What's His Name, Again? Why You Shouldn't Care

I do not CARE what his name is. I do not CARE how he died. I do not CARE about his political connections. I do not CARE what island he owned. I simply DO NOT CARE.
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The more people talk about him, the less people consider the victims. It's like someone keeps talking about my former fiancee that trafficked me as though he's so terribly important, while I'm standing in the room having to endure the conversation in order to be polite. It hurts.
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I DO NOT CARE about his name.
I care about the names of his VICTIMS.
I care about the names of the SURVIVORS.
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THESE ARE THE FACES WE NEED TO SEE EVERY TIME SOMEONE MENTIONS HIS NAME.
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Broken Bones, not Sticks and Stones

The ball sailed through the air and I leaped up to catch it in mid air. My feet landed on the ground and I ran with everything I had. I knew I could run faster than the boys, but they were bearing down on me pretty fast. I needed to grow wings if I was going to score a touch down.


I spotted the satellite dish on the ground in front of me. The yard was pretty small, so it wasn't out of bounds. I was smaller than anyone else I ever played with, both shorter and thinner, and I knew I was far more agile. I could just duck and run under it while anyone else would have to either slow way down or go around it. I headed straight for it.


We were playing two hand touch, so what happened next really took me by surprise. Bryan soared through the air and suddenly I stopped running. The ball slipped from my arms, coursed through the air and bounced out of the middle of the satellite dish, flying erratically from the awkward angle at which it bounced in the rounded shell. Meanwhile, my body fell to the ground with a sickening thud and coursing pain. I was pinned down with my foot under the chest of a guy easily 50 pounds heavier than I was.


Bryan rolled off of me and asked if I was ok. I sat up and looked around. I knew my foot was hurting, but I figured I could just shake it off.


"Give me a minute," I said. "It kinda hurts a little." I cradled my foot in my hands. The pain grew. I didn't hear the words coming from my mouth for a minute, but as I sat there I became more aware of hearing myself saying "Ow, ow, ow" over and over in a surprisingly calm and relaxed manner. I took my shoe off and slipped my sock over my throbbing foot to shove it into my shoe. My foot looked fine, nothing in the world wrong with it. I didn't even have a bruise.

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Bryan ran for the house. My mother and his were friends and we were in their back yard playing. He ran inside and both moms followed him back out. My mother was complaining of a migraine headache and had a "no nonsense" approach toward me right then.


"If your foot hurts then get up and come inside," she said harshly. It wasn't until then that I began to gently cry. I was 15 years old and had gone through amazing amounts of pain in my life up until that moment. It wasn't the pain that caused me to weep, but rather her tone and loss of compassion for my pain. The Saturday sun blazed down overhead and the heat only made it worse.


"I can't," I said. "It really hurts, Mom."


Bryan's mom, Gail, leaned over to give me a hand up. "Come on inside, Hon. We'll put some ice on it."


"Mom," I said matter-of-factly, "I think it's broken.


"Oh, it is not," she stated plainly. "If it was you'd have bones sticking out. You're fine. Now stop being such a wimp and get up."


With Gail's help, I struggled to my feet and walked on the heel of my foot toward the house. Each step was very painful and I feared my original guess was correct. Somehow I just knew my foot was broken. It had begun to go numb beyond the middle of my foot. By the time we got inside and I was sitting in the recliner, I could barely hobble on it. I hopped the last few steps.


"See," my mother said, "it's not broken or you wouldn't have been able to walk on it."


"I thought you were going to run into the satellite dish," Bryan said. "I tackled you so you wouldn't hurt yourself. I'm sorry." I nodded in appreciation. It was sweet of him to think that way.


"I was aiming for the satellite dish," I explained. "I knew you couldn't follow me and I'd be able to score a touch down." Bryan smiled. He knew his apology had been excepted.


