Well, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Faithfully Engaged.
Now today's discussion, we're going to talk about some seemingly very difficult topics,
such as human trafficking and abuse and some pretty difficult topics.
I'm betting most of you that have either watched a podcast or watched a video,
listened to anything, read a book, you probably didn't walk away from those discussions very
uplifting or happy. You probably felt pretty down, pretty depressed. My guest, Amanda, today has a
wonderful term for that called trauma vomiting, which I think is a fabulous term, which these
are difficult topics, but you don't walk away feeling very good. Amanda tries to change that.
She wants to feel people, leave people feeling more active and feel like they can do something
instead of just being down and depressed. That being said, Amanda, it's great to have you on.
Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
I live here in Denver, Colorado with my husband and our six cats. I'm a brand new grandmommy,
so I'm super excited about that. My son's daughter is about to have a child this December,
so I'll be a grandmother twice by the end of the year. As you pointed out, I'm a survivor of human
trafficking. I'm also a professional artist. I am an author. I am a public speaker. I'm a trauma
recovery mentor. There's a lot of different hats that I wear, but probably my most favorite hat that
I wear is I'm a believer. I love that you mentioned that of wearing those different hats. Let's just
speak of that to start off with being a believer. I know we're both pretty excited to connect with
each other, having a lot in common with our faith, especially going through all of these difficult
things that you've gone through and the different processes you do to talk about them. I know that
can wear way heavy on you. What does the role of being a believer, being a Christian, how does that
play into all of that? I started out really struggling a lot when I was a kid. We were not
a churchgoing family. We did say prayer, but only over the dinner table and only when we were at home,
never when we were out in public anywhere. I wanted to know more about that. I wanted to know
who was it that we're talking to? Why are we praying? I started running away from home to go to
church when I was probably about eight, nine years old. I'd gotten a lot of trouble for it. I would
be severely punished for going to church. It was a couple miles from the house and they didn't want
me going because they didn't want me going to non-denominational church. They said they were
Methodist and they didn't want me getting confused or getting the wrong messages. I grew up really
being told that church was a bad place in a weird way. Yet I was still a believer. The pastor that
I had back then when I was running away from home was really supportive, very open to trying to explain
things to me. He understood that I didn't want to go off to the kids groups. I wanted to sit there
with the adults because I wanted to learn with the adults. He was open to all of that as long as I
was quiet and good. There was never a day that I wasn't because I so desperately wanted to be there.
God was calling me very early on. If I didn't have that kind of a foundation, I don't know that I
would have survived everything that I went through. I nearly didn't anyway. One of the trauma
reactions that a lot of people go through is actually a crisis of faith. There were
sometimes in my life where I really struggled with if God is real, then why is this happening to me?
But it took a long time to figure it out. I finally figured out exactly why all of that was happening
to me is because of where I am now and the things I'm able to do and because I'm able to help other
people. Yeah, those are some really great words. I'm actually reading a book right now that I had
heard for a long time was a great book, but just hadn't ever done it. Goodness, this is a great curse
that I have had since becoming a podcast host that things just blank on me. It's the existence of
God, I believe is what it is. It's by Tim Keller. It walks through one of the first chapters is
why does a good God allow suffering? That's kind of what you were having to deal with in an extremely
real way at a very young age. Why do I have to go through this? We don't always get that answer,
especially there in the moment, but how wonderful and how sweet of a story it is for you that now
you're in this world that you are now that you can help others because of the bad stuff you went
through. That is a wonderful testimony. It's definitely the story of my life. It took a long
time to get here, but it was worth the journey. Yes. Yes. So with that being said, feel free to
share whatever you either feel comfortable with or what you want to get into, but walk us through
your story a little bit. What were some of these pitfalls that we had to go through in life?
So with most survivors of human trafficking, we usually grow up in rather abusive households.
It sets us up to be more easily manipulated. The first time that I remember being molested,
I was only four years old. It happened again when I was 12 by a stranger in a pool. Again,
when I was 13 by an uncle by marriage. Again, at 15, 16, at 17, I was raped by somebody I thought was
my best friend. And when I was treated basically my entire life, as far as I can remember, as a
sex object, it set me up to believe that that's what I was. That's what my life was going to be,
and that's all it was ever going to be. I learned the, I was conditioned to learn the roller coaster
of emotions, which can be very addicting to some people. You are drawn to circumstances like this,
where you're constantly going through these roller coaster emotions nonstop. And the people who love
you, if they don't hurt you, that means they don't love you. So you're seeking this out constantly.
I ended up in a lot of very abusive relationships. When I was 18 years old, I moved in with a man
who was more than twice my age. And this man was the first person to traffic me. I didn't realize
that it was trafficking for many, many years afterwards. But he had loaned me out basically
as a party favor to a buddy of his for birthday weekend in Las Vegas. We were living in Arizona
at the time. So we had to hop a flight. And we got to Arizona. And I was locked up in a small
hotel room for 52 hours with basically I was allowed to get room service once a day. But the
hotel had been paid off to make sure that nobody asked any questions. They dropped off the room
service and left before I was able to retrieve it. I did not have my driver's license or my
my identification with me, the man who had me with him did. And if I'd left the hotel room,
I wouldn't have been able to get back in because I didn't have a room key. I would not have been
able to return to Arizona. I wouldn't have had identification to be able to go report what's
happening to a police officer. I would have been homeless on the streets of Las Vegas.
