Trigger Warning: The following post mentions the author’s experience with fear and trauma bonds in relation to sexual exploitation and trafficking. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another blog with Morty!
I hope everyone has had a good week. Honestly, since you last heard of me, nothing has really changed. I’m still in school, still in the second phase, and still waiting on vacancies for my priority housing process. Lots of patience and good vibes let’s just say.
In the meantime though, I’ve been working more on transitioning into independent living, by working through one of my triggers. Staying home alone. I know, how silly is that? A girl in her mid-twenties and she’s nervous about staying home alone. Yup, unfortunately, yes. I struggle with the fear of being completely alone in a home and the fear of not knowing who will just show up and walk in. Obviously, I know that I’m safe here, and no one that I don’t know, can’t just show up, no matter if I’m here at a safe house or in my future apartment. But yeah, that fear doesn’t seem to go away either way. It’s something I just get better at healing and working through.
I definitely have been getting better at it and have seen some improvement myself, since the first time that I tried to stay home alone instead of my usual routine of going into the program those two days. Working through triggers is something we sometimes do unintentionally or intentionally. Meaning, that we might be aware of what is triggering us or we might have no idea that we healed from a trigger all of the sudden. Triggers can appear randomly and so having the right coping skills really comes in handy. You might’ve heard me say this before, but I’ll say it again, “Here at SHH we try our very best to work through our triggers and to trust the long process we call healing and recovery”. This is something that got repeated to me so many times during the 18 months that I’ve been here and I know that it was for a reason.
So you’re probably still wondering why would a girl in her mid-twenties have a fear of being home alone? Well, we can blame my trafficker for that. Trauma is difficult and challenging. I experienced unexpected visits from men that were his friends where I had to walk around in lingerie and basically be a crowd-pleaser. Whether it was just getting a drink for one of them, or receiving money to sexually satisfy their needs, I all of the sudden had to get my act together and get ready. Sometimes there were occasional moments where he would leave and come back after a 2-3 day binge of using. You have to understand that this for me was like the end of the world because of how attached and trauma bonded I was to him.
To help you understand more, I struggle with the same feeling I used to feel when those things happened to me. Even though I’m not experiencing it, it’s like my body does when it knows I’m home alone.
I hope that today’s blog post was okay and helpful perhaps with knowing that, no matter what your trigger is, there is no reason for you to feel ashamed about how silly it may be to someone who doesn’t understand trauma/triggers.
I’m looking forward to sharing more of my story with you and I wish you all a great weekend.
Till next time,
-Morty
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