u/1madmom

I’m excited because I feel like I’ve come to a place where I am ready to let go of subconscious beliefs, and thought patterns from my setback that no longer serve me in my comeback.

I’m also terrified. I almost want to just forget my appointment. I tried EMDR before. It’s been a long time. I had just escaped my trafficker. I was really messed up at the time. I’m not psychotic, but after I left I was so used to talking to imaginary people up in “the princess tower” that I couldn’t stop. Without much help and support this continued for about a year. Whenever I had any form of confrontation with people I’d start venting loudly to imaginary friends, cussing, and talking about how I’d “fuck up” this “bitch” or that “bitch.” I was not in a good state of mind.

Anyhow, I wasn’t ready for EMDR. I wasn’t ready to rip the bandaid off a fresh, bleeding wound. The eye movement reminded me of being hypnotized and I completely shut down in a really bad way. I wanted to commit suicide, but I held it together for my son. I also knew from experience suicide doesn’t make anything better. My therapist and I decided I wasn’t ready for EMDR so we worked on other things.

I worked really hard to get my life back on track. It’s been 6 years since I escaped trafficking. I still have nightmares about being robbed but in reality I’m only being robbed of sleep. I still initially expect bad things to happen and have to confront those thoughts with new information and ask myself “what if it all goes right?” It’s rare these days, but under extreme stress I still sometimes have flashbacks and lose time. It’s scary, especially when I’m driving and get lost. I want to face my trauma on my time and on my terms and I think I’m ready to do this now. Thanks for reading.

When I was 15 or 16 years old my mom was referred by my CPS social worker to take me to a pediatrician so she could get custody of me back. He was a handsome, clean cut, red haired doctor. He spent a very long time palpating by abdomen and I wasn’t normally ticklish but he was tickling me a lot. I think he tickled me on purpose. He said he knew a trick to make it not tickle.

He told me to raise my hands straight up over my head and wiggle my fingers as if I were tickling and repeat “tickle, tickle, tickle…” While I was concentrating on this task he lifted the waistband of my skirt and panties. I sat up immediately and he said “it’s ok, I can look at you there because I’m a doctor.” I felt so embarrassed and blushed deep red. My mom was in the room the whole time but she didn’t feel like she could say anything because we were there so she could get custody back.

The devious doctor turned me on a lot, but I didn’t yet know what to do about arousal. I didn’t start masturbating until I was 19. I still think about him sometimes while I masturbate. I have an extreme medical fetish and I wonder how much this experience may have contributed.

I’m not sure if this is something pediatricians usually do. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

My trafficker hid behind being a BDSM dominant. talked about himself like I was given a rare opportunity. He wasn’t like those other dominants who let their slaves work regular jobs and live normal lives. He looked down on people who “acted out scenes” in the bedroom. The only “scenes” with him were the embarrassing scenes he created by having a temper tantrum every time he didn’t get his way.

He wasn’t one of those “fake dominants” that required his partner’s consent to have them taking care of his home and his physical needs. Consent was for “wanna be” dominants. Consent wasn’t something he needed to have more than once to have his way with me forever. He didn’t need consent from his slave wife, or the three girls before me who “didn’t work out.” He was the real deal, a 24/7 dominant master.

I was so lucky to be his slave and to have his child growing inside me. I had an aura of protection around me and my child while I worked with chemicals and fertilizers that I should have avoided while pregnant. This aura of protection kept us safe while I was climbing ladders and working on the roof of his home, painting walls and ceilings, repairing the siding, and doing yard work in the southern US heat. It kept us safe from the alcohol consumption he encouraged. It kept us safe from everything except pain.

He didn’t beat me for his pleasure or mine, he beat me so that I would fear him. Again, he made that distinction from “fake dominants.” I was a real slave working for a real master. I was his property and I could have no money or property of my own.

Everything I worked hard for belonged to him. Without a dollar to my name I went to a crisis pregnancy center and took parenting classes to get the things I would need for my baby as incentives for class participation. I would load furniture and baby items into his SUV and carry them upstairs by myself into my room. He told me my room would be a nursery for the baby as well. He called my room “the princess tower.” There was a door with a latch on the outside leading up a staircase to my room. He could lock me inside the princess tower when he needed. It wasn’t really my room of course as I could not own property.

I distracted myself from my circumstances by talking to my baby. I played piano for the baby. I knew he was very smart because he would kick my tummy if I stopped playing or played a wrong note. I read to him. I told him about all the wonderful things we would do together and the places we would go once he was born. I couldn’t wait to show him beaches. I missed beaches so much.

I knew this trafficking situation wouldn’t last forever. My trafficker was over 60 and in poor health. I waited for the baby to be born and for my trafficker to die with a hopeful heart.

Things got a lot worse when I got too big to try to run away and too irritable to be compliant with my trafficker. I would tell him what a miserable, pathetic little man he was. He couldn’t beat me anymore because I had a doctor checking my pelvis weekly. Every night he chained my neck to the headboard of his bed and did awful things to me that left no mark.

He told my doctor that I was mentally unfit to give birth to the baby naturally (couldn’t follow directions and would risk harm to the child in labor) so I had to have a C-section. He called CPS on me at the hospital and told them I was mentally retarded (I don’t use that term for intellectually disabled folks.) Before my C-section the hospital nurse tried to get me to sign a consent for sterilization, I dont always read things before I sign but something told me I should this time.

They removed my baby shorty after he was cut out of my womb. They sent me back home with my trafficker, childless and sewn together. I went upstairs and had to look at the empty crib and all the things that should have welcomed a new baby. I cried like I never had before, a horrible screaming cry. I sobbed so long and hard I felt my c section wound opening. I had to cover my mouth and nose to stop my crying so I wouldn’t rip open and fall apart.

I still have nightmares about people grabbing me in an alley, robbing me, cutting me, and leaving me to bleed out in the rain.

I had to be strong and hold myself up. I was standing in family court just a couple days later.

Judge Millstone (using a fake name) returned custody to me and my trafficker but she court ordered that all of my contact with the baby was to be supervised by him or his wife at all times.

He had his wife doing all of the baby care and would punish me severely whenever I tried to get near the child. He even went so far as to sexually violate me while the baby was close to me. He tried to make me associate the baby with pain and fear. It didn’t work. I love my baby very much and nothing will ever change this.

I wish I could have gotten out of there with the baby. I ran away in 2020. I worked my butt off to get all the things that should have convinced the court that I was stable and could care for him. I got an apartment, found work caregiving for seniors, bought a car and learned to drive it, got straight A’s in college, and raised my second child, It didn’t matter.

Judge Millstone decided the day she met me that I wasn’t worthy of motherhood and nothing would change her mind. When I testified about the abuse she couldn’t handle it and had an embarrassing emotional collapse on the bench. She cried and walked out. I don’t remember if she called a recess. I’ve never met such an ignorant, arrogant, Judge Judy Wanna be.

Judge Millstone became a lot more cruel since her crying episode because she is insecure and doesn’t want to look weak. I’m well aware she doesn’t give a damn about anything except vanity, she doesn’t have to prove being cold and heartless to me. She removed my second child at 3 years old that I raised from birth to retaliate because I wouldn’t sign a TPR voluntarily for my first son who is now 6 years old.

I’m in an appeals process for the involuntary TPR right now and fighting to get my younger son home as well. The foster family won’t let me see my oldest anymore and I haven’t been able to see my 3 year old in over a month but we love and miss each other. As far as I know my trafficker is still alive and free and still looking for vulnerable women to abuse.

Giving my kids a better life than I had is the most important thing to me and I’m really determined to see this happen. I will never stop fighting for my kids. It’s also really important to me to tell my story. I hope that good people can hear what happened to me and help to find out what it takes to keep this from happening to someone else and make a better future.

Every day I wake up early to sunlight coming through the window. I turn away from the light and go back to sleep waiting for a secret wish to come true. Then I hear the sound of my four roommates getting ready for the day, sliding plastic totes out from under bunkbeds, rummaging and chatting. I pretend to sleep until I am left alone in silence. When they are gone I try to sleep once more with a silent prayer that I won’t wake up. I’ve had a hard life, but I’m not allowed to opt out. It only makes things worse.

I had one serious suicide attempt interrupted, and I killed myself once several years ago. When I took my own life I didn’t intend to die. I dug through the ceiling in my room. I looped a bungee cord with hooks around my neck and around a support beam in the ceiling. I waited for my trafficker to climb the stairs groaning in pain with every step as always. If I could have taken his pain away I would have.

