Finding Help

PARTS OF THIS ENTRY MAY TRIGGER
 

My mom had AIDS and this being so, I didn’t live with her. I lived with my great aunt, grandpa, and grandma. There were custody battles all through my childhood until I was 11, which is when my mom died. This was the second death of a close family member as my grandma died when I was 6.

After my grandma died, my aunt and uncle, (my mom’s sister and husband) wanted custody of me, as did my great aunt that I’d been living with. My great aunt got custody but I had to spend seven week each summer in New York with my family and then another two weeks each summer with mom, sometimes which we spent in New York. My aunt and uncle in NY were the main abusers.

I have come a LONG way from where I was when I first told about the abuse. While I know this, I also know I have a ways to go. It’s been 7 years since I told about the abuse and 10 years since the abuse ended. I look back and I’m like a different person.

For a short background, I was abused mostly by an aunt and uncle. I was "sold" for sex both in the U.S.A. and abroad, in Prague. I don’t like using the word "trafficked" but I know that’s what it was. I saw a girl in Prague killed and this by far is what bothers me the most today. I have a fractured vertebra from the abuse which wasn’t treated and that area of my spine has stiffened, so I can’t arch my back. or expand my ribs as much as I would have been able to had it not happened. My mom was also a victim of abuse at the hands on my abusers.

Some changes I’ve noticed:
* I am no longer walking around the basement door in a wide semicircle, trying to avoid getting too close. My back was fractured in a basement and for the longest time I would make a huge semicircle while walking past the door.
* I know longer have panic attacks when I hear the word "Prague."
* When I hear talk about the way in which the girl was killed (her throat was slit) I don’t get as triggered, though I still get sick to my stomach and have flashbacks.
* I am starting to allow myself to be more social and not avoiding people
* I no longer have nightmares on a nightly, or even monthly basis

There are others, I’m sure, but those come to mind first. I owe much of those to the people at Intensive Trauma Therapy  http://www.traumatherapy.us/ I have been there twice, for a week each time. It helped me so much I can’t even begin to describe.

Now, with what I hope to be the hardest work behind me, I have trouble finding a therapist who is willing to listen to me. I told a therapist about recurring nightmares for example and when I was finished, she nodded and asked me how my social life was, saying nothing about the nightmares I had just spent about 10 minutes talking to her about.

The only insurance I have currently is from my college which doesn’t cover much. There is no one in my area who specializes in PTSD or trauma. I think this is something I will have to deal with on my own from here out. Scott is here for me and will listen and do all he can to help me, which is great and more than others have.

I hope some day I can find someone willing to work with me on the last few remaining triggers, the trafficking being the biggest one. If not, I’ve made it this long and hope that time will help heal these last few wounds that seem to keep festering and flaring up.