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Messages - GettingThere

#1
General Discussion / It Was Human Trafficking
September 01, 2024, 01:47:29 PM
Last night I was studying psychology, and I learned the definition of human trafficking. For something to be human trafficking, there needs to be an act, a means, and a purpose, with the intention of profit. For years, I haven't had language to describe what my family did to me for about a year of my life. Now I know the right term for it was human trafficking. The act: transfer. I was transferred from one family member to another. The means: deception and abuse of vulnerability: I was deceived into thinking they would help me get a real job and I had almost no money, resources, or other support system. The purpose: forced labour. After I was transferred, I had to labour for no pay. I wasn't allowed to say no and I was physically prohibited from leaving the premises. And by forcing me to work for no pay, they made a huge profit. My family human trafficked me. In suburban North America. For a year. And I had no idea what was happening.

My wrists were never bound with rope. My mouth was never sealed with duct tape. I was bound mentally. With brainwashing, drugs, and alcohol. I was so abused that I thought I was lucky that they were protecting me from homelessness. I was so abused that I thought I was a shameful failure for not having a real job. I even had an online therapist at the time and I described everything that was happening to her. She made excuses for the abuse because the abusers were my family. I was paying her over a hundred dollars a week to be told that everything was actually fine and that I was lucky to have somewhere to live "for free."

From the time I was 4 years old, I never had a place to live for free. I was expected to work, and manage emotions, and soothe egos, and solve marital disputes, and act as a free therapist. From the age of 4. I was human trafficked as an adult so I was doing 20 times as much labour for free every day. I didn't have a place to live for free. I was just working for no pay so I could never leave.

It feels surreal. Like I'm describing someone else's life even though it's mine. I know that I'm smart, and funny, and a whole complex person with friends, and goals, and good memories of times spent with good people. Memories of being seen and treated as fully human. And luckily I survived long enough to escape. Nowadays I'm safe and free and I spend every day of my life with people who love me and treat me as a fully human equal. But I'm also a survivor of human trafficking. That's not my identity, it's just a part of my story. But I am a full, complex, intelligent, brave, loving woman who is also a survivor of human trafficking. Committed by my family. In North America.

I know I need to work on coming to grips with the fact that human trafficking is just part of a person's story, not their whole story or their whole identity. And I think our culture needs to work on that too.
#2
TW: NPD family, life endangerment, violence induced disability, sensory loss, severe flashbacks, failing healthcare & social service systems

Hi all,

I first got my diagnosis in January 2016, when I first joined this forum. Over the past 7 years, despite seeking help, paying for help, and reading a bunch of books, violence and abuse has just kept happening again and again in my adult life. In 2022, my life was in immediate danger more times than my frazzled brain can remember anymore. Just like all those years ago when I first joined OOTS, my body is newly out of being trapped in violence from family and I'm back to no contact. 7 years ago, I couldn't find a psychologist in my region qualified to help me. With 7 more years of life endangerment and resulting permanent physical disabilities, my body and mind are more destroyed than ever before.

I think my saving grace in all of this is that I've finally learned that my family are a pack of extremely dangerous narcissists who are completely incapable of change, and that I will literally perish if I don't stay no contact with them for the rest of my life. The biggest challenge mentally now is coping with all of the flashbacks of almost dying again and again over the past year - especially now that my disabled body now serves as a constant reminder of the abuse.

Now that I've been free for 3 months and am making friends I care about again, I've found a reason to want to keep living. But if I ever slow down working and socializing enough that I, even for a few minutes, stop being completely dissociated, I start to lose the will to live again. I've completely lost faith in the medical and social service systems in my region. I've been begging for help for the past 16 years, since the first time I called child protection on my parents when I was 14, and help just never came. The most real help I've ever gotten was from watching informational (ie. not therapy) tiktoks from psychologists and social workers in the United States, from connecting with social workers online who are in other regions of my country, and from a poster on the wall in a women's shelter that explained what the cycle of violence is and how it works. I don't have the money for a psychologist right now, and the types of therapy I'm interested in trying (IFS, EMDR, Somatic, Coherence) are barely available in my region.

