Hello and welcome back to another blog with Morty! I hope you enjoyed last week’s blog! It was definitely one of my favourites because it reminds me that not everything has been bad. It reminds me that everything does happen for a reason. It reminds me that I one day was going to need my younger self to inspire my older self. I know firsthand that there are things that are not so easy to justify and just say “oh yeah, that happened for a reason” but as I’ve said before, it definitely does help somehow to understand even when we don’t want to understand or it’s hard to understand. In today’s blog post, I wanted to share some exciting news with all of you. It has definitely been a challenging week for me, and here is why. I recently got some news about my trafficker being arrested and being held until further notice. The other day, I was finally able to give a statement and the reason why I’m saying “finally” is because when I first tried, I had just recently left that life with him and I still hadn’t had the time and brain cells to process anything that had happened. If you would’ve asked me back then when I was with him what I was doing, I would’ve said “Oh, I’m just an escort and I occasionally work at a strip club, and he is just my boyfriend”. Looking back now, this is actually what I should’ve said instead, “Oh I’m just a victim of Human Trafficking and he is my trafficker”.
Obviously, I would’ve never in a million years been able to say that, because that’s not what I thought that was. I even remember my own face after hearing a nurse say to me, “I don’t know how else to say this, but you’ve been a victim of Human Trafficking”. I was like ” I’m sorry, Human what??”. I remember thinking to myself that there was no way and finding myself in denial. There was no way that I had been a victim of Human trafficking. I remember saying, “That’s not what Human Trafficking looks like in the movies, so it can’t be that.” But eventually, it all started to add up and make a lot more sense. It was not an easy realization. Did it take time for me to accept and move on? YUP. Do you forget everything once you heal? NOPE. Did I think that I had this “love” towards my trafficker? YUP. It’s called a trauma bond. Do you eventually lose ties and move on? YES, YOU DO. When I did my statement this week, I had to remember things that I didn’t want to remember. Sure I’ve had to bring up certain things in therapy, but that usually happened gradually when I felt more comfortable. In this case, I had to basically tell a complete stranger certain things that took me months to say to my therapist or anyone and it hurt to have to say them again. Yes, It was definitely a challenging and uncomfortable situation, but I am proud of myself. I am proud of myself because I told myself before agreeing to anything that, no matter what the final result would be, whether he was found guilty or not, I wouldn’t let it affect me or my progress. I’ve worked too hard to let a decision that’s not in my own hands to make a decision on. But I will finally feel like I did what I was so afraid of doing which was to speak my truth. I can’t disclose anything but I am really happy to say that I won’t be the only one coming forward to do a statement about my trafficker. I want to clarify that if a survivor is reading this, I want to make sure I say that, this was the decision that I wanted to make. I made it knowing that the result might be not what I wanted. However, whatever decision you end up making, it is yours and only yours to make. I did this for me to heal. No one will ever know the way you know your own story. I know there are also survivors who may have tried and didn’t get the result they wanted and honestly, you did what you could. I might also not get the result that I want, but I will make peace with it because the only person I will hurt the most if I keep dwelling on it, is me.
Thank you for reading today’s blog post and see you next week! Until next time, -Morty