"Straighten your foot up," Mom said to me, putting pressure on my toes trying to force my ankle straight. It wasn't until that moment that I screamed. The pain shot up through my entire body and made something in my spine tingle like an electric shock. "Oh, hush," she said to me. "You're being such a baby. You want to go home, or do you want to go back out and play?"


"I wanna go home," I said.


"Maybe it's really broken, Beth," Gail said. "I mean, it looks fine, but maybe you should go have x-rays taken."


"No, she's fine," my mother insisted. "Manda, just sit there for a while and take it easy. When you feel better you can go back out and play."


I watched TV with Gail and my mother for a good hour and my foot only got worse. Occasionally my mother would push up on my toes again and each time I would scream out in agony.


"Manda, I have a headache," she explained. "I don't feel like putting up with this today. If you want to go home, then get to the car."


I thought about the 30 or so concrete steps leading the way up to Gail's house from where we had parked. One handrail lined the steps. I couldn't imagine going all the way down those stairs on my own.


"Will you give me a hand, Mom?"


"No, you can make it. You just have to suck it up. You're fine." I hopped to the door, Bryan giving me a hand out to the top of the stairs. "Let her do it," my mother told him. Bryan obeyed and let go of my arm. I grabbed hold of the hand rail, leaned part way over it to rest my body weight on the railing, and slid down to the next step. I paused a moment, leaned again, and slid again. Each time I would land on my left leg, the jarring would cause my right foot to flair up in pain again. It progressed, getting worse and worse with each step.


Nearly to the bottom, my mother decided to give me a hand. "It's probably just a sprained ankle," she said, finally willing to admit that I was actually hurting. She opened the car door and helped me inside.


That night when dinner was ready I couldn't traverse the stairs even with the hand rail to lean on. I got on my hands and knees and crawled up the stairs to the dinner table. My parents scorned me, called me a baby, and told me to grow up. I wanted to cry, but I knew that I was stronger than that. I'd show them, I thought. I could feel the skin around my foot tightening as it swelled to an unnatural size.

That night sleep was fleeting. It was Sunday morning when I sat up and pulled the blankets back from my throbbing foot. I called to my mother who came down reluctantly. I hollered down the hallway that my foot was swollen.


"Well Manda, you probably sprained it," she repeated her guess from the day before as she walked into my room. Then her eyes fell upon my foot, now swollen to 3 times its original size. It resembled the football I had been playing with when it all happened. "Uh," her tone changed, "Manda, get dressed. I'm going to take you to the hospital.


Three metatarsals, numbers 2, 3 and 4 were broken. Here I thought it would be bad if I had broken one bone in my foot, but to break three was really justice! I had wanted to show them all that I wasn't stupid or childish or wimpy. I wanted to show them that I had actually taken real pain without whining about it or crying constantly like what even I thought a typical girl would. I hadn't even complained when having to crawl on my hands and knees to the dinner table. I was, for once, justified.


Mom's face softened when she saw the x-rays. My three middle toes were snapped in the middle of my foot. Somehow my big toe and pinkie toe metatarsals were fine, which made no sense to any of us. Mom put her arm around my shoulder while the doctor placed my foot on a metal rail in order to keep my ankle straight. Then he began to wrap it in white gauze. The bones in my foot were never set.


"It's actually a good thing you waited a day to come in," he said. "We couldn't have wrapped it up yesterday because of the swelling. As it is, this will be a temporary cast," he explained as he held out several colors for me to choose from. I pointed to the purple. "This cast will have to be cut off in a week when the swelling goes down, and another one will have to be put on." He dipped the casting material in liquid and began to wrap the white gauze with the purple mesh.


The entire way home my mother asked if there was anything I wanted, stopped to buy me some new art books and fun games, even a new set of colored pencils. She bought some flavored ice pops and sodas, some candy and gum, chocolates and all sorts of goodies for me. I got to sleep in the guest room upstairs that night, closer to them, so she could keep an eye on me and I wouldn't have to crawl up to the kitchen. I slept in the antique bedroom set we weren't even allowed to touch as kids. I used my mother and fathers bathroom, had my mom brush my hair a few times (that always puts me to sleep, even now) got whatever I wanted, was never questioned for being out of bed in the middle of the night for a drink of milk and was doted on out of pure guilt by my mother.