Back in the good old days, I used to have flashbacks 5-10 times a day and still be able to function. Now, if my mind is not constantly, CONSTANTLY, busy, I have a visceral flashback to a violent, often near death, experience every 30-60 seconds. I have no idea what to do. It helps to just communicate with other people who may actually understand what I went through, instead of with practitioners and crisis line operators who have never in their lives heard of someone's blood family doing anything like this. My sessions with any provider usually just result in me answering loads of unnecessary and inappropriate questions, satiating the practitioner's curiosity, and not being given any sort of recommendations of what to do except toxic positivity, grounding tools that used to work and don't anymore, or requests for me to give my consent to be anonymously mentioned in a textbook or have my sessions filmed.

This is pretty much the only place I've ever been where I don't feel like a freak, an alien, or as though I have an otherworldly, incomprehensible life. Even if you don't have any practical tips, thanks for reading and thanks for just being here. But if you do have ideas or suggestions of things that have helped you, please feel free to share them. I will try pretty much anything at this point. BUT please keep in mind, I only have 2 remaining senses (sight and hearing). I can no longer smell, taste, or feel my body or skin, so techniques based on any of those 3 senses only give me more flashbacks. I also do not consent to being asked or answering questions as to how my disabilities happened.

Thank you all.  :hug:
#3
Therapy / Re: ISTDP Therapy: Thoughts?
May 27, 2020, 11:51:59 PM
Thanks everyone for your helpful feedback. Things have actually turned out very well with my therapist. I expressed that the ISTDP approach wasn't working for me, and she was very receptive and supportive. For the last month we've switched over to AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), which she also specializes in.

Even though it has "accelerated" in the name, my T assured me we would take things as slowly as I need to. We've been doing Inner Child work, and working on strengthening our therapist-client relationship. I've also been reading a book called It's Not Always Depression by Hilary Jacobs Hendel and I've found it very helpful. It explains how anxiety, shame, and guilt block us from experiencing our core emotions of sadness, joy, anger, fear, etc.

Working with my T to help my inner child express her core emotions has been groundbreaking for me. If anyone reading is looking for another tool to add to their tool belt, I would recommend checking out AEDP to see if it's right for you  :)
#4
Therapy / ISTDP Therapy: Thoughts?
April 25, 2020, 03:32:07 AM
At the end of January, I started therapy with a new therapist who does ISTDP therapy. She also does CBT and DBT, and I can attest to this because her DBT based group therapy is great. However, in our individual sessions, we do visualization exercises that I don't find helpful because they're quite repetitive and formulaic. I'm thinking about asking her if we could stick to DBT based therapy in our private sessions, but I'm worried she will react badly.

Have you heard of ISTDP therapy before, or know the books of Jon Frederickson? If you have, what are your thoughts on it? Do you think it's worth it to continue with this therapist if she practices this type of therapy?
#5
Family / Reconnecting with FOO
July 14, 2018, 01:49:14 PM
I recently reached a point in my career where I missed doing good work that helps people. In university, I trained to be a teacher and I worked in that field for a few years and really enjoyed it. But I soon realized that if I ever want to have children and own a home, teaching would not bring in enough money to do so. So I decided to leave teaching, and for the last few months I`ve worked at the head office of a clothing retailer. The money was much better but I hated the feeling of participating in selling overpriced products to the few who could afford them. And the job didn`t provide health insurance.

For almost 50 years, my family has owned a business selling home health care products at affordable prices to people from all walks of life. Their business model is anchored in the belief that because we`re a family business, we treat all our employees like family. There are employees who are not family members who have been with the company for 40 years and are very happy there. The pay is more than fair and the company provides health insurance.

Last week, I reached a point in my job at the clothing retailer where my heart just wasn`t in it anymore. The job was starting to make me feel very depressed so I quit. I missed having a job where I felt like I was doing something that really helped people. So I decided to reach out to my mother, who I haven`t spoken to for two and a half years, and ask her for a job.

At first, I wrote her a letter explaining the situation and maintaining that I did not regret taking the time and space away from her to heal from my childhood trauma. In her reply, she apologized for being an abusive parent and for any harm she caused me in the past. That was the first time she had ever acknowledged any wrong doing on her part or apologized for how she treated me during my childhood. She also offered me a job which I have taken.