In my mind, that was far worse than enduring the 52 hours of repeated assaults. I had already been
through so many years of this exact same thing. Surely I could get through another 52 hours of it
and just get back and leave. That became the easier route and became the route of least resistance.
So I put up with it, got back to Arizona. And almost as soon as I got back, I packed up what I
packed up what I could carry and I left. And I was homeless for a little while. I bounced around
and slept on people's couches and recliners and occasionally would find myself without a roof
over my head and would sleep on park benches. I was looked down on a lot for this. People would
tell me go get a job. I had a job. I was working at a 7-Eleven, but that didn't mean that I could
afford my own place. I also didn't have a driver's license at that time. So I didn't have a car,
I would have probably been sleeping in my car. Otherwise it would have been safer.
Eventually I found my way out of there. I left Arizona completely and got down to Florida.
There was Arkansas in the middle there somewhere, but that's a long story, not for today.
And I got down to Florida and I was going to stay with my dad's mother. She was, she and I had
already made the arrangements. I was going to go and stay with her while I got my knee surgery done.
I had injured myself working on a horse farm. When I got there, it was about 10.30 at night when
I called them from the Daytona Beach bus station to let them know I'm here. I'm ready for you to
come and pick me up. Her husband, my dad's stepfather, answered the phone and said,
we're not coming to pick you up. You're on your own. Good luck. And they hung up.
I found out many years later that it was because my parents had called them and told them that
I was on the run from my troubles again. And if they took me in, they would never speak to me again.
They would never speak to her again. So they left me on the streets and Daytona Beach with $5 to my
name. And at this point, none of them knew that I had already been homeless. And it was one of my
greatest fears was to be homeless again. All I knew was that I was constantly moving. I had moved
eight times in the state of Arizona. It was hard to keep track of me. They didn't know where I was.
They knew that I was constantly on the run from some kind of trouble. I started running away from
home when I was 15. There was always something that I was running from. And they wanted me to
stop running. They thought that this was the way to make me stop running. Instead, I had a young
couple come find me there at the bus station at about 11 o'clock at night. So I'd been crying for
about a half hour at that point. And they told me, you know, we're sorry to hear about everything
that you're going through. And we have a place, we can give you a place to stay until you can get
on your feet. He was 22 and she was 15 but looked 18. And they brought me back to their house. And
what they really meant was that they were going to give me a place to stay until they could find
the highest bidder. And they sold me like a bag of potato chips to some guy named Esteban. And from
there I was locked up in a small room with no food, no water, and no bathroom facilities
for 23 and a half hours, nearly 24 hours. Back in the 80s and 90s, there was this really great TV
show that was on that I absolutely loved called MacGyver. A man could fix anything with paper
clip and rubber band. I even had for a long time, I had a shirt that said, what would MacGyver do?
And when I was locked up in that room, that was all I could think of. What would MacGyver do?
What would Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver do? And I MacGyvered my way out of this room
through some incredible miracle. I got out. I was taking off down the street running away
and I saw a police officer and I went and I tried to flag down the police officer. It was a female
officer. And when I tried to tell her what had happened, it all came out at once,
basically trauma vomiting right at this cop. And she did not believe me. She didn't believe anything
I was saying, but she did see this man who had been chasing after me doing illegal U-turn behind
me. So she went after him for that. And I left. Again, I was homeless and living on park benches
and doing whatever I could to get by. I started working 24 hours a day. So I was working as a
411 operator assistance at, it was 1999. This was still in Daytona Beach. So I was doing that from
8am to 4pm. I get off at work at 4 and walk over to Sears across the street and work from 430 to
1030. Get off work at Sears at 1030 and deliver pizzas in a college town using somebody else's
car that I borrowed until about two o'clock in the morning. And at two o'clock in the morning,
I would go back to the house of somebody who worked nights and keep an eye on their
two-year-old little boy while they were working. And then I would get up in the morning at 8 o'clock
and do it all again. I was working 24 hours a day. I finally had a roof over my head where I didn't
have to give myself a way to be able to feel safe. This family with the little boy decided that they
were going to move to Colorado and they asked me if I wanted to go with them. So I absolutely agreed.
They were going to stop by a place in Ohio to go visit an uncle and we got up to Ohio.
And they basically told me that I would not be continuing the journey with them and they were
done with me. I didn't know what I had done wrong. I had tried so hard to be the best person I could
possibly be and be the best influence to take care of the kid and to not complain about anything.
I did everything right, I thought. And they dumped me off on the side of the road in Ohio
and I had to call an abusive ex of mine from Arkansas to be able to get me out of there
so I wouldn't be homeless in yet another strange state. I couldn't handle this much more. I needed
to get out of there. So I escaped this abusive ex in Arkansas, eventually found my way out to
California where my greatest ambition was to be the assistant to somebody important.
Instead I ended up on Alias and Will and Grace and I modeled for Harley Davidson and I had these
crazy adventures. I had so much fun playing around in Hollywood. And in 2004 it was when I was on
Alias and Will and Grace and I started doing all these crazy things and was acting and modeling
and I had no idea my life was going to be going in that direction. And I also tried internet dating.
