A. C. E. - Adverse Childhood Experiences
In 2013, just before I retired, was when I first heard of the words “Human Trafficking” (HT) and I knew right away I was a victim. My trafficking victimization started when I met my trafficker at age 15; but after reading an article written by Dr. Vincent Felitti, I had a lot of questions about the adversities of my childhood. Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Robert Anda are the co-researchers of the A.C.E. study that started in the late 1990s. I was intrigued by what the study revealed. So I set out to learn all I could about my own ACEs and more about the study. By answering the ten questions on the ACE questionnaire, I found my ACE score is ten. I also learned that childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. This statement got my attention: The higher your ACE score, the higher your risk of health consequences.
To understand how the ACE study helped me “reach the other side”, you have to know what the study is all about and what it reveals. Dr. Felitti says, “The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study, a long-term study spanning over a decade representing middle-class urban America, revealed invaluable data linking child abuse to the risk of chronic disease. Children and adolescents who are victims of sex or labor trafficking experience the same types of trauma, but to a greater extent and are thus at elevated risk for chronic diseases later in life. They are a group to which the ACE Study directly applies and represents a population that will continue to add to the economic burden of chronic disease on society if the proper public health attention is not given to the widespread problem.”
That’s a powerful study! But this statement from Dr. Felitti moved me to action, “Emotional, mental, and physical trauma during childhood are correlated with higher risk for many diseases that occur during adulthood, including coronary heart disease, depression, autoimmune disease, and drug addiction.”
In Narcotics Anonymous (NA) I was taught that our addiction puts us in a place where the only thing that matters is how we get our next high. But from reflecting back on what Dr. Felitti said and on my own ACEs, I can clearly see that it was the abuse, the neglect, and the trauma that I was subjected to that put me in a place where the only thing that mattered was how to get my next high. Long before I became addicted I didn’t care if I lived or died. Getting high was a coping mechanism. Once I was living in a safe place, the abuse, neglect, and trauma stopped, (at age 33) and I was able to break my addiction, develop healthier coping skills, and then the only thing that mattered was getting my dignity back, getting my life back, and becoming independent and self-sufficient.
I learned a lot about myself from the ACE study, from therapy and from being involved in anti-human trafficking work. I researched and learned all I could about my own ACEs. But when I first started this journey I didn’t realize that by delving into both that I would learn so much more about my family, my community, our country, history, and the world. Now I see everything and everybody differently. Henry Louis Gates Jr. says, “Know Thy Past, Know Thyself.” I believe this. I’m excited to learn more. I’m excited about life because my eyes have been opened to see the truth. Take it from me; the truth will truly set you free.
Passing our life lessons on to the next generation is one way we can prevent and break the cycle of abuse and shame. Life lessons are in our stories. When my parents died the first thing I longed for was something in writing from them, their life lessons, something I could hold onto forever. But they never talked about them nor did they write about them. Writing down our stories, our life lessons is one way we can say everything we wanted to say while we were alive but couldn't. It's not easy coming up with the right time and place to have heart-to-heart talks. Writing will outlast us. Anybody can write a book now. We can self publish our own books. It can be a means of correcting old wrongs as well. It helped ME change the way my story ends.
We won’t be able to pass our own life lessons on if we don’t know what our stories or lessons are and if we don't know how to tell them.
It’s not easy putting our life into story form, but it’s possible.
It’s not easy going back to our darkest moments, but it’s so worth it.
Everybody has a story to tell. Not everyone has experienced trauma and/or abuse but everybody has experienced some kind of trial and tribulation. If we made it this far in life, we have also experienced victories and triumphs. We need to ask ourselves,
- “Who and/or what was it that carried me this far?”
- "Why did it occur?"
- “How and why did I make it this far?”
- "How and why did I react the way I did?"
- “What did I learn from it all?”
- "How and why did others react to me the way they did?"
By answering these questions we can piece our lives together and put them in story form. Piecing my life together helped me make sense of my life, my past and my mere existence. It’s like the blinders were removed. We cannot pass on our life lessons until we make sense of our stories.
For me, once the blinders were off, all the joys, victories, triumphs, and love in my past seemed to magically appear. In reality, they were there all along. I just couldn’t see them until I looked for them. I know it wasn’t magic though. It was God opening my eyes to see that He was taking care of me when I wasn’t even taking care of myself.
