Aaaa! I’m so frustrated today.  When you don’t know what you’re missing, you don’t know what you’re missing.  Obvious statement I know, but it’s become all too close to the forefront of my mind today.  To be cared for, to be loved… you might as well be speaking Dutch.  I don’t think I know a single word of Dutch.  In the same, I only speak a few words of this language people call “love.”  I just don’t understand it.  I want to understand it, but I don’t.  Life was much simpler when I lived in isolation– when I took care of myself, never asking for help, never looking for community support.  I’m not saying it was a better life, but it was simpler.

As I continue to heal, as I continue to become “healthier,” I learn more and more about what I haven’t had.  An ache that we’re all born with is being reignited in my soul.  A desire to be taken care of, protected, loved, appreciated and honored is long since something I’ve done away with.  Those desires have been safely suffocated by years of neglectful layers.  I had all but fully convinced my fiercely independent self that I had absolutely no need for such childish aspirations.

Yet… here comes God and His crafty intervention, ever asking for personal improvement.  With the community I have now, I find myself getting tastes of what I’ve missed, and I find myself wanting more.  Dammit.  Against all my dedicated attempts, I find myself wanting love.  I remember the specific moment in my life when I promised myself I would never desire such a vulnerable thing again.  I had been hurt, rejected, let down and taken advantage of for an infinite number of times and I decided at that point to be totally self-soothing.  I would never again need any help from any person, no care, no acceptance of affection from another human being ever again.  I had me and that was all I knew I could handle.  “Me” was the only person I knew I could count on.  “Me” was the only entity that I thought wouldn’t cause me pain.

Fast forward to today and I find myself faced with quite the contradiction.  My heart wants to be cared for but my mind does not trust it.  It’s torture.  I also realize the confusing dichotomy that rules which applied to my old life, do not necessarily apply to my new life…. meaning that because people could not be trusted then, does not mean that people cannot be trusted now.  They’re not the same people, I’m not the same person… really, nothing is the same.  Yet, I still find myself fighting.  I want to spend an hour in the hug of a friend I trust, and yet I will literally hate myself for even the want to do so.

And so my journey continues.

May this blog serve as an education to those who do not yet know or understand the atrocities of trafficking and may it serve as an encouragement to those who understand it all too well.

(Post originally written 12/05/12)

Here’s a question I’ve never been wanting to ask for immense fear of the answer.  What’s wrong with me? I mean really, what’s wrong with me??  Why has no one wanted me?  Was I really such a bad kid, a bad baby?  Did I cry too much?  They said I cried a lot.  As I got older, they said I was too sensitive.  Was I too ugly, too fat, top stubborn, too much trouble?

Was it because I was disrespectful to them that they hated me so much?

I remember from her… I remember my mother repeatedly telling me that “I wasn’t hers, she had no daughter, you’re not good enough to be my daughter.” Maybe that was it… Maybe it was because I had a hard time with spelling… I still remember her laughter when I made mistakes.

I remember from him… “you’re worthless!” being said over, and over and over… I never remember  “I love you”, I never remember a hug… Not that I would have wanted one anyway.  The only physical contact I remember was playing Horsey when I was a little kid (a pleasant enough game) but then the violence of the day that usually overshadowed previous joy and any chance at safety.

I never, never, remember her holding me to comfort me.  Why wouldn’t she do that?  Why was I so repulsive? Why was I so bad?  Why couldn’t I just be good?  If I were good than I wouldn’t have been tied to a bed post for over 7 hours until I apologized — never mind that I specifically recall not even knowing why I was in trouble.  But if I were “good” maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

If I were good than maybe somebody, somewhere down the line would have wanted me.  I used to lie awake on nights when I was so young and long for the death of my parents.  I’d long for someone to come and rescue me and for a real family to be mine someday.  I’d wonder if I’d ever have the courage to be bad enough to get my parents in trouble.  (It took some 10 years for that day to come, and I still to this day feel guilt for it.)

Why have I never been good enough to keep around, good enough to be wanted by someone other than God.  The number 1 question of my adolescence respondents loud in my mind again tonight… WHY?  They would have never sold my brother, he was too good… but they sold me, so I must have been too bad.

Maybe I’m just too far gone. Intellectually I know this is all a lie, but the forceful question has still left a scar on my heart.

May this blog serve as an education to those who do not yet know or understand the atrocities of trafficking and may it serve as an encouragement to those who understand it all too well.

(Post originally written 9/22/12)

The healing process is no simple or sweet.  To heal from trauma one grieves the moments of happiness they lost.  Healing forces you to rip off protective scabs and pick away at the true cause of infection.  It’s a bitter process.  Below is a journal entry from a night of my healing when I felt particularly bitter.   I don’t share it because I want pity for my pain.  I share it because I want people to understand that it’s work, damn hard work to get through and heal from brokenness.  I want others to understand that it’s ok to be authentic in this struggle because there IS hope ahead.