So this was becoming a big thing in 2004. There was a website back then called Hot or Not where
you'd vote on whether or not you thought somebody was hot. I thought it was really shallow but I
was still on it. And that was because I had grown up as the sex object and now all of a sudden I'm
modeling and people are putting in their TV shows and stuff. I wanted to know how does the general
public see me. It wasn't because I was wanting to be shallow and rate other people because
I needed to be rated. I needed people to provide that sense of value to me. I was so lost and so
broken that I was looking for that validation from wherever I could get it except where I needed it
from the most. While it was on the website I met a man who lived out of the country
and we really hit it off. We knew right off that since he lived so far away he had a solid
stable job. I had a solid stable career that was blossoming. We knew that we were only going to be
pen pals but we were great pen pals. We'd write back and forth pretty much every day. Eventually
when Skype became a really common thing by 2006 I believe he was eating breakfast when I was eating
dinner and we would share a meal together over Skype. We got to know each other and still communicated
and within seven years I kind of left Hollywood. I started off working as a mall cop and within
five months became a director of public safety and security for six different properties in LA
county and finally had a career. I was really doing well. I had my own place. I had my own car.
Of course I had a driver's license by then. I had everything that I had really wanted except
a stable relationship. I had gone out to see this man where he lived in Scotland and he had come
out to see me where I lived out in California. It took us seven years but we finally decided
that we were in love and he asked me to get a fiance visa and move over to Scotland to be with
him. I mean the land of kings and queens and castles. This is what every child who grows up
watching Disney movies ever dreams of. I was going to be sleeping beauty or snow white. I was going
to come from this tragic background and land in the world of make believe. I couldn't wait
and it took him seven years to get me there and it took him seven days to start trafficking me.
I was 31 years old. It was devastating. The first week I was there was great. I was treated like
royalty. I got to go places and do things. Of course it was January in Scotland so the snow was
frighteningly thick and immense. The snowflakes that landed on the window of the plane when my
plane landed were the size of the palm of my hand. They were massive. Oh my gosh it was freezing.
I moved there from California where I was living on the beach. That's quite the culture shock.
Oh the weather was a culture shock. I figured that there would be some differences because
I'm living in the UK but at least they still speak English. They're Scottish. They don't speak English.
I could understand a little bit of what they were saying but oh my gosh it got to me so much
that within a couple of weeks I was watching every episode of Law and Order SVU and Air Crash
Investigations just to hear the American accent. I was so homesick. It was ridiculous.
So when the abuse began with him it started gradual at first and it escalated quickly.
Eventually it was five, six, seven days a week. I was basically forced to entertain guests in his
home. I was given a little bit of privileges with being able to get out during the days when he was
at work. I was given a cell phone. It was an older flip phone that he could track. I was monitored
with that phone. He would get ahold of it every night to see what messages were sent or received.
The only phone numbers that I had were his and his sister's and if I ever said anything in a text
message to his sister about something that he had done or something that was going on or even hinted
or alluded to not being happy I was punished severely. So some of the punishments would be
things that would consist of basically torture. So I'm a survivor of sport torture. I was water
boarded. I had sleep deprivation. The longest I ever went without sleep I believe was eight and a
half days but it's hard to keep track at that point. Food deprivation. So I was starved.
I started to have a sensitivity to certain food items and I didn't understand what that was. Later
on I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. So those food items that would cause me to vomit were the
food items that he fed me more often. He said that was because I was the skinnier I stayed the more
he could charge. I wanted out. So after the views first started I he had already taken my passport
and my driver's license my debit card all that stuff and he said it was for safekeeping. He's
literally put it in a safe so that he could keep an eye on it and I couldn't have access to it. He
said that was in case anything ever happened and we'll get into his background here in just a moment
but when you find out what his job was it makes perfect sense that I would trust him with this
kind of stuff. So one night when he had had way too much to drink he was a heavy, heavy drinker.
He'd had way too many whiskies and I kept giving him more and I talked to him that evening before
he went to sleep and I said you know if I have my passport and my debit card I could go down to the
bank sometime this week and go draw out all the money that I have in my bank account and give it
to you so that we can spend it and he fell for it. What I did instead was the very next morning
I got up and grabbed my computer and I tried to purchase the first flight out that I could afford.
The very first flight out was $12,000 there was no way I could afford that all I had was a little bit
over $2,000 in my bank. So I did what I could and searched around and tried to find the cheapest
flight out and the cheapest flight out that I could find that I could actually afford was going
to be five days from that day. So I'd have to continue going through this abuse for the next
five days but after five days it goes back to that original 52 hours the first time I was
trafficked. If I can get through this, if I can get through these these days, these hours,
then I'm home free. I'm good and I can get out. But during that five days I was so severely abused
that I ended up with a kidney infection that was so bad I was in the hospital and I missed the
flight and that ticket cost everything I had except for $11. So I really I had nothing left.
It was a non-refundable flight. I lost it all and then of course he found out and I was subjected
to some really nasty harsh punishments because of that. Eventually I kind of started to lose hope
and one day I decided that this was going to be my last day this was going to be my last cigarette
and I grabbed I at the time I was a smoker. I have not been a smoker now for great many years
thankfully but I grabbed a cigarette and I headed for the door and there was a church down the street
right on the main road. It was built in the 1600s. It was gorgeous and I went down there and I sat in
the graveyard of this church, little tiny graveyard. There was a headstone in there that was dated 1776
which is America's independence from the UK rule from English rule and I took that as kind of a
sign and I sat down next to the grave and I put my back against the my spine was on the side of
the grave and I talked to whoever it was. The years had so deteriorated the stone of this headstone
you couldn't even see the name anymore. It didn't exist. It was just the year
and whoever that was that was under me was my best friend that day because they listened to everything
and I prayed you know somebody please come find me send somebody to come find me and nobody came
and I finally got up after about an hour of sitting there in the cold wet grass and I went and sat on
the porch and tried the doors first the doors were locked. I sat on the porch of the church
and I watched as the traffic passed and people walked by and I just I prayed really hard just
sobbing please God somebody please send somebody to come find me ask me what's wrong
and nobody came. So I finally got up and I headed to the train station. I was going to commit suicide
by train. I got all the way to the train station and stepped out onto the platform and I had that
one last cigarette with me still and I lit that cigarette and a man walked out onto the platform
and he asked me for a light and I handed him my little book of matches and I told him oh you can
keep these I don't need them anymore and I wanted him to ask why because if he asked me why I would
have told him I'm going to kill myself. I hurt I can't live like this anymore but he didn't ask.
He said I am quitting too. I did me back my batches and that was that. That was the end of the
conversation and I was just flabbergasted that nobody this entire day nobody cared nobody wanted
to get involved. When I cried my eyes turned bright ready it was obvious that I had been crying nobody
cared and then a little boy about four years old walked out onto the platform and he took his father's
hand and a little boy looked at me and when he looked at me he didn't just look at me he didn't
just see some crazy lady with red eyes smoking a cigarette he saw a human being he saw me
and I knew that that was the person that God sent. I knew that I had to stop what I was thinking.
I could not do to this child what had been done to me so many times over and over again.
I could not take his innocence away from him by killing myself and allowing this child to see this
and it took me about 20 seconds to realize that I had thrown down the cigarette and was running
and I wasn't running toward the train I was running back toward my prison and I was happy about it
because I was thanking God for miracles not yet received because I knew that if he was going to
keep me alive in the darkest moment that I'd ever had in my life that there had to be more out there
my life meant more than that and I was not going to just die in some incident in Scotland.
I was going to get out of there I was gonna find a way I just needed to give myself a little more time.
Within a couple of months I had completely hatched and carried out one of the greatest
acting jobs of my life. Thanks to Hollywood I had gotten a little bit of that training.
And thanks to all of the abuse that I had gone through for all those years I had learned enough
about psychology and from listening to different crime dramas and stuff and watching Law and Order
SVU I had learned so much about psychology that I knew what Stockholm syndrome was.
We now call it trauma bonding. I hate that it's been rebranded but I'm still going to refer to
it as Stockholm syndrome because I'm old school and just old but I learned enough about it to know
what it was and how it worked and I started over the next few weeks leaving these little breadcrumbs
and making him believe that I had completely done a 180 and no longer wanted to get away from him
but would do anything for him and I loved him desperately and all I wanted was whatever he
wanted. I just wanted to make him happy and at the end of a couple of months I approached him
and we sat down one night I had made a dinner and we were sitting down and talking about things and
I told him I said you know I came over here on a fiancé visa and the day that we told them
originally that you and I were going to get married has come and gone. Now if we if we overstay my
visa then I could get deported back to the states and according to UK law I would never be allowed
back in the UK under any circumstances and I'd never see you again plus with you being a police officer
you could lose your job so here's what I propose if you send me back to California
I could live there for the next six months and get another visa and come and live out here for
another six months and if we if we set this up right I could come back in time for Christmas
and wouldn't it be great it would be our first Christmas together and he was so convinced because
of all these little breadcrumbs that I had dropped along the way that this was absolutely the case
that within two hours I had a round trip flight it would have landed me back in Scotland on December
8th of that same year it was insane trying to get out of there I had watched every episode
of air crash investigations because I missed the American accent going to that plane I was more
scared of staying than I was of flying and that's saying something after all that two years later I
became a flight attendant but the attacks didn't stop it didn't end there just because I got away
and a lot of people have this preconceived notion that just because you escape a domestic violence
situation or because you get out of trafficking and you build your own life outside of that
that that means that that's the end of it and you've moved on he came looking for me
he nearly found me he was banging on the neighbor's door he had my address off by a single number
I moved repeatedly over and over and over and over again as I had been basically my entire life
at this point in my life right now I have moved 43 times I hope I'm done
I'm tired of packing my bags man but eventually in 2016 I packed up all my bags
and my cats I had acquired some cats and I moved out to Colorado and when I got out here I was
thinking you know I've been living and hiding for several years now surely things are better
things are quiet now I can have a life now and I found out in 2019 that he made me famous on a
pornography website and he linked all of the social media accounts that he could find for me to this
and gave every bit of personal information he could find on me so people could actually
find me and locate me the most humiliating moment I think I ever came across was when I was in a
grocery store doing just my basic shopping and somebody recognized me from the pornography site
from a rape video it wasn't for being on alias or will and grace or modeling for harley david
sonnery these super cool things that I did and this guy had the gall to ask me for an autograph
I didn't know how to handle this so I reached out to two different anti trafficking organizations
one immediately set me up with a legal firm in New York City that's going that was going to
start reaching out to these pornography websites and giving them the threat of legal action
that they needed to pull this stuff down right away and they went to work man every single time
something popped up they would immediately reach out and have it pulled down but every time one
went down two more went up somewhere else it was overwhelming so I also reached out to another
anti trafficking organization that paired me up with a therapist now the first therapist I swear
to you I traumatize this woman so much with my trauma vomiting that she has left the industry
and will never be a therapist again but the second one they paired me up with she was amazing and you
know I I I kind of cut to the chase with her anyway because I learned from my first mistakes
I told her I said number one don't come at me with medications because I don't want a bandaid
I want to get to the root of this and dig it out and number two don't walk on eggshells I'm
tired of people treating me like I'm a broken thing or that I'm so fragile because if I was
going to break I would have broken already and I'm still here so let's get through this
a year and a half later we were nearing the end of our therapy she said I don't know that there's
much more that I can do to help you you've done so much and you've worked so hard on this
what are you going to do next because I know that you're not done yet I said you know I think
I'm ready to write my book finally and in the month of December of 2020 I wrote my entire book and
when she reached out to me again in January she said how's it going it's like well it's done
she said I I can't believe you're done already this is amazing now what are you going to do and I
said I don't know she said well have you considered art I was like well I used to do art I used to
do drawings and stuff for a while and I got really burned out on it she says what about painting
so well I did some finger painting when I was a kid but it all came out looking like a multicolored
snowman so you know I don't know what to tell you I'm just not a painter she said I'm going to send
somebody over with some canvases and brushes and paints and I want you to just try it doesn't
matter what it looks like it doesn't matter if it's good or not because one of the major trauma
reactions that people have is a need for control and what we all have to recognize is that we only
control about 10 percent of everything in our lives but when we can take that 10 percent and turn
it into something that we can see and feel and touch and have absolute control over we can actually
start to retrain our brains to have these healthy reactions your book was hugely helpful in this
because you had control over what words you were putting down but art is going to be the same thing
so I promised her that I would try it within three months I sold my first painting I sold it to the
anti-trafficking organization that actually paired me up with a therapist they made prints of it and
sold the prints to be able to help offer therapy to other survivors of human trafficking within five
months I had sold my my artwork internationally I had sold one piece to a home for human trafficking
survivors in Chicago Illinois I have a print of it behind me in my studio and the painting is called
carry your own baggage because we all have to carry our own baggage through life until we find a
safe place to set it down and the only and best place to set it down is at our Lord's feet
if we give it to him he knows what to do with it nobody else on this earth knows what to do with
it we don't know what to do with it we don't even know what's in the baggage sometimes he does and
he can absolutely take control of that and to help us to let it go and the essay the painting that
stuff ended up in this home for survivors in Chicago about the same time that my autobiography
was published which was on my 10-year anniversary of freedom from trafficking
and that came out June of 2021 and Chicago Tribune wrote an article about me and in July of 2021
was when I met the man that's now my husband and if I hadn't done all of that work and gone
through everything and had the therapy and learned how to fight back and discovered the lion in my
lungs I wouldn't have the relationship that I've got now I wouldn't have married a man who's one of
the audio engineers for our church I wouldn't have even 10 percent of everything that I've got now
and then the man that trafficked me because I learned how to speak up he's now more scared
of me than I've ever been of him wow yeah that first off incredible incredible story and one in which
like again the the emphasis on all the bad stuff that happened yes that happened I know that's a
big part of your of your therapy treatment I'm sure of putting that out there like yes this happened
that it was bad I did not enjoy it and coming to grips with that but we don't stay there we don't
stay in what bad happened and then just in there we continue on and I love the fact one of your
your perseverance is just through through the roof that I think that's something anybody can
can learn from and a quick little side note here my my wife is as the recording of this she is eight
months pregnant and is super sick it's been it's been miserable she has this is our third child
and each one has it's been worse as far as the pregnancy goes sick all nine months and it's been
not it's been terrible that just to put it put it frankly there but she perseveres and her midwife
actually if there's a another patient she'll use my wife as an example and they're complaining about
something and she'll say now listen here I've got this patient and she's got it way worse than you do
and um that perseverance is something that we all can get better at and again using my wife as this
example when that baby comes out it's the most beautiful thing is her illness is gone and
she would love that baby no matter what if there is sickness or not but it almost adds to that like
I suffered nine months with you and you are beautiful like it just adds that enjoyment there and
I think that's what I love about your story there is yeah all that stuff was was awful that we
wouldn't wish that on anybody but look at what you have and look at that perseverance look at
that story and this is kind of that this next question I have for you um through your book through your
art through telling your story how have you been able to transition from this is like I'm traumatized
I'm living in this trauma to now I'm helping other people how has that process been being able to
shift to kind of be more of that mentor more of that teacher type of role a lot of that came from
doing the research myself and learning about Stockholm syndrome but learning about the other
trauma responses and stuff too so when I wrote my autobiography probably the biggest thing for me
was that in the process of writing that book I learned how to put all of that bad stuff down
on the pages and walk away from it I was literally giving it a physical body that was separate from
my physical body and when you do that with something and you walk out of the room and you
leave it behind you you're learning to let go of it little by little every single thing that I
could remember and write down I was purging from my system now when I started really learning about
the stages of trauma which mirror the stages of grief I learned of the reason that they
mirror the stages of grief is because with trauma we are altered our mental thinking our
capabilities the way we react to different things all of that has completely changed because of
being traumatized we have to grieve for the person that we were going to be for the life that we
had planned for the life that we had expected for ourselves when you grow up in a life of trauma
you have to grieve for the child that never got to be you know I had a lot of grieving to go through
to be able to get from one end of the trauma to the other so with the five stages of trauma five
stages of grief you go through denial first this didn't happen then you go through anger
bargaining depression and when you finally get to the acceptance phase that doesn't mean that you've
accepted it and life is hunky dory and you're good to go it means that you're finally ready to start
doing the hard work you have to be willing to do the hard work to be able to get through to the
other side and that's what I approached with that therapist I had already gone through all five of
those stages of grief and had been going through them for years and what I needed from her was the
help to get over the hurdles that I was facing with everything beyond the acceptance now how do I
do this how do I jump over this how do I learn to live with this how do I change the way I'm
thinking with this I have personally amassed a list of over 60 different trauma reactions that
people can have I've had most of them myself a lot of these tie into PTSD and a lot of these can become
PTSD if they're not dealt with so there's a lot of long-term consequences to not fighting back
against your trauma reactions and retraining your brain to have healthier reactions when I learned
about all of this stuff I started to realize I know enough of this to be able to teach this to other
people and I've already been through the hard parts I don't figured it out the hard way so if I can
help anybody to skip having to do this the hard way it's still going to be hard but I'm gonna cut
out all of the crap that you don't need and give you the stuff that you actually do need I can
actually help people and my plan wasn't to become a trauma recovery mentor until I found that this
was something that I had already been doing for quite a while with several people other
trafficking survivors other trauma survivors domestic violence survivors all kinds of people
were coming to me and saying how do you do this how do you overcome this how do you fight back
against this so I finally started to build my own curriculum this is how you do this I can help you
we can go through it together and that was that was about the time that I realized that
everything that I'd been through that was where the little boy was telling me to go that's what
God was telling me to do was I needed to help others to get through their hard times too
I've got a voice I have the ability to express myself in writing and in painting and on stages
and if I can do this if people are willing to listen if people are willing to pay attention
they can learn how to do it too you you have a very unique
place and in the in the kind of anti trafficking type of movement you you've lived it you breathed
it and those experiences do matter I I can try to speak for somebody and I can do the best job I can
I can't speak with the same way to do it's it's impossible for me to I've not lived the same
things that you have now that being said I would imagine those people that are listening to this
most of which have not experienced anything near the degree that that you personally had
but they hear some of these trafficking stories and they want to be involved they want to help
in some way shape or form what is your advice for those that don't have the same experiences
but still want to help what what can they do I would say look into organizations in your area
or internationally but vet the organizations if you do decide to work with them find out what
the money is being spent on there are organizations out there that will absolutely share the story of
a human trafficking survivor in order to gain more money through ways of donations and the
survivor whose story they took doesn't receive any compensation at all this is a further exploitation
of the victim then you have to make sure that you know where the money is being spent if there's
somebody who's running an anti trafficking organization who had previously let's say a
government job and is living in a six million dollar house that you know government money
wouldn't have been able to pay for you have to ask where that money came from
but there are a lot of organizations out there that are survivor led and it's important to
understand that when we say survivor led these organizations might not have been founded by a
survivor of human trafficking many of them are but they have survivors of trafficking who are in a
position now to be able to help mentor the others to get from the place of being a victim to being
a survivor to thriving there's one in colorado springs called compass 31 it is a fantastic
organization that does a lot for the survivors there's one in denver here called beautiful feet
wellness she does yoga classes and retreats for survivors of trafficking there's of course a light
those are the people that lined me up with the pro bono legal services if you're looking for an
organization to get involved with these smaller organizations need a lot of help and they're
doing the boots on the ground work they're working so hard for the rehabilitation and for helping
those who need it most it's so important to make sure that you know where the money is going and
if you look at the compass 31 website they actually have the seal of transparency they will
absolutely share where every single penny goes every single year that they're in business that's
important to recognize and it's important to partner with organizations like that that need
it most I think that's key and and really in anything that you give money to but especially
these hot topic type of things like that and I would share this even aside from a specific
cause like that black human trafficking and even into just a christian based type of organizations
as well even even different type of churches I think what you're saying is really important in
general with any type of giving giving is a fantastic thing to do I think especially as a
as a christian that is something that we are very much called to do but we're also called to be good
stewards and a place could look real clean look real nice they have a good looking website and
then just click and donate maybe it's good maybe but I think doing your homework like you're saying
is really important and that sounds like a really key tenet of a good organization is are they
transparent because if they're not there's probably a reason behind that that there unfortunately are
a lot of nonprofits and organizations that have some shady underbellies that that do bad things
absolutely I've run into several of them and it's it's scary when you run into those too
yeah they're absolutely taking advantage of everybody out there they're victimizing everybody
not just the victims of trafficking not just the parishioners they're taking advantage of
anybody willing to listen to their sob story with that are there other when you're talking about
boots on the ground just those local organizations are there other kind of quick tips to like
different questions to ask like should I look at the financial sheets are there parts on the websites
that we need to be looking for like what are some of those practical steps of those local
organizations people can do to kind of vet them out a little bit better definitely look at the
financials that is key and paramount in 90 percent of everything that we're doing with the anti-trafficking
stuff but also if you don't if you are looking at their website if you're paying attention to what
it is that they're doing if there is one group that has more notoriety than any other you have
to ask yourself why are they spending money on advertising how deep are their pockets and where
is that money going there's one recently that had a movie made about them and you have to understand
what human trafficking looks like to to make sure that they're not exploiting what the media is
portraying as human trafficking because that is so separate from what it actually is so the department
of homeland security defines human trafficking is the use of force fraud or coercion to obtain
labor or sex acts from another person you notice there's no mention of transportation so human
smuggling is a separate issue from human trafficking and there's no mention of money so prostitution
does not equal human trafficking human trafficking does not equal prostitution 95 percent of women
in human trafficking in prostitution are being trafficked somebody else is making the money
and they are forced fraud it or coerced into doing labor or sex acts but there are literally millions
of people being trafficked every single day and prostitution only takes up a small part of that
you know we talk about human trafficking here in the u.s and nine times out of 10 what people
are thinking is automatically sex trafficking that is what happened to me but that only makes
up 14 percent of trafficking worldwide the majority of trafficking like something like 80 percent of
trafficking worldwide is labor trafficking we're talking child soldiers in Africa we're talking
migrant workers here in the u.s these are people that are being forced frauded or coerced into
working labor and they're not receiving the benefit of their work so another thing that we really
have to watch out for is the people that are touting the kidnap scenario we think that kidnapping
only happens to children being kidnapped off the streets by greasy looking dudes in windowless fans
you know the kidnap fans we all watch for the kidnap fans let's get real you know especially
growing up in the 80s the way i did you learn about stranger danger well the biggest danger
doesn't come from strangers 85 percent of all people trafficked are trafficked by people they
know and trust and love who have a sense of authority over their lives parents grandparents
aunts uncles neighbors boyfriends girlfriends in my case it was a boyfriend then it was landlords
and then it was a fiance you know with all of that my case all three of the times that i was
trafficked are far more typical than what anybody could ever possibly imagine but that's not what
the media talks about that's not what some of these anti trafficking organizations are talking
about so when they start talking about the kidnapping scenarios you have to ask what's their motive
here because that's such a small percentage of the actual cases when they start talking about
save our children that became a political hashtag a couple of years ago it is not a political issue
it doesn't matter what side of politics you lie on it doesn't matter what your what you
what your male or female it doesn't matter if your black or white or asian or mexican
or hispanic it doesn't matter human trafficking can't affect anyone and everyone it doesn't even
matter how old you are the last time i was trafficked i was 31 years old you know the
whole save our children thing the youngest person here in colorado that was saved from trafficking
was only three months old the oldest was 70 wow
yeah we have to recognize that it is not what the media portrays it as and if you run across
these anti trafficking organizations that claim that they're doing the hard work
and they only have a focus on kidnapped victims or people under the age of 18 ask yourself why
that that's a really really good point and unfortunately we do live in a
kind of a clickbait type of culture here's what's the big story that could really get you riled up
and nonprofits and things like that can do the very very same thing and i think you're saying
asking those questions why especially and i think this is another piece that i would imagine you
would agree with is is it just arming yourself with the knowledge in general of yeah like now i know
that sex trafficking is a is a is a piece of it but it's not it's not even close to the whole
puzzle it's a minority of it um 70 year old being trafficked that is not that narrative of that little
child being being kidnapped um so arming yourself with that knowledge allows you to ask those questions
of why are they propping that up and that curiosity continue going on that will kind of lead you down
down a path of asking good questions and maybe being able to narrow down ways that you can actually
help and the good news is as as you had mentioned in even in your own local community there are
organizations actually doing that you just have to do your homework absolutely and it's worth doing
the homework now and if you don't have money to be able to offer to these organizations you can offer
your time you can offer your resources there's so many different ways to help if you don't know how
to help call the organizations and say hey i'm broke i don't have any money how can i help you
they will give you something yeah yeah no that's good that's good because i i'll give you an example
this wasn't what they uh a trafficking organization but my my wife um a couple years ago she volunteered
out of the local um crisis pregnancy center and she wasn't giving a dime of her money but she was
able to organize things there and the the closet they had some like clothes and diapers and things
like that and she was able to do that again financially she didn't give a penny there but she
helped pretty drastically um for that organization and yeah trafficking organizations any other place
like that they'll find something for you to do for sure um i'm imagining there are a million
ways that you could help even if it's not given a dime absolutely and that's the way it is with
basically any uh real charity that you want to get involved with if they can't find something for
you to do they probably don't need your money either yeah that's a really really good way to
to phrase that uh let last thing i kind of wanted to to get into with you especially
armed with this knowledge that okay it's not going to just be a stranger in fact it more than likely
wouldn't be a stranger it's not just a young girl that will be sexually trafficked um
what are ways that for individuals listening to this and maybe individuals that have loved
ones that they wanted to arm with protection how can people be protected themselves to not even get
into trafficking to begin with one of the biggest keys is to avoid manipulative behaviors and other
people watch for these things and see them for the red flags that they are and run nine times out
of ten when somebody is trafficked it's by somebody that has the power to manipulate you know the whole
kidnapping scenario is so rare because if you were to snatch somebody off the street what's the
first thing that person's going to do they're going to fight they're going to fight for the
like their life depends on it because as far as they know their life does depend on it the average
lifespan of somebody in trafficking is only seven years at the end of that usually they're dead
less than two percent of all victims actually survive it is imperative that we stop people from
getting involved with people who have these manipulative behaviors they will absolutely pray
on somebody they look for somebody that has something missing from their life and they promise
that to them in order to get their trust and to start building this relationship and eventually
exploit them use it against them they will threaten them you'll start to see behavioral changes in
