She couldn’t remember how she got here… she was wrapped up in a tarp, next to a dumpster at a gas station. Her pimp and abusers probably thought she was dead and left her there.


She couldn’t remember how she got here… but she remembered the horrors she’d been forced to endure for the past 2 1/2 years.


She couldn’t remember how she got here… but it probably saved her life.


And so began her journey as a s3x trafficking survivor. This is my story of healing and hope, how I was once a victim, am a survivor, and will someday be a thriver.


To this day, I still don’t remember all the details of the day my body was found. When I came to, I was in the hospital, hooked up to a million monitors, and completely disoriented. The last thing I remember, my ex’s father, my pimp, was due to check in at our house before we went out on the town later that night. 


Did he ever come? Was he the one who did this to me? I racked my brain, but could not for the life of me remember. 


For the past two and a half years, after my then-fiancé had sold me to his father, the world of sex trafficking had become my life. There was no alternative. There was no escape. My life depended on obeying my ex’s father, or I’d be killed.


And no, I’m not exaggerating. I’d witnessed first-hand what happened to other girls when they dared to defy him.


May they rest in peace. They never deserved to have their lives end that way.


Now, don’t get me wrong. More times than not, I pleaded with God to take my life. If He couldn’t make the never-ending pain go away, then please just end it all. I didn’t know how much more I could bear.


And yet somehow, here I was, alive, and free.


Free … yet broken, so very broken. 


And what good is freedom when you’re so broken and afraid, you don’t even remember how to live in the real world anymore? When the outside world has moved on without you, because you’ve been trapped in the underground world of human trafficking. 


She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here — nor did she want to. At this point, she didn’t even care anymore. She was just a shell of the person she once was. You can’t go through the horrific nightmares she’d been forced to live and remain the same.


For the next week, I healed physically in the hospital, under the careful eye of the medical staff. I spoke with my Victims Rights Advocate. I didn’t want to go to the police. My pimp had threatened my family, and I was responsible for their safety. So I downplayed so much. I had to, to keep my family safe.


My Advocate put me in touch with an organization who helps trafficking survivors. I lived in one of the safe houses for a few months while seemingly picking up the pieces of my world and putting them back together again.


Everything inside of me was numb. I felt nothing. I got a job. I went to work, came home, did all the “normal” things — all the while trying to find ways to end my life.


It was quite the juxtaposition: when my life was in danger, I struggled to survive. When I was finally free, I craved death. The freedom that death would provide to escape the emotional indifference and turmoil that I felt every day.


I shoved everything down and continued to live — but just barely. I met a man, got married, had a daughter, continued to work. It seemed like I would finally have some semblance of normalcy that I so desperately craved.


And I was able to do so for several years, until I couldn’t. It was like when you shake a can of soda, and the pressure just builds up and builds up until it can no longer be contained, and then explodes.


And I exploded, in a manner of speaking. My heart and brain couldn’t handle anymore, and I just … snapped.


My passive suicidal thoughts became active suicidal thoughts, which led to actions — actions that landed me in the emergency room, and then the psychiatric hospital. My self-harm was constant as I desperately tried to feel something, anything.


I was so tired of fighting. I truly believed that everyone would be better off if I were gone, that my family deserved a better wife/mother/daughter/sister then me, and keeping myself alive was selfish.


My doctor at the hospital diagnosed me with complex PTSD, severe depressive disorder and severe anxiety disorder. For the first time in my life, I was prescribed psychiatric medications.


After I was stabilized (medically and emotionally) and was no longer a danger to myself, my treatment team sent me to a residential trauma treatment facility. Over the next several years, I was in and out of the hospital and three other residential places. At home, I saw my therapist every week, sometimes twice a week, and went to weekly Dialectic Behavior Therapy skills class. I was put on disability, as I was unable to successfully hold down a job for any long period of time before having an emotional breakdown.


She couldn’t remember how she got here. As a child, she has always envisioned herself as a successful wife, mother, and businesswoman when she grew up. Yet here she was, mid to late twenties, barely able to keep her head above water. Completely dependent on antidepressants, mood stabilizers, nightmare meds, and therapy to even be able to function. 


During trauma treatment, both at the residential facilities and then subsequently with my therapist at home, the flashbacks and dissociations got worse. My therapist warned me about that, that it would get worse before it got better. She said, “you have to walk through the fire to get to the other side, but once you get there, it’s so worth it.”


I felt like my identity had been lost. I was a human trafficking victim, but I didn’t want that to define me; I wanted that to be just a small part of my story.


So I dug in my heels and did the hard work — the work of going from victim to survivor mode. For the next several years, I learned how to re-wire my brain and re-teach my body how to not always be in fight or flight mode. I learned how to see beauty and opportunity in a world that once seemed threatening and foreboding.


It’s been almost 15 years now since I escaped. To this day, I still have no recollection of how I ended up at that gas station, wrapped up in a tarp. But that’s okay, because I suppose it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I was rescued.


Sometimes, the last 15 years are a blur. And sometimes, I vividly remember almost every single detail of my ongoing recovery.  But I’ve learned that recovery isn’t necessarily in the details; it’s about putting one foot in front of the other on a daily basis. 


She couldn’t remember how she got here, and that’s okay. All that matters is that she’s still here — where she is now — and that’s exactly the place she’s supposed to be. 


And she’s here to stay.