The temporary purple cast came off and the new white cast went on for an additional 5 weeks, and for a full 5 weeks I felt like a princess. I still wanted to go out to play and couldn't, so by the end of the 5 weeks I was more than ready to hit the door running - with one leg slightly less dense than the other. It was a good 3 inches thinner in diameter than the other and had the occasional scratch mark on it from where I stuck a ruler down the cast to scratch at the itching surface. My father taught me how to do that...


During the time I was in a cast I couldn't participate in gym class. This started a new adventure for me that I'll never forget - reading to the Special Needs class. But that's also a story for another day.



Here I am with another break - on the same foot. What adventures await me this time?

The Blessing of a Good Teacher - WHY Teachers Shouldn't Blame Themselves for Everything.

Sometimes I wonder if my "telling all" like I do is actually more selfish than anything else. I'm able to purge some bad memories by writing about them, and I manage to reach a lot of people who think I'm terribly brave for sharing my story. Of course I don't do it for the praise - and in fact I'm terrible about taking compliments as they're meant to be taken. Still, when I talk about the past and when I tell the entire world about what I went through, does it hurt the people who knew me then? There aren't many, but there are a few of them still around.


One of my most favorite people is a teacher who knew how to handle kids with behavioral issues when I was in the fifth grade. He's a friend of mine on Facebook, and he's been incredibly kind since I found him online several years ago. Still, I can't help but to notice he's never commented on or acknowledged any of my lengthy posts about the abuse I suffered or how I came back from Hell a stronger person. I have to wonder if that's because it hurts him in some way. I've asked, but I have yet to receive a response. Maybe he's like me and needs time to process. Maybe it's too hard to say. I can't imagine what it must be like to be a teacher, helping to raise someone else's children every year, trying to guide them through life, helping them to make the right decisions, teaching right and wrong. A teacher does so much more than teach writing and arrhythmic. As much as I learned from him, does he ever feel like there was more he could have taught?


I did a good job, even at that young age, to hide the abuse I'd been suffering through. No child is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but what would have been different if I'd told someone what I was going through? Would I have been taken away and put in foster care at a younger age? Would my family have received the counseling they needed? Would certain family member have been forced to own their mistakes and admit to what they'd done to one another, to themselves, or to me? What IF I had told my beloved teacher about the abuse? Would I have been believed? Chances are, no. There were many times through the years when my parents were reported for abuse, even times when I denied it vehemently (rightfully so in those times), and no matter what they always ruled that it was a safe home and I would go back. Even when I was in foster care at 17 years old, they eventually sent me back home saying that there was no proof of abuse after a 'thorough' investigation where nobody ever talked to me or asked me a single question.


To all the teachers out there who have ever had students later in life admit to suffering abuse before, during or after their time with that teacher, I want to let you know - just like all the victims and survivors out there - it's not your fault. You did nothing wrong. You can't read minds. There's no way you can know if a child is being abused 100% of the time. If you see marks and bruises, that's one thing. But there are many forms of abuse that will never leave a single mark on a child. The abuse is not your fault. The inability to report what you can't see isn't your fault. The abuse itself is not your fault. NONE of it is your fault.


YOU are innocent. Keep doing what you do. Keep shaping those young minds. Keep working to guide and teach the kids, just the way you did for me. In the end, when I'm looking back on my life, you were one of the few good memories of that time. I wouldn't take that away for anything in the world. I needed a good teacher - and there you were.

P.S. - I'm the one in pink.

The Problems with Therapy - Early Experience Breeds Distrust

I'm nervous.

