For too long now, my trauma has been horrific.

It is body memories, it is apathy, it is exhaustion, it is feeling dead to emotions, it is wanting to cry or scream, it all that and more that I have no human words for.

I need to move it, I need to get my mojo working.

I do this best by confronting where the pain comes, confronting my truths that I am afraid to know.

I do this best by confronting the hate-speech of pro-sex trade lobby that is pouring trauma into my essence, and blocking my future.

I get my mojo back with courage, with allowing in my vulnerability, with a fierce warrior soul.

I write as one way to get my mojo going.

Where do I begin, when trauma is all round me and suffocating me.

I can write, and hope my choking keeps it distance.

I will write even as sitting on my anus as it screams into memories.

I will write, and try to ignore my exhaustion that is just a blocking mechanism.

Writing is my road to freedom, writing is my way to speak to the truth.

But where do I start?

I suppose I could start with the words of hate that the sex trade lobby send my way all the time, or send to all other exited women who speak out.

It is easier to start with outside forces, and more into my essence.

Words are –

Sex work, underaged-sex worker, choice, forced prostitution, trafficking vs prostitution, clients, businessmen, harm reduction, made safer, indoors prostitution vs outdoors, underground – and such like “friendly” words.

These words are used to make the sex trade appear welcoming, clean and safe – words that implies all so-called bad aspects of the sex trade can and will be dealt with in-house.

These words are used to push prostitution indoors, and less likely to have outside interference or any consideration of the welfare of the prostituted.

Words like harm reduction and made safer are used to say – yeah sure, there is violence in all aspects of the sex trade, but let’s make it the fault of the individual prostitute, say she is weak or incapable to care her own safety.

Just don’t mention that it may be the punter who is the cause and reason that there is violence against the prostituted.

Just don’t mention that the major profit in the sex trade is when punters are allowed to be as violent as they can imagine – those punters spend more and more likely to return.

Just ignore that it is impossible to know when a punter may be a sadist – just ignore that paying for sex is an act of violence in and of itself.

But what is this harm reduction – is it not a method to patch up the prostituted with condoms, a short talk, and some coffee – then send her back into the line of danger.

Harm reduction is about the endless flow of the prostituted, with a small rest to pretend to care.

I do not want the harm to be reduced, I do not want the prostituted to comforted and then throw back into the fire – that is just a slow death – and it is cowardly and irresponsible of those who use harm reduction as a route to keep the sex trade going.

I wish to speak to my trauma, to my pain, to my grief.

I want to dig deep, if I can without my normal blocking.

I feel my PTSD has been bad off and on since January.

This has meant writing has been very hard.

Yes, I have run away into sports on TV, but it does not make my trauma disappear, just numbs it for short periods.

Now, I am using this post as a start to confront why this trauma is so awful.

I am knowing the pain, the sense of despair, the terror that was being prostituted.

I am coming to terms, beginning to come to terms, with the facts that I was tortured when I was prostituted.

I am coming some kind of terms of how many lies keep me in prostitution, how I was brainwashed to think I was worthless.

I am accepting that I was raped in the thousands, that I was raped by punters of all classes/ethnicities/beliefs.

That is some of the source of my trauma.

To be prostituted is to have no hold on how often you were abused, to have no hold on memory as it fractures with too much torture and hate.

I believe the prostituted need only remember enough to know that the torture really happened, and to believe in their heart and soul that they were never to blame.

It is impossible to remember with full knowledge when raped in the thousands.

It is impossible to have a sense of linear time when so much of the violence is repeated over and over and over inside your body.

It is impossible to know the faces of the punters as they merge into one long horror.

It is normal to have fractured memory after prostitution.

Instead of interrogating those of us who have been lucky enough to exit – with questions like –

Where did it happen? How many men exactly? What age were you? Why did you not just walk out? Why did you take the money if it was so bad?

Forget those blaming questions, and think deeper and with real compassion.

Like the exited explore their past at their own pace, learn to accept the holes and silences in their memory, listen without speaking over.