The job makes me feel secure because I`m now doing ethical work that helps people for a fair wage - a job experience I`ve never had before. My relationship with my mother is better than ever because I`m able to be emotionally authentic with her without fearing I`ll get shut down or invalidated, and the fact that we mostly talk about work related projects creates a type of safe distance. I  feel like I should be jumping for joy at how things have turned out, but because of my past experiences with my mother, I`m mostly just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or advice about reconnecting with a parent who was abusive in childhood. Right now, I`m under the impression that my mother really has changed after not being able to speak with me for two and a half years, but I`m worried that I`ll eventually be disappointed.
#6
Poetry & Creative Writing / Re: Poetry Corner
April 29, 2016, 09:51:14 PM
Quote from: artemis23 on April 14, 2016, 08:46:51 PM
This is a practiced suffering, we are prepared.

This line so perfectly reflects how I feel as a person with CPTSD. Your writing is so wonderful Artemis!!
#7
I think this is a great idea for a thread!  :thumbup: Every time I hug my dog, I think of how happy I am that I stayed alive long enough to get her.
#8
Music / Re: Music
February 05, 2016, 03:32:16 PM
An overt anti-Narcissist rock anthem  :righton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ-_lz7wkoU

Part of the chorus:
"He can't resist the paranoid delusions of a narcissist
It doesn't matter anyways cause he's a self fulfilling prophesy
Of make believe"
#9
Thanks for the support both of you  :hug: I didn't drink today! Just stayed home and watched movies. Phew! One day at a time I guess
#10
This Tuesday I celebrated one month of sobriety. The day after, I had a very strong impulse to get drunk, which I'm still struggling with today. It's like my mind thinks: You've been sober for a month! You deserve a drink, you haven't had one in so long! But I know that if I have one drink, it will turn into downing a bottle of red wine as fast as I can... Any advice?
#11
Thanks so much for this Butterfly!
#12
Quote from: Kizzie on January 23, 2016, 07:40:48 PM
perhaps that's one way to help calm your ICr;  balance those negative, hateful thoughts with loving, reassuring  positive ones (e.g., "Look,  there, lots of tolerance out there,  think of X, Y and Z, even huge pride about diversity in all its shapes, forms, colours so you can stand down down now ICr. I don't agree with you anymore but I appreciate your efforts to keep me safe.)

:yeahthat:

Thanks so much for your replies Kizzie and Jdog :) I must agree that yes, Justin Trudeau is amazing!! (I'm Canadian too.) And one thing that might make you feel better Kizzie - the interview you saw must have been with a bishop from another country because not only is homosexuality legal in South Africa, same-sex marriage has been legal there since 2006! (I keep track of every country that has equal marriage as a way to look at the facts like you mentioned.)

And Jdog, thank you so much for validating my feelings about how intimidating some educators can be when they have more authority than you. Looking back, I spent a lot of my undergrad having EFs to times when elementary school teachers terrified me! And thanks for the kind wishes; this convo has been very positive for me  :hug:
#13
Glad most people you've come out to have been supportive of you Samantha  :yourock:

#14
I'm a teaching assistant at a university. I'm essentially the lowest rank of everyone on the payroll.
#15
Thanks for your response Dutch :) My problem is that I was a super rebellious child and teenager, and I was always told that rebellion is a sign of immaturity, and that rebelling warrants abuse. The abuse stopped when I started choosing Flight and Fawn instead of Fight.

Even though I'm 22, I'm financially independent, I live alone in my own apartment, and I have a dog to care for (or as I like to say, I'm a dog mom  ;) ). Every day, I think over my adult responsibilities and use them to prove to myself that I'm safe. C-PTSD made me hate being a child/teenager because those ages made me vulnerable and put me in danger. And I was taught to view any sort of disagreement with an authority figure as immature behavior. I went through a lot of what I like to call "age-shaming" (eg. You're 10 years old! 10 year olds don't behave like that! You're acting like you're 2!). So I'm kind of stuck on the rebelling thing  :Idunno: