I don’t have access to trauma therapy. I have a psych nurse who will repeat herself five times in the same conversation, and an amazing Psychiatrist who will listen to me ramble, before offering me pills, but when it comes to trauma? I’m handling that largely on my own.
I might be much further ahead, if I had someone who had experience with torture, rape, cult rape, and sexual abuse of child trafficking, to work through it all with me. I might be much healthier if I had the kind of support that other women in my position seem to have access to, but it’s not just accessed.
Unfortunately there just aren’t enough people with experience dealing with the kind of shit that I’ve been through, on this planet. Too many times people think that “trauma” like “torture” is something only people in “third world countries,” face, but the problem is there is no such thing anymore.
The idea of “third world countries” is bad packaging, designed to make those of us living in the western world feel grateful for getting less than we deserve.
Because those at the top don’t know about stories like mine or choose to ignore stories like mine, whichever, those who are on the front lines are completely unprepared to deal with the idea that children in BC, and across the country, have lived with torture, rape, and all kinds of horrendous types of abuse, so what the fuck do we do about it? How do those of us who know the truth help?
We speak out. We have to speak out.
I have two tiny dots – one on each hand, where nails were pressed into my flesh, designed to make me think I was being crucified, that’s not even the worst of it. I also have them on my feet. More than fifteen years later, they look like freckles, but I know, and my abusers know exactly what they are.
They are reminders that nails were pressed into my skin so hard scars were left, just small enough to look innocent, just visible enough to remind me what would happen if I spoke out. Well I spoke out, and I’m not dead yet, but not everyone is as lucky as I am.
Not everyone has a mother who understands that I am serious when I talk about it or notices that I don’t talk about the details often, or that I barely cry about it anymore.
Not everyone has a system of support that spans the globe, most people who went through or are going through the kind of shit I’ve been through, are doing it alone, without a voice of their own because they are still too shocked to know what to say.
So there are people like me who speak out, who are trying to find avenues to make our voices louder, so that those who feel alone, know they are not, but is it enough?
Fuck no.
People need realistic trauma therapy and they aren’t getting it because the kind of trauma that we’ve been through hasn’t been studied enough, for “counselors” and “doctors” to know what the hell it is that we need.
Too many times, people don’t know what to think, or how to respond, because the shock is too great. It’s shocking to hear that I was tortured, and by that I mean they stuck a knife in my vagina and cut me. Repeatedly, just to prove they could.
It’s shocking to hear that I was tied up, bound, raped, beaten, and threatened with the rape and death of the children of a person I love. It’s shocking to believe that anyone could be that cruel or that evil, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened.
Too many times, shock turns to disbelief, disbelief turns to distrust, and distrust turns me to being isolated and alone with all these thoughts that tell me that I don’t deserve to be believed, trusted, or loved, because CLEARLY, I did something wrong, to deserve to be abused so badly, you know?
But that’s bullshit too!
It doesn’t matter what my experience was, what matters is, am I getting the help I need today? Too many people have turned their backs on me because it’s easier than supporting me because MY story triggers people into believing that I am not good enough or too strong for them to be around, they can’t handle the fact that someone like me exists in their world, and so they make moves to cut me out.
It’s bad when the people who promise you that you can be vulnerable around them, ask you not to be because you’re vulnerability scares them about what happens in this world and who it happens to, and so when that happens, other people see it and they stay quiet. They remain silent in their pain because they are too afraid to come forward too worried that they too, will be cut out of the place they felt safe in.
I get it, but speaking out is the ONLY way that this shit ends, and so I speak out, and I pray, and I hope that one day, one day soon, this will all be over and I can move on.
This would be a lot easier if Canada as a country would acknowledge that child sex trafficking happens here, and that the kinds of things we face as children are so evil, that we often end up as broken adults who need help putting the pieces back together again.
Until that happens, none of us will ever be free.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 