“I don’t know what to do.  I have to get out of here- I have to get out of this pain- I have to run.  Feeling hurts just too damn bad- just too damn bad.  How do I do this, how to I get out safely?  How?  How is it ok to feel these feelings?  The pain is so deep it’s as if it will kill me itself.  The knife of despair twists tight against my gut, making every breath a battle.  Why do people choose to feel this?  Why- no – HOW is it supposedly healthy?  How can this much pain be healthy?

I’ve got to run, I’ve got to run, to leave, but there’s no where to go. Stuck. My 5 letter cuss word. STUCK. I feel stuck. Everything I need  to comfort me is just out of reach or off limits. I’m not going to go speed in my car, there’s nothing quiet to hit, I shouldnt drink, I won’t let myself cut, it’s stupid to think that empty sex would fill any void, my prayers feel feeble and I can’t type or write fast enough for the emotion to be expressed at the magnitude it needs to be. There’s no drug, legal or illegal that I’d chose and so I sit. Sit in the pain and try to write as damn fast as I possible can until the moment subsides. Still- the only phrase I can think of to express is low on the intelligence spectrum… F–k it. F–k it all. That’s all I’ve got tonight… Just a fuck basket full of angry and a longing heart waiting for God to comfort me.”

So much of what I was taught growing up was to stuff emotions, to not feel.  I couldn’t feel if I wanted to survive, I just couldn’t.  The emotion would have killed me back then.  So it was good at that time, for me to go numb.  It was necessary.  It’s now far less necessary and I understand that to truly be healthy I must emote… this just happens to be an incredibly painful process for a “newbie” such as me.

May this blog serve as an education to those who do not yet know or understand the atrocities of trafficking and may it serve as an encouragement to those who understand it all too well.

(Post originally written 8/16/12)

“Woe is me.” the phrase does no one any good, ever.  I’d be lying though if I said that I’d never had one of those moments…  Or many of those moments.

Life seems to go wrong in just one too many areas.  You think you’re winning, only to find out the loss is an inning away.  You find a miracle to pay for one repair and then the car starts to make funny noises.  A death is remembered, another realized, the bank balance is red and health is fading.  That’s life. You want to throw in the towel and say, “I give.  I’m done.  You win.”  But again, that’s life.  I have to be too stubborn to give up, even when I want to.

One particular evening has been coming to memory a lot lately… An evening where I just wanted to give up.  I had been sent to see a new guy that night.  From his demeanor I could  quickly guess that he was kinky and loved the rough sort of sex.  Without going into unnecessary detail, I’ll say that I found myself in a bathtub and in fear of my life that night.  Managing to get away from this demon with only terror and a few cuts and bruises, I felt as though I’d won.

Reality then set in as I snuck my way back home, only partially clothed.  As I went, I tried to figure out what to tell my father (my pimp). No sex = no money and since I ran out on the crazy guy, I was returning with no money.  Fostering a strong spirit denial, by the time I entered through our garage I had myself convinced that he would understand I was in danger and would not be as angry.  I was wrong and was punished greatly that night.

It wasn’t the physical pain of a beating or fear of the John that impacted me the most from that night.  It was this doomed feeling that I couldn’t win.  No matter what, I was stuck loosing and so why even try?  I felt that feeling today and hated it just as much now as I did then.

Please God, help me find an area of “winning” that I can hang on to. Allow hope to scream its pride loudly in my life.

May this blog serve as an education to those who do not yet know or understand the atrocities of trafficking and may it serve as an encouragement to those who understand it all too well.

(Post originally written 8/14/12)

I ran into a bit of trouble today.  As I began to process it, all I could think of was how much I wanted a mom .

I hate myself so much for that… go ahead, scold me for that hate if you like, but it’s the truth of how I feel.  I’m an adult, who in a moment of need, is desperately longing for a kind mother to hold me.  Someone who will, in a trite way, tell me that everything’s going to be alright… like those moms on TV always do.  I hate this because it makes me feel childish instead of independent, weak instead of strong.

Thinking back over my life I can’t help but wonder how different things would have been if I’d had a mother I could talk to, one I didn’t have to take care of all the time.  I wonder what it would have been like to sit down for an awkward birds and the bees talk at the right age.  I wonder how her hair would have smelt tucking me into bed.  What would it have been like to argue with a mother and yet know, deep down, that she loved me.

I can’t even tell you how deep the pain stings to not be able to pick up a phone and have someone who’s known me from childhood answer.  I don’t miss… the mother I grew up with… I guess because I never really had her.  She was a woman who helped facilitate my abuse, not protect me.  So when I left my trafficking situation, I left her as well.

Many girls who end up in trafficking situations have dysfunction, abuse, neglect or absence in their family.  Whether they’re trapped by a boyfriend, a stranger, or a parent, brokenness in the relationship between child and mother or child and father is a common unifier.  Someone asked me recently, “What’s the best way prevent trafficking?”  The list of solutions are difficult but really rather straight-forward: adopt, foster, mentor, strengthen families, disciple.  In short, love unconditionally.

May this blog serve as an education to those who do not yet know or understand the atrocities of trafficking and may it serve as an encouragement to those who understand it all too well.

(Post originally written 8/8/12)