Even though survivors of trafficking will spend a lifetime managing the negative effects of their experiences, I know I’ve learned a thing or two. Take it from me, reflecting back on our darkest moments, understanding the pain it’s caused us and releasing the shame from it enables us to pass our life lessons on to the next generation. Now I have so much to say because now I know. It feels so much better to know than to doubt. Now I can see the light. The A.C.E. study is truly the science of hope.
I learned so much from these great teachers:
Dr. Bruce Perry –“Healthy relational interactions with safe and familiar individuals can buffer and heal trauma-related problems”
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris –About the ACE study - “What we need to see now is direction of resources at every level. At the city and county level, at the state level, and at the federal level – investing in number one: raising awareness and public education. Because through public education, we can do prevention.”
Dr. Robert Anda – “When people behave in apparently self-destructive ways, it’s time we stop asking what’s wrong with them, and start asking what happened to them?”
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk – “As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”
Dr. Jack Shonkoff – “Everyone likes to talk about resilience. It’s not something you’re born with; it’s something you build up over time. We don’t say to people who have cancer, ‘Why don’t you suck it up and be like the person who didn’t get cancer?”
Dr. Vincent Felitti – “Emotional and physical abuse is part and parcel to being trafficked, let alone the sexual abuse that is inherent to the industry”
I experienced a lot of trauma as a child and as an adult. I was trafficked for 18 years, from age 15 to age 33. I carried a heavy load of shame for years. After escaping the dangers of trafficking, I was told I needed to go back to my darkest moments to process the traumas, to make sense of them. I was very reluctant to revisit them. I didn't see any use in it. It would only make me cry and fearful again. When I tried to put the traumas into words I couldn’t, so I tucked them away into history. I thought I did a good job of it but they kept coming back to me in unexpected ways. The fear, the terror, and the shame wouldn’t let me forget. I felt stuck. I couldn’t move forward. I couldn’t figure out why. I blamed and shamed myself for years, just like everyone else did, for being abused, and for a very long time, I didn’t even know I was a victim.
I had an untold story inside me that was screaming to get out, but I only had images in my head of what happened. It was like duct tape was on my mouth suppressing the screams. Plus, my memory failed me. It was so long ago. Not being able to put the traumas into words was the most difficult part of therapy.
I’m 63 years old. I'm retired. I worked as a clerk for 27 years. When I turned 58 years old, just before I retired, I realized that the same questions about my past, my life, and my mere existence were still spinning around in my head, after all these years. I still had so many questions. I couldn’t deny it anymore, I simply needed answers. I was ready to face my demons.
Then one day, while sitting at my computer at work, it dawned on me that most of my life is recorded in public records. Thence began a long and lonely journey of reliving those painful memories. I did a lot of research and I kept a journal. As I researched, I felt the fear, the terror, and the shame as if it was happening all over again. I was determined to keep going but after about 6 months I knew I couldn't continue on this dark path alone. I was a mess all over again. I was stuck in a dark hole and couldn't get myself out of it. So I signed up for advocacy services at a local YWCA. I had a wonderful therapist who walked alongside me on this journey. She allowed me to unload it all on her. Finding just the right counselor is the hardest part of recovering from sex trafficking. I was duped and re-victimized by several before, but this was a very qualified therapist. She seemed to know all about me even before we met. It was her calming presence that helped me persevere to the end. After a couple of years, I was finally able to put my life story into words. I was also able to change the way my story ends! This is when I was finally able to embrace my survival and I finally stopped staring at the traumas.
I learned in therapy that trauma escapes language and causes memory loss. Searching public records sparked my memory enough to finally be able to piece it all together and make sense of my life, my story and my mere existence. I ended up putting my journals in book form. Wrapping up my life in one, nice, neat, little package was huge for me. I pushed away from the computer after the last chapter was written and I cried and cried. Then I saw my purring cat. I looked around my house and I saw all the comforts home and I knew then it was over. I knew I was safe and my mind stopped spinning. Then the tears I cried became tears of gratefulness. I was able to step back, take a look at my life, from the outside looking in this time, and I had a burst of gratefulness that I survived all that mess. I was never so grateful to be alive!!
From doing this difficult inner work and reflection, I was able to see that it wasn’t my fault. I was able to see that I am one resilient human being.
I didn’t ask to be abused, neglected and raped when I was a child. At age 13 I was gang-raped. I was blamed and shamed for it by my parents, the police and healthcare workers. The emergency department diagnosed me with an STD and I was then admitted to a mental hospital the very next day for nine months. There, they tried to figure out what was wrong with me. The rapists were set free. Nobody considered going after the rapist. My parents said I was a stupid whore. I came to believe I wasn’t worth fighting for. I blamed myself as everyone else did.