When he opened my door I looked at him a few moments and then I kicked the ladder out from under my feet. I was surprised by the pain. It was worse than I could have imagined. I wanted to make it stop and I wished for something to put my feet on which were kicking the air desperately. I tried to dig my fingertips into the cord but it was buried deep in my neck.

I left something sharp, I don’t remember what, on top of a gas heater right where my trafficker walked in so he could see it easily and cut me down. I didn’t want to die. I wanted him to take my pain seriously. His was the only pain that mattered. He looked down at the sharp object. Then he looked at me and said “I could cut you down, but you’d never learn your lesson.” Then he pulled out his cell phone and called 911 calmly to report a suicide before my spirit had even left my body.

When I died I went to a city that was just like my room, except everything was upside down and inside out. The colorful mosaic ceiling I painted was a road here. My orange walls were buildings that I couldn’t enter. I was always on the outside. The royal blue rug on the floor was a sky the sun never shined on. There was a fountain in the middle of town like a small desk fountain I had in my room, only here it was large enough to swim in. I walked through the city endlessly. I looked into the windows of the tall orange buildings and I could see my memories, and what had happened after my death concerning me.

I saw inside a window the adult protective services worker who had only ever managed to make my situation worse. She was talking to my trafficker and trying to get him to say anything that could be used against him. He was very slick, although he said things that gave her hope and she relayed them to law enforcement. He talked to a detective as well but never without his attorney present. The things he told APS were not admissible in court and he got away without so much as a slap on the wrist.

I wasn’t happy with how things had turned out. I wanted to be remembered and to have justice. One night I jumped into the fountain and washed. I woke up in my bed the next morning. I had a chance to go back to before I had done this to myself. Things got better, far from perfect.

I ran away from my trafficker. I testified about the abuse. I worked my tail off to get an apartment, a car, a job, and a college education, everything that should have made the court consider me as an option to raise my little boy who was in foster care. The judge threatened to take my younger son who I raised on my own since birth if I didn’t sign away my parental rights to my older son.

I can’t say I ever saw justice. The legal system has made my life rocky and unstable. They have taken away many of the things I worked hard to have including my younger son, then called me unstable. Today I’m living in a battered women’s shelter and trying to get treatment and education for survivors. I don’t know if things get better than this, but I think suicide is something that’s always regrettable no matter how bad things are. I’m not suicidal, but I hope very much for my pain to end soon. I miss my children. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Every day I wake up early to sunlight coming through the window. I turn away from the light and go back to sleep waiting for a secret wish to come true. Then I hear the sound of my four roommates getting ready for the day, sliding plastic totes out from under bunkbeds, rummaging and chatting. I pretend to sleep until I am left alone in silence. When they are gone I try to sleep once more with a silent prayer that I won’t wake up. I’ve had a hard life, but I’m not allowed to opt out. It only makes things worse.

I had one serious suicide attempt interrupted, and I killed myself once several years ago. When I took my own life I didn’t intend to die. I dug through the ceiling in my room. I looped a bungee cord with hooks around my neck and around a support beam in the ceiling. I waited for my trafficker to climb the stairs groaning in pain with every step as always. If I could have taken his pain away I would have.

When he opened my door I looked at him a few moments and then I kicked the ladder out from under my feet. I was surprised by the pain. It was worse than I could have imagined. I wanted to make it stop and I wished for something to put my feet on which were kicking the air desperately. I tried to dig my fingertips into the cord but it was buried deep in my neck.

I left something sharp, I don’t remember what, on top of a gas heater right where my trafficker walked in so he could see it easily and cut me down. I didn’t want to die. I wanted him to take my pain seriously. His was the only pain that mattered. He looked down at the sharp object. Then he looked at me and said “I could cut you down, but you’d never learn your lesson.” Then he pulled out his cell phone and called 911 calmly to report a suicide before my spirit had even left my body.

When I died I went to a city that was just like my room, except everything was upside down and inside out. The colorful mosaic ceiling I painted was a road here. My orange walls were buildings that I couldn’t enter. I was always on the outside. The royal blue rug on the floor was a sky the sun never shined on. There was a fountain in the middle of town like a small desk fountain I had in my room, only here it was large enough to swim in. I walked through the city endlessly. I looked into the windows of the tall orange buildings and I could see my memories, and what had happened after my death concerning me.

