“Behind The Scenes”

As I’ve taken huge steps away from being active on social media the way I used to, I’ve both rediscovered & unlearned so much about what it means to effectively advocate both for myself & for my other community members.

There’s so much pressure on survivors to be very public facing & to take a lot of hits online all for the sake of “spreading awareness.” Over the past year, I’ve been getting back to my long-time (grass)roots work & also pursuing new avenues of survivor advocacy & leadership work that don’t require me to be active on social media. It’s been so healing for me.

There are so many things you can do to work in the movement, without having to be “public facing” or active on social media- including but not limited to grassroots community care, helping create, collaborate on, or review documents for organizations, writing composite stories (fictionalized case study type stories often used in presentations or trainings to help educate people on assault/abuse/trafficking without having to use a real survivor’s personal trauma as a teaching tool) or providing technical assistance for organizations or instructions.

There are places for survivor leaders in research, healthcare, hospitality, policy, & so much more. You are not limited to or obligated to constantly re-engage with &/or share your traumatic experiences if you don’t want to. That’s not a requirement to work in the movement in a professional capacity. I didn’t always know this myself, so I want to share it now that I do.

I can only speak for myself, & I encourage other survivors to choose the path that feels right for you. But I know that so many other survivors struggle with wanting to find a balance between privacy & also doing meaningful work in the movement, & I want anyone reading this who doesn’t feel safe or comfortable on social media to know that there are spaces for you that don’t require that.

Being a survivor advocate & leader doesn’t have to mean having an active social media presence or being willing to be on camera or anything like that.

I don’t at this time (& quite possibly ever) want to be in any documentaries or movies. I still am very frequently getting requests to do both, & I’m grateful for the filmmakers & producers who respect my boundaries & don’t try to pressure me when I say no. I also don’t want to do any projects at this time that require me to be publicly active on my personal social media accounts.

I’ve spoken a lot both on social media & also here & here on my blog about how other people using my trauma for their own agendas has been so painful. The aftermath of being manipulated, lied to & used has led me to firmly stating over the last couple of years that I only am comfortable speaking about my lived experiences on my own terms from now on, not to be spinned into someone else’s agenda.

Things can get especially tumultuous when certain survivors end up in a sort of niche internet micro-celebrity role. Some survivors pursue this position, & I can understand wanting to finally be heard & desiring a platform to do good work with.

Some of us are sort of thrown into this position rather than outright choosing it, & we try to make the best of it but it’s really easy to stumble when so much of your life begins to feel like it’s being looked at by so many strangers under a metaphorical microscope. Navigating that can be really hard for anyone but especially when you’re a traumatized human being. Having thousands & thousands of people, some utterly committed to misunderstanding &/ maligning you, hanging on your words all the time is so anxiety inducing. It’s possible to be grateful to have a platform, while also acknowledging how the abuse that comes at you because of that platform can be a lot to take.

It’s also been bizarre to have people who don’t even know me accuse me of only sharing my trauma online for clout or to gain a following, when in reality I’ve lost more followers than I’ve gained over the years for speaking out. In fact, long before I started speaking more openly about my trauma online, I already had a decent sized following. I’ve had a following online since I was very young, across multiple platforms.

Because of a combination of several factors like my existing following & some of my writing going viral as well as some of my trauma having been posted online, the publicity of my pain has gone viral more times than I can count. As I’ve spoken about before, my name as a hashtag on TikTok has over 600,000 views- most of the videos being ones other people made about my childhood trauma without my consent, often getting facts of my case incorrect or promoting their own agendas. I’ve been written about in books, some without my permission or even my awareness until much later. Some of my own tweets have had hundreds of thousands of retweets, & quote tweets by others on them spreading misinformation or using my post to promote their own agenda. & part of my childhood trafficking experience was global front page news in over 40 languages, which I consented to with a reporter who was ethical & compassionate, but the backlash from abusive people who read about my story was & still is severe.

I’ve been very lucky to have gotten significantly more support & compassion than hate, but the hate- although a tiny minority in comparison- has been brutal & life-altering & dangerous for me & my loved ones. This is not the fault of the reporter or news broadcaster, but rather a reflection of misogyny & rape culture being alive & well. A part of my childhood trafficking experience has been viewed, read, & listened to by millions of people all over the world, beginning with the videos of one of the most traumatic nights of my life to the way people talk about it so many years later.

Suffice it to say, many people are very aware of this part of what happened to me during the most traumatic years of my childhood. But when people ask me what would have helped me back then, what someone in my life could’ve done differently, what I need to recover, I don’t only think about myself. When I answer, I try my best to answer not only for myself but also for my family, friends, community members, & countless other survivors who have shared their own stories with me. What happened to me isn’t only about me, because I’m far from the only one these things happen to. When I answer, I think about all the survivors who are no longer here with us, many gone far too young & I think about what could have maybe kept them here with us to live to an old age like they deserved to be able to do.

When I search for these answers, I think about a survivor community I’ve been welcomed into over the last year. This community has helped me learn what it’s like to become part of a collective that values lived experience wisdom, without pressuring us to share details of our trauma. I see the phrase “trauma-informed” thrown around by a lot of organizations & individuals, often with good intentions, but they often miss the mark. It’s so refreshing & healing & appreciated to be part of a community that actually walks the walk & does the work & is actually trauma-informed.

Thanks in large part to this community, I’m at a place now where the concept of “spreading awareness” is no longer my goal. People should be aware of both sex & labor trafficking as well as all other forms of exploitation so we can work together as a society to prevent & combat them, but spreading inaccurate information & conspiracy theories isn’t helping anyone. That’s not spreading awareness, that’s spreading misinformation.

I’m also now at a point where I’m comfortable sharing that I’m not particularly interested in constantly re-living my trauma over & over for the sake of supposedly spreading awareness. It’s triggering, painful, & one story is just one of many so the focus shouldn’t solely be on one person but rather on how to help communities. I believe that focus should be on primary prevention, harm reduction, & helping people who need help & support.

Life is too short & unpredictable to waste time & energy on infighting, social media drama, & performative movements that don’t actually reduce harm or make our communities safer. I want to be where the real work is being done, where we’re healing together & fighting for a better world together. Although I know social media can be a very beautiful & very positively powerful tool when utilized properly, I also feel most at home doing both the grassroots person-to-person work I’ve been doing for over a decade as well as the “behind the scenes” work I’ve found a place in lately thanks to my wonderful mentor, a person who has changed my life for the better in so many ways. I’m so thankful for them & for all of the other incredible people who have restored my hope in the future of the movement.

I may be active again on social media someday, but right now taking a step back is important to me because it’s been good for me & is empowering me to do the work I feel is most impactful.

I recently came across a quote by Shira Hassan that perfectly sums up the kind of work I’m focusing on now & will be for the rest of my life- “Those of us who do not survive whisper the secrets of how to be safer to the next generation.”

I want to be a good relative today to my community, & a good ancestor tomorrow. That’s where my heart is.