Dr. Robert Anda says, “When people behave in apparently self-destructive ways, its time we stop asking them what’s wrong with them, and time to start asking, what happened to them”. I carried a heavy load of shame for being abused for years. This is one reason why I was trafficked for so long. I took all this shame and confusion with me into adulthood, at age 18 and beyond, because I was suffering from relational poverty. My question today is, "What did anybody expect?"
Finally realizing that this was not something I asked for, helped me to take that toxic shame off my shoulders, for being abused, and put it right back where it belongs, back on the abusers.
Healing Moments in Therapy
Three of the most healing moments in therapy for me were:
- When my therapist could see I was struggling to find the words to express myself and handed me a list of emotions to examine.
- When she handed me a list of our basic human rights to examine.
- When I blurted out my shame story of when I was gang-raped and left for dead in an apple orchard when I was 28 years old.
Number 1 - Having a solid vocabulary and being able to express ourselves accurately is empowering. It motivated me to want to learn more words. Being validated is key to helping victims heal but how can anyone validate their feelings if they don’t (or can’t) express them? Just having the list of emotions to choose from helped me express my feelings. Expressing my feelings and emotions helped my therapist validate them. Once I found the words, my story made sense to her, and it made sense to me.
Number 2 - The one basic, human right that stood out to me was the one that said, “You have the right to change your mind.” This brought me back to when I was a teen. My trafficker made me believe that “women who keep their word don’t change their minds.” I promised I would be loyal to him and a woman of my word. Many times I thought of leaving him and escaping his abuse but I quickly dismissed those thoughts because I was so confused about what being a woman of my word meant. If I resisted his demands, in a threatening tone he would remind me, "You promised you would help me!" Because I believed that being a woman of my word meant being sacrificial, obedient, and helpful, I didn’t think I had the right to change my mind. I had to help him like I said I would. I believed I was doing the right thing by staying with him, but looking back, the real truth was I simply didn’t want to face his wrath. He very cleverly made me believe there was something wrong with me, not him. While learning all I could about HT, I learned that this is a tactic that traffickers use on their victims. It’s called gaslighting. The definition is: the gaslighter elicits constant insecurity and anxiety in their victims; manipulates them by psychological means, leaving their victims feeling confused and crazy. Reading the list of basic human rights reconfirmed to me, more specifically, how naive and brainwashed I was.
Number 3 - After developing a healthy relationship with my counselor, I unloaded a lot on her but I was still holding back. There were still a few things I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her. But one day, I did. I just blurted it out. In between sobs I told her in detail what happened in the apple orchard. I was so ashamed of what I did to survive. She responded by calmly saying, “What you did IS the reason you survived.” Oh !!!! It felt like the world had been lifted off my shoulders. It felt so good to get that story out. Because of her warm response, I felt dignity in telling her my story. I know I survived because I had the will. I survived because I’m resilient. From therapy, I learned no one can participate in their own abuse. I certainly didn’t ask to be gang-raped and left for dead. The rapists did the shameful act, not me.
Generational Hand-Me-Downs
Going back to my past, my darkest moments, and researching my family's past has also helped me realize the generational hand-me-downs. I can see now how we all can so easily, and unknowingly, pass our shame onto the next generation. Abuse is passed on from one generation to the next and I believe it’s all because of toxic shame. My parents carried so much shame. My mom was a battered woman and my dad was in WWII and a raging alcoholic. They were abusive to all six of us. I’m the youngest. Neither of my parents ever received counseling. They never came to understand their own ACEs, their own pain, and they never released the shame from it. So they passed it down to all of us, unknowingly. I learned about life, sex, dating and even puberty all on my own, with NO guidance. I learned the hard way, just like I’m sure they did.
My mom and I were blessed to have had the opportunity to become the best of friends before she died. My dad died before we had the chance to rekindle our relationship. It's so much easier for me to forgive them both now because in my research I learned that they had even fewer resources available to them in their lifetime than I had in mine. Women didn't have divorce rights in my parents' and grandparents' era. Husbands had the right to physically “discipline” their wives. I remember the police showing up at our house when I was little after mom called them because dad beat her up. The police said, “Sorry ma’am, he’s your husband. There’s nothing we can do.” Soldiers of war suffered silently themselves because no one knew how to treat PTSD back then. It was called shell shock. Long after the war was over, I’m sure it lived on in my dad’s head.
