om actions
the past, her reactions each time confirmed the worst. And I started
to notice that she tried to hurt me with every chance she had. I
reduced contact with her, and by the early 90’s realised that it was
not possible or healthy to have any connection. I married the man
who fit the profile described by my rescuer, and we divorced when
our daughter was three years old. Being a single mother forced me
to go much deeper in my healing, knowing that my little girl relied
on me. I delved into the horror of the past, and felt more pain that I
could ever wish on anyone – including my perpetrators. I felt the loss
for the pure love I had given my perpetrators – all parental figures- which had been so horribly betrayed, and stopped protecting
them. Then I was able to direct all the rage hiding underneath my
fear-based protection, at the original perpetrators. Though they
would never hear or accept it, and many subsequent stand-in
parental figures would never hear or accept it, I could feel my anger
at them, and be released from carrying their burden. Writing was also
a great healing modality. Putting my story on paper allowed me to see
objectively all that had been done to the little girl that I was, and how
horrific it was. Writing, therapy, meditation, yoga; I needed it all, and I
can say that I spent two decades exclusively in the context of healing.
Six days a week, I was in therapy, practiced yoga and meditation. I
started teaching yoga and created a teaching method that makes
yoga accessible to people with trauma like myself. I now help others
to find peace and freedom within themselves, and took it to the place
which, by definition, negates any form of freedom: prison.
five-and-a-half years of countless rapes and torture, I was rescued
by a network insider. At age 11, in 1974, my cruelest torturer, after
he was done with me and I was to be tortured to death, had a last
minute change of heart. As I was being tortured, he negotiated
with the network boss for my freedom, and went to work for him in
exchange for my life. My torture was interrupted. My rescuer set me
free with a long list of survival instructions, which I followed my entire
life: “Never become a prostitute, or sleep with anyone for money, or
sleep with anyone for anything. Never buy drugs; you can take them
when they’re given to you but never do anything to get them. Don’t
drink too much. Leave your family as soon as possible, and leave
this country. Go live in Paris, London, New York. You should marry a
man your age from a wealthy family, preferably a family of New York
bankers. Forget I exist and all the names of the people you’ve met.”
Moving on
I kept my silence for 40 years. I closely followed the instructions
given by my torturer-saviour: at 16, I worked as a hostess in the
red light district of Antwerp, by the harbour, but because I didn’t
have sex with the men I didn’t last long. I left Belgium and moved
to France first, then London, Paris, and finally New York, doing all
sorts of jobs: I sold ice cream in the south of France, worked in a
video store and an art gallery in Paris. In London I worked at Foyles
bookstore. And I came to New York as an ‘au pair’. I worked at Blue
Note, in restaurants, and as an assistant. I got hired easily by male
employers who liked me physically, though I wasn’t always great at
every job. I wasn’t happy, but being forever busy trying to survive,
I didn’t notice I was running from the pain of my past. I had buried
the horror deep inside me, but I knew that something was amiss
and entered therapy. As I started to confront the past, and to feel
the pain of the betrayals, I also started to notice things. I was in
touch with my mother, for example, unable to accept that she is
psychopathic, and prostituted me. But as I started to speak about
“Writing, therapy, meditation, yoga; I
needed it all, and I can say that I spent
two decades exclusively in the context
of healing.”