It's not the kind of nervous that you get before going on a blind date or the first day at a new job. That kind of nervous is usually considered to be butterflies in the stomach. This isn't that kind of nervous. This is more of the heart palpitation, heart beating in my throat during some extremely stressful moment in my past when I genuinely feared for my life. I know I shouldn't be that kind of nervous, but I am still. It's been a rough few weeks for me, there's no two ways about it, but it's just therapy. It's just a counselor. And yet ... it's a counselor. It's a therapist. It's a shrink, as I would have said for the past 25 years now. But now I have to change my way of thinking if I actually want to make this work. I need the help. I've been through a lot. I can only learn so much with my own psychological research. I need a professional. But is she ready for me? I've been through a lot. Anyone who knows me knows this.

My stomach was terribly upset and I was unable to digest my breakfast this morning.  I paced back and forth, antsy and impatient, staring at the clock, wishing it would freeze and simultaneously wishing it was already tomorrow so it was done and over with already.  Finally it was time. I headed for the door, physically ill. 

* * * * * * * * * * *

"Have you ever been to a therapist before," she asked me.  It was an innocent enough question, but the floodgates opened and suddenly I was bawling without knowing exactly why other than my intense fear of therapists.  It wasn't like I'd been molested by one or anything, but I certainly didn't trust them.  I had good reason not to.  Yet she had a kind face and I was pretty sure I could take her in a fight.  I laughed at myself amid the tears. Of course I wouldn't fight her.  I don't fight.  Not like that.  She looked confused over my tears at her question.  I knew I had to answer.  I swallowed, took a breath, and focused.  Amid sobs I finally spoke.

"I have, yes.  I was fifteen and she messed me up for a long time."  Her expression changed only slightly, but to one of incredulous despair instead of just surprise.  I wanted to let her know everything at once but it's impossible to tell an entire life history with a whimper so I knew I had to find my words.  I just did a full 90 minute interview over the public radio talking about all the traumas of my life, why was this one in particular so hard? In fact, I'd even talked about this particular trauma over the radio too - but I wasn't speaking to a therapist and that was the difference.  I had to tell the therapist about the therapist who gave me issues with therapists.  How well was that going to go over? 

"I was fifteen when my parents took me.  But let me back up a little.  When I was 4 years old my mother took both my brother and me to the doctor because she'd known a friend who had her kids put on Ritalin for them having too much energy.  My mom decided we had too much also, so away we went.  They put my brother on it for ADHD but they said I was fine.  So my mother didn't believe them and started breaking my brother's pills in half and giving them to me.  About a year later she took me off for a few days and took me back to the doctor, but at that point I was already addicted to them I'm sure, plus I had other behavior issues too.  We'll get into that later," I prepared her.  "So since I was having issues and drug withdrawals they put me on these pills too.  When I was fifteen I took myself off of them but I didn't tell anyone. I just knew I didn't need them.  Of course I was going through drug withdrawals, and by that point I'd been molested by three different people - two were family members and one was a total stranger - and I was having all sorts of issues.  The total stranger in the Hastings parking lot when I was 14 was the reason I stopped taking the pills, I think.  Anyway, I took myself off.  So my parents thought I was suicidal and I was having all sorts of other problems like running away from home and skipping school and stuff, so they took me to a therapist they picked out.  The therapist put me on Klonopin, Paxil, Prozac - all these anti-psychotic drugs, and I didn't take them either. I didn't want a pill. I didn't want a bandaid.  I wanted to know why I was so angry and hurt and feeling like an abused kid but not having any bruises to show for it.  So then  the therapist told me something... She told me "if you want your dad to like you, or really any man, you have to find something in common with them. Men and women think differently.  If you don't make the effort and find something in common with them, they won't be interested in you."  And do you know what kind of damage that did to me? I thought I'd found the secret to the universe!  If I wanted people to like me, all I needed to do was like what they liked.  I did that in every single relationship, romantic or otherwise, for YEARS! The damage was done!  First, I wasn't good enough for my Dad to make an effort to like me unless I made him, second, pills were a band-aid for any emotional hurt, and third, I lost myself in every relationship I ever had.  Have you see "The Runaway Bride" with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts?  There's a part in it where he says to her that she doesn't know how she likes her eggs.  When she was with one guy he liked them scrambled so she had hers scrambled too.  When she was with another, he liked poached so she liked poached.  Yet another, he liked omelets so she liked omelets. She didn't know how she liked her eggs.  That was me.  That was me for a long time every time I got to know someone new.  I learned how to become 'the perfect girl' for them, and I did that for a long time.  For a little while, until I turned 18 I counted how many times someone would tell me I was "the perfect girl" and the number would surprise you.  I was so messed up from that.  I was so messed up because of a therapist that I never trusted them after that.  I've been sick for the last several days, scared to death of coming here and being here.  Scared of meeting you.  Scared you'd want to give me some pills to make my life magically better.  Pills don't make life better.  They're not a fix.  Eventually Julia Roberts in that movie realized she didn't even like eggs."

I was sobbing.  I don't remember when I started, I don't remember when I reached down to grab a tissue from the box.  I just know I needed a second one because the one I had was soaked. 

It was amazing how much of my adult life could be summed up in that simple story that took only 10 minutes to tell a stranger. 


"She didn't even like eggs."



So what were my eggs, I kept thinking?  I didn't like classic cars when I went to therapy, but my dad did so I learned to like cars.  I used that in probably 3 dozen previous relationships.  I didn't like modern Motorsports when I was a kid, but I learned to because all the boys did.  I didn't like horror movies when I was growing up but I learned to because my ex-husband did.  I didn't like running, but I did it anyway because Pete did.  I didn't like gardening, but I did it anyway because he needed me to.  I didn't like letting total strangers have sex with me against my will, but I did it anyway because he told me to. 

And I never liked any of those eggs.

Experts vs. Survivors - My Latest Radio Interview with NAASCA

I have a number of friends who have survived human trafficking (we met through anti-trafficking groups) and one thing I've become quite aware of is that most of us don't have a voice. Everyone wants to be an 'expert' on human trafficking, but most of the 'experts' have honestly NO CLUE what it means to be a survivor. They just know statistics. I am not a statistic. I am a voice in the darkness, hurting and scared, but growing louder in spite of what is being done to me.


I just did a 90 minute radio interview on Wednesday with NAASCA, please feel free to listen to my story. Just know, I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not afraid of answering the hard questions.


https://www.blogtalkradio.com/naasca/2019/10/10/stop-child-abuse-now-scan--2243

Spread Love and Kindness to this Child Please!

This little man is expected to live only another 2 to 3 months. He's requested that he receive 'a card from every state' and I thought you guys might like to show him how far the love can reach.

PLEASE - some simple guidelines.

No "get well soon" messages. He isn't' expected to get well.
He's only 10 so please refrain from cursive if you can.
Don't forget to write what state it's from inside the card!
If you don't know what to say, keep it simple. "Greeting from (YOUR STATE HERE), where the weather is ___ degrees today."

How many of you would like to participate? Can we get some cards from other countries? Would you share this post to help him get more? Let's flood this precious kiddo with lots of love.

Send them to:

"Jack"

719 Mosgrove

Apt. # 1

Urbana, OH 43078

Yeah, my handwriting isn't great....

How Your Porn Addiction is Killing People Like Me - Human Trafficking and the Porn Industry

How Your Porn Addiction is Killing People Like Me - Human Trafficking and the Porn Industry



My ex-fiancee and former trafficker, pretending to be me, posted HUNDREDS of 'fantasy' stories online in different forums - gang rape fantasies, group orgy fantasies, intimate encounter stories - all of them while pretending to be me, and all of them listing MASSIVE amounts of details - things that actually happened to me without my consent. Then he posted some photos to go along with the stories; photos stolen from my current social media pages, photos of me being raped, and photos of me participating in sexual acts against my will with both men and women. This all surfaced less than a month ago and it sent my world into a momentary spiral. I say it's only momentary for me because I'm inherently a fighter. I guess that's rare in the world I came from. Less than 2% of all trafficking victims survive, and many who get out alive don't survive the first year. They succumb to suicide.