The result of the ongoing trauma I was subjected to was overwhelming shame. When the ongoing trauma is not intercepted victims begin to reason with themselves and believe they had it coming and deserved it. Without interception, these negative thoughts snowball into overwhelming shame. It develops into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think it should be called Post Traumatic SHAME or SILENCE disorder. To undo it all and heal from it, one has to go through the REORGANIZATION OF PERCEPTION process (The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk). This is what I did from delving into my past, learning about the ACEs, HT and from therapy. I was able to see the big picture and shed the shame. I acquired compassion for my parents.
Going back to my ACE was not to point fingers or to blame anyone. I was about pinpointing what it was in my childhood that formed my adult challenges. Parents cannot control what their children are exposed to, but they CAN influence how they perceive it.
Let’s Flip It
There's a flip side to everything and there's no growth without looking in the mirror. Even though I can see now why I made those bad choices and became drug addicted, I can also see how I, myself, failed so many as an adult and as a hard-core drug addict. History will repeat itself if you don't understand it. I'm doing what I can to break this cycle.
Others were hurt by my bad choices and my drug addiction. To help heal these broken relationships I had to learn to be patient with them. I had to learn to look beneath the surface of THEIR anger and confusion like others had done with me and my victimization and drug addiction. That was hard to do at first but I was patient and it paid off. Eventually, others could see the change in me and apologies and forgiveness took place over and over. In my family, our actions back up these sentiments. I am truly blessed that my family took me back after all I put them through.
Nothing changed after I got out of the mental institution. I was still so desperate for love and attention. When I met my trafficker at age 15, he saw I was easy prey. He promised me the world. He said he would take care of me. He took me shopping and he bought me new clothes. He treated me like a queen. I felt safe with him. When I confided in him about the rapes he made me believe I was stupid too, "for letting those men have me for free". This added to my shame. I believed him. I was only 15.
After several months of dating "my hero", he very cleverly set me up to be gang-raped. When he said he was broke I thought our happy life together was coming to an end. I promised I’d be loyal to him and I wanted to be his Miss Wonderful. I thought he’d really appreciate it if I helped him financially so I agreed to go to the gambling house where he said a nice, rich man was waiting for me. I wasn't sure what he meant because at the time I didn't know the gambling house was also a drug house and a brothel. I was a love-struck teen desperate for my boyfriend’s approval. He had me right where he wanted me. I had no idea four men were there waiting for me. I walked right into it!
He very cleverly made me believe it was my fault, and that I asked for the abuse. I believed him too. After all, I DID agree to go there. Another reason I blamed myself is that I believed I was so stupid.
The abuse got worse. If I didn’t comply with his demands, or if he didn’t approve of my behavior, I was beaten. But he always apologized. I was so confused, just like he wanted me to be. After every beating, I would seek his apology and approval because they made me feel safe again. I developed a trauma bond with him. I became an expert at managing his emotions and moods to fend off his wrath. No one but he explained to me what loyalty meant. No adult sat me down and explained anything about life to me. He made me believe it meant being sacrificial, obedient and helpful. I was lost in the victim mindset.
He introduced me to heroin when I was 16 years old and I fell in love with it. It altered my reality. My traffickers were also my drug suppliers. I defended them for several reasons and my family couldn’t understand why. Once a HT victim gets lost in the life, it’s the victim mindset and the street mentality that is so hard to break. Nobody can save a victim from HT. No one can do the work of transformation for another person. It’s the victim that has to do that hard work. This is a hard fact for compassionate people to accept. It’s so hard to watch a victim go right back to their abusers. But the victim has to be ready for change before they’ll be open to anything positive.
I put my family through a lot of turmoil. When I was a teen my siblings started their own families. They got so sick of me defending my “loser boyfriends” (my traffickers), and all the lies. I sabotaged their efforts to live in peace with drama after drama and emergency after emergency. They received many calls from hospitals and jails. It got to the point where they had to start protecting themselves, our mother, and their own kids from my chaos. They were forced to finally let me go. I was deemed as a bad actor and my family lost all hope for me. Later in life, I learned they told others they were convinced I was going to end up as a “bag lady”.
I expected my siblings to parent me because my parents failed me so badly. They were the only other adults in my life. I mean, after all, adults are supposed to care for children, right? They had their own children. But I was just a child too. I blamed my siblings for years for abandoning me.
