Reaching Out By Speaking Up

9/15/22

Good day to you, Good Person,

How are you doing?  

Have you ever planned something, like an event, and the success seemed to be directly proportional to how muddled your brain got during the days leading up to it?  Care to share? 🙂

So grateful for the people whose braincells (and sense of humor) stayed intact and helped fill in, when my braincells wandered off elsewhere when time was closing in on the Sex Trafficking Awareness Conference I helped out at last weekend.  (Still recovering, actually.)  

But first, I have to honor my friend Dorothy, who I wrote about (in the post “Mortal Angels, and Triggers”, 9/4/22). She passed away earlier last week and her funeral was the day of ‘The Event’.  Was able to go to the funeral home for just a couple of minutes before having to be at the church.  Dorothy,  I love and will miss you.  Looking forward to your angelic visit soon; just don’t mind the initial screech and perhaps, um, my sudden need to change underwear, ok? 

In recent posts I’ve been writing about a sex trafficking awareness conference I was speaking at, which happened last weekend.  In spite of the pret-ty strange things I did leading up to it (was a bit concerned that tendency would end up being an unintended highlight of the day!), the event actually went quite well.  

So grateful for the prayer warrior friends who prayed leading up to the day and then came early to pray over ‘K’ (another speaker) and myself; that helped!   

Thirty – forty people showed up, and they had lots of positive comments afterward.  Loved the ‘I laughed and cried and learned something’ type statements. For me, it’s important that people don’t leave feeling like they want to put a bullet through their brain because of how heavy the subject matter can get.  I think of it as, we can honestly and empathetically look at, discuss, and try to figure out ways to lessen hell’s impact on the world, but we don’t have to reside there (in hell) for any length of time while doing it, and we can keep hope and faith intact.  That’s what I’m trying to do with my talks, anyway.  

(And, prayerfully, carrying that newer philosophy into the recovery aspect, too –  by not letting flashbacks and setbacks and running away from opportunities keep me beating the snot out of self forever.  To just let whatever happens be, knowing that by just accepting and learning from everything speeds up the process. (As opposed to the past personal doctrine of throwing myself into purgatory for any length of time before self flogging and then try to gain an understanding of ‘what’ and/or ‘why’.)

Had another few moments of PTSD and DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) free mind with complete clarity and lightness since the weekend and it was sooo good!  Helped me to realize that all the overthinking and obsessing about everything that I’ve become so adept at isn’t really all that wonderful of a talent after all! (Shocking, I know! :)) So geeked that SOON, a free mind (and heart!) are permanent states of being.  

Lots of other stuff going on, but since it’s taken several days to write the first part of this post to now, instead of trying to round up the errant braincells that have no interest in being corralled, (like herding kittens, as they say) I decided to just post the first part of the talk I gave, and will finish it next week: 

Glad to see you good people here, it means you care about a difficult truth to acknowledge and face, and are willing to learn about it.  Thank you!  Because you are here, listening, the movement to bring what is evil into the light is growing, and you are helping to turn the tide on something that has been going on, and proliferating in the dark, for far, far too long now.  

Please don’t ever forget that we survivors and those who are still in, or are going to be sucked into that hell need you.

Rebecca McDonald, the founding warrior of WAR International, has said if you give people statistics, for example, did you know that there are over 40,000,000 victims and survivors of trafficking in the world today, and yes, that does include the U.S.A., and even here, in our town?   But because that’s just a number, it does not make the impression on people that meeting and hearing the truth from one survivor could. 

So I’m Pearl, the one child sex trafficking survivor you’re going to get to know a little bit today.

Several things to mention before getting into this talk. 

First, all the speeches today could case triggers for some.

Second, this is my truth and no one else’s. If someone starts to believe they know who I’m talking about, you could be right, but more than likely, no.  I keep identities vague, and will change little details to keep other’s identities to themselves.  And even if you are sure you know who someone is, remember, they may not be the same person now they were a few decades ago.  

I, personally, have given up trying to discern that for myself.  It was a waste of time and energy that could be spent better elsewhere.

Now, if I see a definite red flag, or someone else speaks up about something that happened to them at the hands of anyone who also hurt me, then by all means I will reinforce their truth with mine, stand with, and support them.  

I believe in justice, whether it’s in this life or the next.  I will do what I can in this life, legally (no baseball bats or nunchucks involved. Darn!) and I keep the faith that those who do evil and never repent nor atone will pay for their crimes eventually. 

Lastly, I know with complete conviction,  I would not be here today without God, so He will be mentioned.  Some people mistakenly think being a Christian means a simpler, easier life where all our troubles are wiped clean. 

No!  (Have you read the Bible??? :)) Not for the vast majority of us, anyway.  Being a Christian means we go through all the same things as anyone else does, but with life affirming hope and a Power much greater than ourselves to help us get through whatever life, or evil, throws at us.  We do have to do some of the work, too, though.  To my deepest core, I know that if we ask God into our deepest wounds, hurt and anger, and work with Him in our own imperfect, stubborn, muddled but persistent ways, we do come to victory.  

Well, (sigh) I’ve been trying to avoid  talking about this long enough now . . .

Here’s a very partial version of my testimony.  If you want to know more, please refer to my blog, pearlunchained.com.  And since it’s written in a somewhat chronological order, if you want to learn more about what happened in childhood then you might want to refer back to the first couple of month’s posts.  Otherwise, in current posts, if I refer to something I’ve written about earlier then I’ll also include the title and date of that post so you can easily just refer to that.  

I don’t actually know when hell began. I know I was being sexually abused while still in diapers, then used in child sexually abusive material and sex trafficking by about the age of 3 or 4 years old. I always had a ‘snapshot’ image of one of the incidences with the pornography, which was horrifying enough on its own and made worse with the subject matter and what I was forced to do to create it. Other recollections have surfaced over time.

Some of the trafficking included being used by males of our species (I refuse to call them men) while a roomful of others were watching, and jeering.  I was also taken to a truck stop.  

One of the ring leaders, with his best friend, were people I loved, who should’ve protected me, and who I kept trusting in spite of everything they were doing and allowing to be done.  Other people I loved, who should’ve protected me, and whom I kept trusting, also knew what was going on and told me in no uncertain terms that I was to keep my mouth shut, and therefore unspoken was, there would be no recourse.

Will be continued next week . . . 

I just wanted a fun song for this week, so The Romantic’s “What I Like About You” is what came to mind. I can’t not smile whenever this song comes on the radio; the music alone always lightens my mood.