper. Nightshades are used in other things also. Paprika is a nightshade, and is used in mustard, muenster cheese, mayonnaise, many canned soups and even pickles. Potato starch is found in things like white bread, soups, canned tuna, cream cheeses, yogurts, sour cream, rice meals, and MANY other things.
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Already it sounds like a bit more of a pain in the behind, doesn't it? Well, it gets better.
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While there was discovered to be a link between auto-immune diseases and emotional trauma as of June 2017, it's not widely known that I myself suffer from something called Crohn's Disease. This is an auto-immune disease that often manifests itself in certain food sensitivities to the degree of severe pain. This means I can't eat anything difficult to digest. I'm not able to have beef, pork, dark meat chicken, oily fish, raw vegetables, carrots, all dairy products, or even wheat bread. When you combine the two issues into one diet, what you get is someone who can't have anything but boiled chicken breast and boiled, mushy vegetables now. For someone like me, intent on writing my own cookbook because of my deep love of food, it becomes far worse than that even. It becomes depressing.
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I'm fighting my way through this, just like I do everything else. I made some lemon chicken for myself on Friday in an attempt to find anything to get me through this, but my options on food are so limited that I'm now staring at a huge stack of cookbooks at home and wondering what, if anything, I can make to get me by.
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There's light at the end of the tunnel. There is a slim chance this might be a temporary allergy. If that's the case, after 4 to 6 weeks I can slowly introduce some of the nightshade items back into my food routines, but for right now a bit of green pepper or tomato that inadvertently makes it into a meal I'm eating can send my entire body into shock. Eating a sandwich somewhere like Quizno's without knowing if they put potato starch in their bread can put me right back where I was last week, and needing to start over from scratch with my time out from Nightshade.
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Nightshade might sound 'easy enough' to avoid, but I'd love to challenge any of you to do this with me. As you go, if you find items that contain any of the ingredients on the Nightshade list, you can share them with me. They're in surprising places. If you slip up, you won't have to deal with all over welt style hives everywhere, so you've got an advantage. You also have the advantage of not having Crohn's disease, so you don't also have to avoid things like dairy, red meat, and pork. I have to check quite literally everything, and cook just about every meal for myself because sandwich shops don't list ingredients for their breads, and "nightshade" isn't considered a lead allergen so it's not listed on allergy charts. People (including me) normally put tomatoes or potatoes in just about everything.

If you want to take this challenge with me, just let me know. It could be a fun experiment. It's only for 4 weeks and it's on your honor. But if you spot unusual items with Nightshade, PLEASE feel free to share them. I guess a nightshade allergy isn't all that common, but it's becoming moreso. I wish more food manufacturers were aware of this. We have allergy listings for pretty much everything else on the planet. Why not Nightshade?

Paris after Scotland

I find it oddly empowering when people ask the hard questions.  I don't know if that's because it means people finally believe me when I tell my story, or if I'm proud of myself for coming so far as to be able to respond with intelligence and patience rather than anger and frustration.  There's no defensive attitude anymore, and at one time that was the dominant trait when asked about my time in Scotland.  Honestly, I've come a long way.


KJ asked:

"Were you fearful when you left the US and traveled to Paris after going through such hell in Scotland? That sounds risky to me but everyone is different."

Another really GREAT question. Yes, I was more than just a little fearful when I went to Paris, but I also knew I wasn't going alone. I went with a dear and trusted friend. Still I looked over my shoulder constantly and peeked around every corner. I didn't trust anyone else, especially strangers, and lurked instead of walked. I was truly terrified, but I also was raised to "get back on the horse" and knew I couldn't pass up quite possibly the only chance I'd ever have to see Paris, a place I'd wanted to see all my life. I was also of the mindset that I needed to do whatever I could in order to keep myself alive the first year after my return. Part of me didn't care if I survived the trip, part of me was afraid I would.

When I returned from Scotland I started saving mementos from things I did and places I visited to remind myself when things were hard that life had sometimes been good to me. Many people do this.
Most for different reasons. But when my shadow box was done, people loved it. All the things I did, all the places I went, all the adventures I had, the letters I received, the gifts I was given - a little piece of each is inside this shadowbox. It goes with me, carefully wrapped, each time I move. It is one of my most precious physical possessions. Each piece tells a story, most of which the world will never know. It's vitally important, and on certain days it's been the only reminder I had that life was still worth living.