My siblings expected me to act responsibly, as an adult. I mean, after all, I was an aunt. I was supposed to be a good role model for their children.
None of us had any idea what went wrong or what we needed from each other. Reflecting back on everything they forgave me for humbles me and keeps me grateful. My siblings were actually my role models and trailblazers. There was no healthy communication between us growing up but we’ve grown so much closer since comparing notes of our childhood and our adulthood. Having a sense of belonging is a true blessing.
Onward!
On April 24, 2018, I appeared in court. That day I officially changed the way my story ends. The prostitution charges that were on record were officially expunged. It was a very proud day for me because those charges haunted me for years.
Just going back to a courtroom, especially to face a judge again, gave me many flashbacks because I witnessed and was subjected to, a lot of corruption while being trafficked. I was arrested many times as a child and as an adult, by that same corruption for prostitution. Being violated by authority figures is a different kind of violation. Seeing how society can rely on the police and our justice system, and seeing how I couldn’t set me apart from “them”. The police had the right to have sex with prostitutes back then. The law changed in 2017.
Police and traffickers both kept me in the dark and under surveillance constantly. I still have issues with authority figures. It’s one reason why I got counseling. I know that PTSD can cause one to think in extremes. I wasn’t sure if my fear of authority figures and law enforcement was extreme thinking or not. If I was confused about it, I wanted to undo the confusion and see law enforcement with a clearer perspective.
When I learned the judge's name I was to appear in front of on April 24, 2018, I almost backed out of seeking justice for any past injustices at all because I learned the judge was the assistant prosecutor at the time the prosecutor’s office refused to prosecute the rapists who left me for dead in an apple orchard in 1983. I don't know if he played a big role in the rapists never getting prosecuted but back then I was viewed by law enforcement and the courts as a common prostitute and a criminal. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to put myself through the agony of facing this same justice system again. My belief back then was that they were all against me. I ended up going through with it because, after all, a lot of changes have taken place since I was on the street. I have certainly changed and I know our system has changed as well.
So that day in court, after mentioning my long criminal history, the judge said ‘I was an inspiration’ and he called me “ma’am”. I knew then my life had come full circle. Click here to watch the court officially expunge my criminal record and finally acknowledge my victimization.
Since I joined the fight against human trafficking I have met some wonderful people in our justice and health system. Now I know there are a lot of good people who are authority figures. I’m still careful though. Corruption is real. But I’m so much wiser today. Now I navigate through life with my eyes and ears open. I look beneath the surface of negative and prestigious titles and labels and behaviors.
I still write. It’s very therapeutic. What I write down will outlast me. Even if no one reads it now, I did my part. I’m passing my life lessons on to someone, somewhere, someday. I let the truth be told and I’m standing on it. I’m standing on solid ground.
The trafficking of humans has been around for ages. There have been many attempts to put an end to this heinous crime to no avail. I researched and learned of many attempts politically and socially. I was reluctant to get on board in this movement because of all the failed attempts in the past and because of the corruption. It's a huge mountain to climb. But I believe that because of the ACE study and the movement to spread the awareness of it and to create trauma-informed schools, healthcare, law enforcement, etc., I have a lot of hope for the next generation. We still have a lot of work to do. I may not see the fruits of all this hard work in my lifetime but I have to do my part. To me, this is what being on “the other side” means. I’m so thankful to be living in this era of change. I’m proud to be a part of this movement.
I co-authored two human trafficking online training programs, one for health care and one law enforcement. I speak publicly. I was appointed in 2015 by the governor to serve on the Michigan Human Trafficking Health Advisory Board. My term expires in December of 2020. It's so rewarding to be involved in the efforts to combat human trafficking and ACEs. It IS hard work, but I believe a successful and rewarding life is a constant fight against our comfort zone. I’m doing my part. HT took 18 years out of my life. I’ll be spending the rest of my life trying to make up for those lost years and to make amends, or at least pay it forward. I’m doing what I can to break the cycle of abuse, this vicious cycle of shame and the ongoing trauma of HT. We’re living in a strong shaming culture. Somebody has to step up to break this cycle. Let that someone be me. Let that someone be YOU.
It's possible to reach the other side.
Note: I am not the only one who has found freedom in learning about my ACEs. Here is a 3-minute video of other stories like mine. https://www.pbs.org/video/pers...ories-of-aces-35404/
© 2018 All rights reserved, Ruth Rondon
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