people if somebody is going through something like that it might just just be domestic violence
and it could be something as nefarious as human trafficking but all of it needs to be taken seriously
one of the greatest things that we can do for our fellow man is to take a moment to step back
and do what that little boy did for me that day he didn't have to say the words but he said them
with his eyes are you okay what can I do to help are you okay that that is something incredibly
important on the individual side that there's some type of psychological term to this i'm kind of
blanking on it but essentially it's just trusting your gut something there's a red flag there the way
that they looked at me the way that they're kind of coming across maybe i'm able to pinpoint exactly
what it is but maybe i'm not but listening to that we don't want to just shove that down and act like
it's nothing because it very well could be and also listening to the loved ones around us not
that they're right about everything but if everybody else is around us picking up on something and i'm
not something's off and we need to listen to those to those cues there and then also on the other
side i do have a good psychological sociological term for this and that's the bystander effect
and that's unfortunately incredibly common where if there's a emergency that happens some somebody's
down on the pavement there and there's a lot of people around we tend to have the uh viewpoint
that well somebody else will get to it um yeah there's a hundred other people they'll get to it
i don't need to call 911 and then people just die alone out on the street sometimes and you need to
take that onus not just in an emergency situation like that although yes don't wait for someone to
call 911 you you go do it um but just like that little boy somebody that's just looks like they're
distraught you don't even necessarily have to say a word but that little boy communicated so much
to you just with his eyes that cashier at walmart that looks like they're having a rough day hey
i hope you have a good day today ma'am thanks for thanks for your help those little things asking
questions checking in on a loved one that you haven't talked to in a while you have no idea how much
that can mean to somebody and that's something that we're trying to engage our kids with um not
just with uh with with trafficking but especially with sexual abuse things just in general because
we know that like with sexual abuse like with trafficking it's generally with people that they
that they know and we're not we're trying to not scare our kids but also just say like hey
like we're we're gonna check in with you if somebody ever does touch you in a bad place like
you can talk to mommy and daddy but mommy and daddy are also gonna pick up on your cues like
if you're really off we're gonna ask you but what's wrong um and that's because we love them
and we want to make sure that they're okay and you need to be doing the same thing with your loved
ones around you if something's off they're not talking and they're usually mr or mrs chatterbox
something's off and maybe it's something minor maybe their dog died and they need to talk about it
but maybe something really big's going on so don't be afraid to ask those questions just
ask them what's going on what you look upset minor things and they may really open up to you so
don't miss that don't miss the other people around you and as as we both believe as as being believers
there's god put that little boy there in your life 100 he put him there and god is putting you there
right now to speak to to other trafficking women and men and other people that have been involved
in these difficult situations but listeners god's place in you and your life for a reason to
maybe it's to talk more into your kids maybe it's to be involved with somebody in your community
i don't know but don't miss those moments that every day you can make an impact to somebody
that's around you absolutely remember to love your neighbors yes yes 100 that is reason why that is a
very strong command in in scripture and those neighbors are not just the people that live
right next door to you they're all throughout your community check in with people i love the
way you put that you know it would have made a world of difference that day if one person had
asked me are you okay i may have actually been able to get some help i had to go back and get
through everything for a couple more months after that it could have changed if somebody had asked
are you okay and looking back the reason i believe that didn't happen was to install that value in
me now that i know the power of asking are you okay and i do check in on my friends and every
now and then i just get this weird feeling something's not right with this person over here
and i'll check in with them and usually it's because there's something pretty serious going on
and god has put it on my heart to check in on them because he knows that i'm going to understand
what they're going through yeah there's times that we undervalue the role that that we serve now
again as as as christians we certainly believe that it's we're not a workspace religion it's
based on god's grace on us you know it's nothing that we did but how joyous that is to be involved
and to be involved in somebody's life to ask if you're okay and they tell us something's
wrongs going on like that is a joy to be a part of that and and we need to view that as a joy
that we get to be involved in somebody's life that way instead of just uh oh well i need to
give them their space i don't want to be involved in there and their junk i've got enough going on
in my life that this is not the way that we're supposed to live right okay well i i'm imagining
people listening to this have heard your story um probably want to get in touch with you maybe know
more about about the things you're currently doing know about your book so give the give the audience
all the links and things like that of how they can read your book and and get to know more about you
well i just published my 13th book on june 1st um so all of my books you can find on barns and noble
if you want a kindle version you can find that on amazon too but the paperback versions are barns
and noble exclusives um you can find links to all of them through my website growthfromdarkness.com
you can also find the link there to reach out to me on facebook which is facebook.com slash
amanda blackwood survivor i'm very active on facebook and i love chatting with people openly
there about anything and everything um i've had a health journey recently i'm very open about
and i talk to people about this all the time about just because we see everybody else's
highlight reels doesn't mean that we don't have we can't be transparent in our own lives and show
people the real side of life um i also have an etsy page if people are interested in getting prints
of my artwork i have an exclusive um one-man art show coming up in the month of august so i'm holding
back on a lot of the original artworks but starting in september a lot of this stuff is going to be
offered on etsy anything that doesn't sell at this art show so definitely watch for that too
awesome well i'll have all of that linked down in the show notes it's been a wonderful conversation
thank you so much amanda for for sharing your story with us and also giving us some tangible
ways that we can all be involved in uh anti trafficking movements absolutely and thank you
for listening thank you for giving me the opportunity to use my voice and to help other people to
find ways to get involved absolutely and thank you again to everybody that tuned in for uh this
latest episode and i hope you all have a wonderful week and we'll see you again soon