That partial inability to care if I lived or died was helpful when, on the last day of my travels to Paris, I found myself staying alone in a B&B in London.  I was only an 8 hour train ride from my former Prison. It had been less than a year since I had escaped back to Los Angeles.  I was terrified I'd be found.

While most people would take a full 24 hours alone in London to be something of an adventure, I stayed impossibly close to the B&B, having my breakfast in their downstairs restaurant rather than going out.  I read a book in my room rather than exploring the High Street.  When finally it was time to go to the airport I realized how much of a fabulous opportunity I was missing out on simply because of fear.  I'd never let my fear rule my life before that, why would I start all of a sudden?   I donned my brand new coat I got while in Paris only 2 days before, bundled up in my scarf and new gloves, and headed for the train.  I had enough time left ... I thought.  So, rather than heading straight to the airport from Paddington Station, I headed straight for the trains in the opposite direction.  Without ever having navigated public transportation in my entire life, I managed to navigate the London tube.  I went directly to the Tower Bridge.  I walked halfway across before looking at my watch once more and heading directly back to the train.  From there I went to the airport and went home.  But I went home with a sense of pride.  I didn't let my fear beat me into submission the way he had done for so long.  I was done letting him run or ruin my life.  I finally proved it to myself... I was strong enough to survive.  That didn't stop me from wearing a hat and scarf pulled up high at the airport, completely terrified beyond reason that he would show up at the busiest airport in the world.


The tickets to Paris are quite prominent in that shadowbox, as is my flight ticket home from London that day.

So is the return ticket to Scotland that I never used.
Look closely... you might just see it.

Paris, March 2012

London, March 2012

The "Paris" Coat as it is today.

Angry in 2014

I'd been back from Scotland for a few short years by this point.  I was still struggling to survive, trying to learn how to deal with what I had gone through, figuring out how to face myself in the mirror once more.  It was around this time that someone I'd considered to be my best friend began telling people I had been a "call girl" in Scotland because she couldn't deal with the truth of what happened to me.  It was a vulgar time in my life and I was incredibly unhappy. 

My life was spiraling out of control still and I had no idea how to reign it all in.





Amanda Blackwood
September 16, 2014 at 10:35 AM
Torrance, CA

I'M SO ANGRY!!!

I woke up confused from my dream and quickly realized I was (and should be) angry.

In every decision made in my dream, I was in the drivers seat, but someone else was controlling the truck.

Once, quite literally, I was in front of the wheel, unable to steer.

Once I was dressed in a white prom dress and married to someone I didn't know.

Once I slept on the street, homeless simply because someone refused to talk to me, saying they did it to "get a reaction" from me.

The reason I'm so angry now that I'm awake?

Because EACH of these things happened in my past. They weren't as confusing as the dreams were, but they weren't far off.

For many years I had no control over my life. I had no backbone. I had no direction. Truthfully, I had no hope.

Though I now have more direction than I did at 19 or 20 years old, I still find certain aspects are being dictated by others who should never be given that much power. They have this control because they help me to survive and not end up homeless. But those people shouldn't have that power. I'd honestly RATHER be homeless than give someone that much power or control over my life ever again!!

I fight for one reason and one reason only: my boys [cats].

If I lost my small and humble home, so would they. And so I bite my lower lip, pull back the tears, wipe away the blood and take a deep breath. I suck it up.

I am at the mercy of others.

And I'm just so angry.

Flash Back Friday

Haven't done a Flashback Friday in a little while. Here's me the week I got my last Miata, the 2015 Club Edition.

#Miata #MiataGirl #ZoomZoom #Flashbackfriday #fbf

Feeling Better

Keep those fingers crossed, there’s a SLIM chance I might have figured out what was wrong with me. I won’t go into details (don’t want to jinx me) but keep those fingers crossed and those prayers lifted. My hives were rather small this morning!


I'm finally feeling a little better!


#doyoubelieveinmiracles #miracle #hope #pray #hives #allergic #tomatoes?

Where Were You

#wherewereyou
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I remember the gas station was packed when I passed it on my way to work and people with 50 gallon barrels in pickup trucks were loading up fuel at the pumps. People were shouting and screaming. Panic was setting in around me and I bumbled my way along like the 21 year old oblivious kid I was.
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I was walking into a small cafe restaurant where I worked as a server. My coworkers were both staring up at the TV screen near the register and I had no clue what could possibly so interesting. I stood there just a moment, dumbfounded by their lack of response when I asked. One of them simply raised a hand and pointed to the news.
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I watched just a split second as a graceful Boeing 767-200 arched its way gracefully through the smoke filled air, completely oblivious that this would be the infamous United Airlines Flight 175. It flew in front of what appeared to be one of the twin towers on fire.
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It vanished through walls of glass and the world around its frame blew outward into an explosion of flames. Glass flew in all directions. My jaw fell slack and fat tears somehow emerged from my stunned face, quickly finding way to my chin and dropping to the floor.
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In that moment, I knew as I watched that the entire world was about to change. Eighteen years ago, the entire world *did* change. For a few days the entire nation was United in combined efforts to help fellow Americans. An outpouring of love and sympathy washed over New York and the United States from around the world. Phone calls poured in from London, Paris, Sydney, Rome, Berlin... around the world people wanted to rush to the aid of one of the most powerful nations in the world. We were hurting, they knew it and wanted to help.
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For a day, humanity was being humane. There was a lot of loss and confusion and anger and hatred and hurt and pain, but above all else, just as God commanded, there was love. Humanity proved their potential.
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We lost 2,977 innocent lives that day. More than 6,000 more were injured. More still were lost to suicides in the wake of the second deadliest attack ever to happen on American soil. We lose still more from medical complications, breathing in the toxic air as they rushed to save the lives of anyone they could find. The death toll for September 11, 2001 continues to grow even now.
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We shall NEVER forget.
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2,977 innocent lives.
412 Emergency Responders
25 Flight Attendants
8 Pilots
1 Single day.
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Where were you?

Chronic Hives

Hives.
Urticaria.
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"Urticaria" is the medical term for hives. Hives are raised areas of the skin that itch intensely and are red with a pale center (picture 1). Hives are a very common condition. About 20 percent of people have hives at some time during their lives.
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What does this mean in layman terms? Let me explain.
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For the past 5 weeks now I've been suffering from chronic hives. Every time I think they're getting better, something triggers them to come back full force, and usually worse than before. Today, a full 5 weeks after a rather alien looking caterpillar from another region of the country landed on me and dug toxic spore hairs into my neck and collar bone, I'm dealing with the absolute worst rash of hives I've ever experienced in my life. How do I explain what that's like?
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I woke up around midnight with my body itching while being simultaneously in pain with every welt that swells on my body. When this whole thing first started, the welts were small, about the size of a pencil eraser in diameter. While that doesn't sound exceptionally small, by comparison it certainly is. Now, five weeks into this living, breathing nightmare, the hives are the size of a silver dollar. They started out being focused mainly on my legs, and now they're from my ankles to my scalp, including in my hair. They cover every square inch of my skin, including my thighs, back, stomach, neck, and even my face. They itch terribly, like thousands of mosquito bites or chiggers digging under my skin looking for a place to lay their young. If I scratch, the pain is intense, as though someone is snuffing out a cigarette butt in my open flesh. No matter what, I constantly feel one of the two sensations - either as though insects are burrowing and biting, or as though putrid flesh is being burned away when I touch it.
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Last night around midnight I woke up from what had been a peaceful sleep to both sensations. I'd been laying on my back. My stomach, knees, legs and arms felt as though a million mosquitos tried to carry me off in the night. My back felt the burning of a billion embers as I laid on the swollen, hideous, ugly, violent red patches everywhere.
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This has been my life for 5 weeks as of today.
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I cried. First I got up and went to the bathroom where I put hydrocortisone anti-itch cream on every massive red lump emerging from my body like vulgar human pepperoni, and then I took a standing slap-bath in Calamine lotion. This resulted in my bathroom looking like a Calamine bomb went off all over the mirror, counter, floor, and rug.
Then I waddled my way painfully back into my room and attempted to lay down without getting the pink liquid chalk all over my bed sheets or cats. I failed on both accounts. Pink kitten paw prints can be seen lining my bedroom carpet and living room walkway. Oddly they match the pink 'crazy cat lady' magnet on the back of my car. Fat tears streamed from the corners of my eyes as I sobbed from frustration, pain, anger, confusion and fear. For five weeks I'd been dealing with all of this. For a few days it was not as bad... but then it came back with a vengeance. My daily life had to be put on hold yet again. I deal with chronic pain anyway since I have Crohn's Disease, but this is a new level of pain. What in the world had I done to deserve this? Why couldn't I figure it out and make it go away? Could it be some new food allergy, like tomatoes? Should I avoid eating tomatoes ever again? My lord, what if I was allergic to tomatoes?
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I finally stopped crying when JackJack jumped up to nuzzle me. I focused my efforts on petting his little head, just between his eyes and over the top of his head to his neck. He closed his eyes and purred at me, laying down on my chest and calming me down. I woke up again around 2am and took another slap-bath, another at 5am, another at 7am, and finally stopped fighting for sleep. I got ready for work and left home with a mostly empty bottle of Calamine lotion and a paint brush.
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The Calamine doesn't help very much. It takes down the swelling significantly, but the itch remains, and if I scratch the burn takes over. I'm covered in spots. A coworker tells me that I look like a 'reverse dalmatian' and I laugh so hard I snort. I feel and look like a human science experiment. And out of all this, as many people have come forward with advice on what to do, medical professionals are baffled. What's more, it's not just me.
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Over the past several months, chronic hives has been on the rise.
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I have friends who have been to see specialists but with no more of a solution than my own of a paint brush dipped in calamine lotion. Friends of friends have reached out. People who know me from my public speaking or from the books I've written have reached out, as they experience the same. It seems there's something very, VERY wrong going on in the world, and nobody is talking about it. You can find plenty of articles online about what hives are, and what *might* cause them, but good luck finding even a single news article on the massive upswing in the issue. When I was put on steroids to attempt battling my hives over a week ago, the pharmacy had completely RUN OUT of the steroid, prednisone!
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I'm not one to really buy into conspiracy theories at all. I avoid them like the plague. But there's something bigger going on, and we're all being kept in the dark... including the medical professionals. Nobody knows what to do, and I think it's causing me to lose my mind.
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Share this if you or someone you know is suffering with Chronic Hives and nobody can tell you why.
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#hives #urticaria #prednisone #chronichives #helpme

Daily Struggle

I have been struggling lately, it's no secret.  There's been a lot going on which actually HAS been kept pretty private though.  For one, I thought the hives were gone and I'd finally moved past that severe allergic reaction, but it returned yesterday.  As of tomorrow I will have been dealing with raw nerves, itchy skin, sleepless nights for 5 weeks.  I'm exhausted and sleep deprived.  I'm also trying to figure out how, while going through this physical pain, I'm going to pack all of my belongings. I'm moving in October (to a nicer neighborhood, thank goodness) so I also need to save up the money somehow for the deposit.  Of course with my current medical limitations I can't work my extra jobs in order to save up the money for the move.  This means it's another struggle.  I can't really afford food right now either.  My bumper nearly fell off my car and is currently being held on with bungee cords.  Its embarrassing - but it still runs.  Right now it's a lot.  I'm not coping well.  I'm dealing with a lot of random things coming from different angles. But I'm still alive.  I'm still here.  I'm fighting hard.  Pretty soon I'll be back on my feet.  After I move in October I'll pay less in rent every month and might have a chance to start paying off my debts.  But for now, I'm scared, I'm hurting and I'm overwhelmed.  It's a LOT.  But I'm still alive. 
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If you're struggling, you're not alone. 

From Victim to Survivor - I Am the Butterfly.

When I was a small child, a teacher once asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was told I could be anything I wanted to be. I responded by saying I wanted to grow up to be a butterfly. The teacher told me I was wrong to say that, because I would never be a butterfly. I cried. I told her that she had said I could be anything. But I only wanted to be a butterfly.


I believe that may have been a childhood premonition. I wanted to fly gracefully with bright colors to wear. Eventually I became a flight attendant. I thought that would be the end of my obsession with being a butterfly... but it wasn't. That was the outward appearance only.


It wasn't until I started talking about what happened to me 9 years ago that I truly discovered my proverbial wings. The wings of a butterfly have nothing to do with looks or beauty, and everything to do with the transformation. The butterfly literally falls apart in its cocoon, hugging it's proverbial knees in agony for months before it finally breaks free from its dark shell, emerging a completely different creation.


When I set out to start talking about my experiences, I wouldn't admit to being a survivor of human trafficking. In my head, I was simply a survivor of something terrible that didn't have a definition. As I learned more about what human trafficking was, I learned more about who I was and what I had truly survived. I've emerged from that shell of dark protection around me, of ignoring the truth, into this wildly outspoken woman who wants nothing more than to help others get through what I've overcome.


Someday I'll find the girls I left behind.
When that happens, I'll finally feel like I'm getting somewhere in this world.


Listen to my 90 minute NAASCA interview about my past by clicking on this link.
https://www.blogtalkradio.com/naasca/2019/10/10/stop-child-abuse-now-scan--2243

Image circa 2006