I saw inside a window the adult protective services worker who had only ever managed to make my situation worse. She was talking to my trafficker and trying to get him to say anything that could be used against him. He was very slick, although he said things that gave her hope and she relayed them to law enforcement. He talked to a detective as well but never without his attorney present. The things he told APS were not admissible in court and he got away without so much as a slap on the wrist.

I wasn’t happy with how things had turned out. I wanted to be remembered and to have justice. One night I jumped into the fountain and washed. I woke up in my bed the next morning. I had a chance to go back to before I had done this to myself. Things got better, far from perfect.

I ran away from my trafficker. I testified about the abuse. I worked my tail off to get an apartment, a car, a job, and a college education, everything that should have made the court consider me as an option to raise my little boy who was in foster care. The judge threatened to take my younger son who I raised on my own since birth if I didn’t sign away my parental rights to my older son.

I can’t say I ever saw justice. The legal system has made my life rocky and unstable. They have taken away many of the things I worked hard to have including my younger son, then called me unstable. Today I’m living in a battered women’s shelter and trying to get treatment and education for survivors. I don’t know if things get better than this, but I think suicide is something that’s always regrettable no matter how bad things are. I’m not suicidal, but I hope very much for my pain to end soon. I miss my children. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Every day I wake up early to sunlight coming through the window. I turn away from the light and go back to sleep waiting for a secret wish to come true. Then I hear the sound of my four roommates getting ready for the day, sliding plastic totes out from under bunkbeds, rummaging and chatting. I pretend to sleep until I am left alone in silence. When they are gone I try to sleep once more with a silent prayer that I won’t wake up. I’ve had a hard life, but I’m not allowed to opt out. It only makes things worse.

I had one serious suicide attempt interrupted, and I killed myself once several years ago. When I took my own life I didn’t intend to die. I dug through the ceiling in my room. I looped a bungee cord with hooks around my neck and around a support beam in the ceiling. I waited for my trafficker to climb the stairs groaning in pain with every step as always. If I could have taken his pain away I would have.

When he opened my door I looked at him a few moments and then I kicked the ladder out from under my feet. I was surprised by the pain. It was worse than I could have imagined. I wanted to make it stop and I wished for something to put my feet on which were kicking the air desperately. I tried to dig my fingertips into the cord but it was buried deep in my neck.

I left something sharp, I don’t remember what, on top of a gas heater right where my trafficker walked in so he could see it easily and cut me down. I didn’t want to die. I wanted him to take my pain seriously. His was the only pain that mattered. He looked down at the sharp object. Then he looked at me and said “I could cut you down, but you’d never learn your lesson.” Then he pulled out his cell phone and called 911 calmly to report a suicide before my spirit had even left my body.

When I died I went to a city that was just like my room, except everything was upside down and inside out. The colorful mosaic ceiling I painted was a road here. My orange walls were buildings that I couldn’t enter. I was always on the outside. The royal blue rug on the floor was a sky the sun never shined on. There was a fountain in the middle of town like a small desk fountain I had in my room, only here it was large enough to swim in. I walked through the city endlessly. I looked into the windows of the tall orange buildings and I could see my memories, and what had happened after my death concerning me.

I saw inside a window the adult protective services worker who had only ever managed to make my situation worse. She was talking to my trafficker and trying to get him to say anything that could be used against him. He was very slick, although he said things that gave her hope and she relayed them to law enforcement. He talked to a detective as well but never without his attorney present. The things he told APS were not admissible in court and he got away without so much as a slap on the wrist.

I wasn’t happy with how things had turned out. I wanted to be remembered and to have justice. One night I jumped into the fountain and washed. I woke up in my bed the next morning. I had a chance to go back to before I had done this to myself. Things got better, far from perfect.

I ran away from my trafficker. I testified about the abuse. I worked my tail off to get an apartment, a car, a job, and a college education, everything that should have made the court consider me as an option to raise my little boy who was in foster care. The judge threatened to take my younger son who I raised on my own since birth if I didn’t sign away my parental rights to my older son.

I can’t say I ever saw justice. The legal system has made my life rocky and unstable. They have taken away many of the things I worked hard to have including my younger son, then called me unstable. Today I’m living in a battered women’s shelter and trying to get treatment and education for survivors. I don’t know if things get better than this, but I think suicide is something that’s always regrettable no matter how bad things are. I’m not suicidal, but I hope very much for my pain to end soon. I miss my children. Thanks for taking the time to read this.