That's not to say that I'm not in a lot of pain. I will start seeing a therapist soon, trying to work through a lot of these recently resurfaced emotions - things I'd hoped I would never have to deal with again, like fear, shame, anger, frustration, guilt - guilt for things that weren't my fault.... I even talked to a lawyer yesterday and wrote to a news outlet that has been adamantly fighting human trafficking. He exposed my naked body and sexual organs to the entire world. Now, no matter how much it hurts me, I plan to expose what he's done to the world at large, too. This might put my life in danger, but I'll do it anyway because I refuse to ever be the victim again. In my past I'd been raped, victimized, sold, traded, starved and molested. It's all happening again right now through various pornography outlets.


You're an innocent bystander, you say. You didn't do this to me. You wouldn't support a rapist or any form of human trafficking, you say. You'd never do that to someone, you defend yourself. You aren't the guilty party who raped or molested or sold me. I don't want to be angry at you. You are right, you didn't do this to me. It's not your fault this happened to me. You aren't a rapist. And while I can rationalize at least that much in my head, what I can't get past is that it's people like you who are making sure that what he does is getting seen by more people. You're still the end user. You're the consumer. You make what he did to me entirely possible. You participate. I don't care if you've actually seen these photos and 'fantasy stories' or not - if you still participate, if you're still the end user, if you still click on the stories, if you still look at the photos, if you still go to the pornography sites, then YOU MAKE IT POSSIBLE. You could today see these things about me today, you could see them tomorrow. If you're still the end user, you're still running the risk of seeing all of this stuff about me... Do you have any idea how that makes someone like me feel?


If you are consuming pornography, just know that I'm not alone. All that dopamine being released into your brain from your instant gratification? Most of us are unwilling participants. Most of us don't want to be there. And... just like me for a very long time... a lot of us don't even know that we are.

 Do you have any idea of the suicide rate of those who later find out, after rebuilding a life?

The Lasting Abuse of Family Members - Bullied for Decades

My mother posted a photo of me as a 13 year old kid saying that I was never a 'real' redhead on her own page for all the public to see.

She did this thinking it would 'damage' me (she was always maliciously abusive) and she was hoping to break down my charity and my speaking out against human trafficking.

I'm the founder of "Redheads Unite" on Facebook and run several Natural Redhead pages on social media. My charity does Redhead events, but all the money raised goes to help fight human trafficking because I'm a survivor of trafficking and abuse. I've written books about it.

She claims I'm not a redhead.
She claims I was never trafficked.
She claims I was never raped.
She claims that my brother never molested me.

But what bothers me the most about all of this?

She bleached my hair blonde when I was 16 because she HATED my real hair color, She used to tell me it was "a horrible mouse gray color" all the time.  Eventually It turned CARROT orange when she tried to bleach my hair blonde because of all the natural red in my hair. Yet she has the gall to try claiming I've never been a 'real' redhead.

Sometimes the bullying we get in life doesn't come from kids in school.




The first photo is from when I was 22 and letting my hair grow out. I didn't do anything to it. This is 100% natural hair, ratty mess and all. The second photo is from yesterday - Seventeen years later.

It was red back then, it's red now.

 You can't let the perpetually angry people effect your life or your mission with their blatant, obvious lies about you. Moving on with your life and enjoying it in SPITE of people like that will always be the best revenge.


Tell your truth. People will find something to hate if they want to. That petty stuff just doesn't matter.

She was a mother some of the time. I do have random fond memories of coloring my Smurf coloring book with her when I was four. I remember making jokes with her, dancing in the living room to Elvis songs, and laughing at my dog barking at "The Thunder Rolls" on the stereo because the dog hated thunder so much - and laughing harder when the dog bit the speaker. There were good moments. There just weren't enough of them.

