“It is just not fair! I want to scream or hurt somebody! But, of course, I am used to adults lying to me. It happens all the time. Someone promises something, and I get my hopes up, only to have them crushed to pieces. I don’t care about a stupid Secret Santa, but I wanted to believe that someone thought I was special enough that they would come to visit me and bring me something. Why did she have to pretend she would come when she knew all along she wouldn’t? I could scream I am so ticked!”
These are some of Marianne’s* thoughts and feelings after a big disappointment last week. Since being at StreetLight USA safehouse for girls who have been sex trafficked, she had made some significant progress in trusting staff. This incident triggered a number of overwhelming emotions for her, demonstrating the depth of the need for healing and the tenuousness of the process. Some of the bigger parts of the puzzle included realizing she was a long way from all her family and friends for Christmas. Some of the other girls have family members who come for visits, but Marianne’s mom and aunts have distanced themselves from her. The relationships get complicated, with broken promises and betrayed trust on both sides.
Later in the day, Marianne began acting out against the staff and residents, with threats to kill herself, cruel comments to others, not wanting to share her food, and self deprecating comments. She also talked about knowing that terrible things were happening to her sister and brother, but she couldn’t be home for them. There had also been some staffing changes in her cottage, and she believed that was her fault. She refused to eat dinner and tried to sleep in the bathroom.
“I don’t deserve to sleep in a bed or to eat. It is all my fault.”
Behaviors such as these demonstrate the immense damage that has been done to children who have been enslaved as sex toys. The physical wounds these girls bear when they move into StreetLight can be healed over time with proper care. The deep-seated emotional scars are a different matter. It takes a lot of healing and maturing for sexually abused and trafficked children to get past the relational barriers they have learned for survival, such as territoriality and looking out for themselves. Additionally, they have been forced to numb many of their true emotions to get through the shame and humiliation of each day. In residential treatment, they are learning to accept and express their emotions, and life feels pretty raw most days, giving potential for conflict and volatility between the girls.
The caregivers daily face the challenge of loving the girls and providing physical and emotional safety while giving them tools for processing all of the horrors they have endured. The survivors need appropriate boundaries and need to learn a whole new way of interacting with others. Staff members model healthy ways of expressing emotions, and the girls learn,but fall back into old patterns along the way. The process of becoming whole after devastating abuse is long and hard, and takes incredible grace from the people around those in recovery.
StreetLight USA is committed to staying in the fight for healing for these girls. An amazing array of support and resources from the larger community are needed for bringing each one of these precious ones into a new life. But, every bit is worth it to see these girls turn their lives around and move from victim to survivor to thriver, in spite of their circumstances.
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