Digging Deep - Realizing I Survived Human Trafficking

I didn't know enough to call it human trafficking back then. I just thought it was "horror beyond description" until I learned a lot more about it.

Don't get me wrong, I knew it was something horrible the first time it happened to me when I was 19 and was raped before I was sold to "Esteban" to do with as he pleased.  I knew that was possibly trafficking of a sort, but since I hadn't been forced into prostitution, I wasn't quite willing to admit to it yet.  It wasn't until I went to an anti-trafficking convention in Highlands Ranch, CO in February 2017 that I finally understood that it was, indeed, human trafficking. The truth hit me like a sledgehammer.  Still I wasn't willing to give any thought at all to the Scotland incident of 2011, when I was 31 years old.  Trafficking victims were usually very young. The fact that I was 19 the first time it happened was already unusual. It never even entered my brain that what I experienced at 31 years old was, in fact, human trafficking. 

That meeting in February 2017 was the first time in my life I ever admitted out loud that I was a survivor of human trafficking.  I first admitted it to myself that morning, but only to myself.  It settled in for a little while, and the words bounced off the inside of my skull like rubber balls on a trampoline.  Later on when they opened the floor to questions from the audience, there was a panel of five people sitting on stage.  I didn't know how to ask my question, and I certainly didn't know how to say the words out loud since they were still actively scrambling around inside my confused and angry brain.  I raised my hand, waiting for the mic to be delivered to me.  The representative walked to where I sat and held out his hand.  I was in the second row, nobody in front of me, sitting alone.  Slowly I stood up, my legs shaking, my hands trembling, and reached for the mic.  I didn't do a very good job of holding it. The large audience was quiet, waiting for me to ask my question. The panel of five stared at me intently, curious to know what I would be asking. My voice cracked at the first syllable and I took only a split second to regain my composure before cracking again. 

"I... I was a victim - "I froze.  So did the audience.  I couldn't finish the sentence.  A minor gasp here and there sounded through the auditorium.  I couldn't speak for a second.  The panel of five sat there looking at me for a moment, and I think one of them spoke but my head was so cloudy with the tears I was fighting back that I couldn't retain anything.  I continued after a long moment.  "I was curious," my voice wavered.  I was terrified, and severely stage fright.  "How long does it take for the victims you rescue to have a normal life?" I was finding my voice, and the more I thought in that moment about the twisted life I'd lived, the more angry I got about it.  "Because I got away 18 years ago and I'm still struggling."

Nobody spoke.  The man who started this whole conference, John DeYoung, looked across the panel of people sitting on stage with him. One was an FBI agent, one was a local police officer, one was a woman who dedicated her life to helping the victims receive care, counseling and safe housing.  They were all the people out there fighting for victims that I didn't know even existed. They were the people I needed in my life all those years ago and didn't know how to find.  I just wanted a normal life and I didn't know how to find it.  Surely they could help me, could they not? It wasn't until later that I realized they already had, just by giving me the knowledge that I needed all those years to be able to call a spade a spade.  To know what I had lived through, and to know it had a name... that was the beginning of my recovery.  It wasn't much of a beginning at the time, but it's turned into a life changing moment for me and I'm eternally grateful.

"That's a good question," one of them responded.  "I don't even know where to start," said another.  Finally, the FBI agent spoke.  "Thank you for speaking up," he said, all five of them staring me in the face as I stood in place, still shaking.  "That's not an easy thing to do, to say you were a victim.  But you're not a victim anymore. You're a survivor now."  I felt a tear escape the corner of my eye and quickly find its way to the portion of my shirt aligned just under my chin.  The entire audience erupted into applause and I hung my head in shame and pride.

The lady in charge of recovery spoke again.  "Yes, thank you for speaking up.  The recovery time varies, depending on what they've gone through and who they are as people.  There are a lot of factors involved.  If they were young or older when they were trafficked, how long they were trafficked, what all they lived through, who trafficked them... some of them never really recover at all.  Some of them recover quickly and live productive, normal lives.  It's on a case-by-case basis." 

I know they continued talking for several more moments.  I don't remember everything that was said, other than they urged me to find counseling to be able to talk about my past.  I cringed at the thought - I had bad experiences with therapists in the past.  I didn't trust them.  I managed to listen to everything else they had to say but don't remember much of anything about it.  I sat there, dazed. 


I had a copy of my book, Detailed Pieces of a Shattered Dream, and I knew that the man speaking on stage who made me realize that it was the truth about my past was someone I needed to meet - I barely remembered that his name was John at that point.  I didn't know how to make that happen until he got off the stage at the end of the Q&A segment and headed toward the back of the auditorium. I darted to the back before he got there, intent on cutting off his exit and introducing myself quickly.  Simply handing him my book, I thanked him for the things he said on stage and for what he did. I didn't say much else.  He hugged me, asked for my contact info, gave me his card, and excused himself.  He was clearly in a hurry. 

I started attending the Shift Freedom meetings once a month after that.  It was probably only a few short months before the memories of Scotland that I'd worked so hard to repress began to feed their way back into my consciousness.  Some of the talks about what human trafficking actually means started to spark memories in me. I grew more and more angry.  I still wasn't willing  to talk about it until one day that same FBI agent was at one of the smaller meetings.  I was sitting with a couple of other survivors I'd met along the way, and my best friend.  My courage was growing.  Finally, in a fit of frustration, and anger mixed with determination, I responded to a comment the FBI agent made about the difficulties of prosecuting across international borders.  Scotland seemed farther away than ever in that moment.  While I wanted it as far away as possible, I also knew that it meant my chances of ever seeking justice for what had been done to me were slipping away quickly.  I needed to learn how to speak up, and quickly.  I'd tried to fight when I first got back from Scotland and he tried to sabotage the life I'd built for myself, but I failed and saw it as a solid defeat. 

It's now been two years.  I've been a public speaker for Shift.  I'm now outspoken about being a survivor of human trafficking.  Stage Fright is gone.  And finally, I now see that first failure as nothing more than just me trying to figure out where things stood.  Now that I know more about what everything actually was that I lived through, now I can begin to fight.  I've come a long way in 1.5 years.  But I still have a long way to go.

In the famous words of John Paul Jones, 

"I have not yet begun to fight!"

I Am The Storm

I AM the storm.
.
I just told off some stranger who said people expect everything in life to be handed to them. Especially pretty girls - and he gestured at me. Don't you know that got my fires started.
...
I stood up in the middle of Starbucks and talked to someone I knew nothing about and gave him a full education. I talked about how I left school before graduation. I made sure he knew I was a human trafficking survivor and former rape victim who works to help keep others from that same fate. I explained about how I was homeless once as I was trying to escape trafficking; how I fought to not only survive, but to better my own situation through hard work and dedication. I talked about how I personally took down an embezzlement ring by myself, how I once started as a phone receptionist and ending as a Director of Sales and Marketing for North and South America at a Japanese company, about how I started out as a basic, run-of-the-mill mall cop and ended up the head of Safety and Security in less than 5 months time. I even told him how I beat the odds and battled against my forced captivity and starvation only five years ago in Scotland.

And then I told him what I expect to be handed to me at the end of every day.

Absolutely NOTHING.

I am the storm.

Keep Speaking, No Matter Who Says Not To

There will always be those who ask you to not speak out against violence or against oppression and ESPECIALLY not against human trafficking. I get people asking me to step down pretty consistently, but I would have to say it’s probably one in every thousand people I meet.

If you speak out, keep doing what you’re doing. If someone has an issue with it, they don’t know what to do with the information they are given. Perhaps they are protecting someone they know, even possibly themselves. The weak will never dictate the lives of the strong as long as the strong don’t bend to the will of others.

I will never stop telling my story, and so many others will only get the chance if you keep telling yours.

Come listen to my interview on October 9th speaking with NAASCA.

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