There are many different areas of being a survivor of hell which I’ve written about these past three years. In many writings throughout this entire blog you will find writings dealing with all the puzzle pieces we need to examine and shape into our present day lives. You’ll also find many writings which focus on the depression, P.T.S.D., anxiety, finding your center to begin your healing path, the anger which still comes and goes, and the severe neglect of all medical and dental care which has left me so tragically scarred.
However there is an area which still holds me back and one I haven’t focused on much, THE TRAFFICKING OF THE CHILD I USED TO BE!!
This is the process of stealing away who we are and ripping away any sense of value as they use us for trading, manipulation, and offer us out as an object without care of how we feel or what it does to our inner being. It all went along with complete disregard for all of my other care & feelings. It was also a huge part of what my small little community of Freeburg witnessed and knew about, yet chose not to be bothered, because as always ‘I simply was not worth the effort’.
When my stepfather started using me to entice the other men in our little village of Freeburg, Illinois; it was my 11th birthday. It was this day that I began feeling like nothing more than HIS OBJECT. Yes the molestations were actually just an insertion away from being rape at that point, and yes he was a regular visitor who attacked almost nightly as I lay in the same bed next to his own little girl and Mother just a thin wall away.
On this particular day, I was taken to the bar where Mother worked through the week and a family acquaintance who had been at our house with his own wife and young girls was bartending. They made sure I was drunk with double shots of vodka in a small glass of orange juice that day, one right after the other to celebrate my big #11. It was the first time he offered me out to a young miner. Thank heaven this guy was decent enough to say ‘No, she’s just a kid’. However, Malcolm banged my head off the dashboard of the car when we went outside and repeatedly growled at me, ‘You’re a fucking ugly bitch that’s why nobody wanted you in there’. This would not be his only or his last attempt. The one thing he found out that trip is that when he got me drunk he could manipulate me into using my body in a sexually enticing way to attract the attention of men and then they would continue buying the drinks.
Ah Ha, a way to get drunk for free!!!
Oh yeah, I didn’t get my birthday that day at all. Mother was so furious he kept me out so long that she chased the girls home from the party, stormed up the street to yank me out of the car; yelled at me during the two blocks we walked home, and sent me straight to my room. Hmmm, again I was being punished, just as it had been when I was 9 and she walked in from work early to find him ready to insert his penis into her naked little girl lying next to him in their bed; the girl so terrified that tears were running down her cheeks. Yet I was always the bad girl, the one to blame for what he did.
Really Mother????
It was just shortly after this experience at the bar when I was first taken out to the barge boat with a crew of about 10 young men. These guys enjoyed the entertainment Malcolm had brought them. All I knew that day was he had told Mother he was taking me fishing. We picked up a couple cases of beer and we drove down some back rode that took us to the edge of the Mississippi where this barge boat was anchored. It was in the middle of nowhere. There were not any barges around this tug boat was moving. There was just this small wooden dock which was shaky, seemed unstable. The boat was parked along the water’s edge with green grass and a big ol’ tree hanging there filled with beautiful green leaves. I remember getting on the boat, although it took some help from one of the guys because I’d already drank down about three full beers he had handed me during our drive. He used the excuse he was taking me fishing quite a bit. It was a staple he could always get away with and she never asked me if I wanted to go or why I didn’t want to go, she just simply sent me along as if to send me out of her hair for the day.
I always guess my teen ages during these events by means of what happened BEFORE he used his favorite shotgun barrel to rape me, and AFTER he used his favorite shotgun barrel to rape me.
This particular day spent with the barge boat guys was before, so I wasn’t yet close to 13 and my body was still quite small and under developed. I think back on these events and remember having more than one set of hands groping and probing me. I remember more than one penis being rubbed against my mouth and having to hold onto them, just like he had taught me to do with him. However, what I remember most are the faces of these young men, the many men. I can always remember the faces even if I didn’t know their names.
Malcolm enjoyed every moment watching me there with those grown men. He enjoyed them getting me high and feeding me more and more booze. He enjoyed them blasting a stereo with rock music, which he always hated unless it was for one of these types of ‘special days’. I believe they had an 8track with the Rolling Stones playing in the background. I remember it was making every bone in my body hurt as they banged away. If you remember the early Stones, it was actually pretty heavy during the mid 70’s as were most bands back then. However, the Stones have always been pretty recognizable by their music. To this day I cannot stand to hear their music because it takes me right back to that boat and again I feel the many men surrounding me from every angle.
There were at least three trips to that barge boat I remember, but the faces were not always the same. Most of the men looked to be shaggy, grungy, and about their around their late 20’s to early 30’s. I remember being terrified. I remember quite clearly not knowing what was going to happen, or who was going to do what. I remember not knowing who was behind me and not being able to focus clearly. This may have been my body dissociating because it was too traumatic or it may have been caused from the drugs or alcohol.
Lord only knows what they were feeding me to lower my ability to fight back and make a child so drunk she just fell into their arms.
There was the night I was ordered to have the party while he took Mother out of the house. Malcolm picked out what I was supposed to wear. He told me what boys I needed to invite and then gave me the instructions on how to start playing spin the bottle and allow them all to grope and take me into my bedroom upstairs. This happened on more than one occasion that would always lead to playing Post Office and I was the only piece of mail to handle.
I remember the school mates who lined up to receive the blow jobs or were ordered to take me into the next room and “give me the fucking I deserved”!!! I remember two school friends of my brother’s whom I thought I could trust as friends. Upon their invitation I went for a cruise to smoke a joint. The next thing I knew we were parked on the back rode, I’m thrown down in the backseat of the car with one of teens on top of me and my zipper broken as he ripped off my jeans. I remember well the face of the other guy as he stayed on the front seat with his head turned back, watching and cheering on as his buddy plugged away and I was crying for help. The guy in front was one my brother had been hanging out with for about four years or more, so they were pretty close friends; otherwise I never would have gone with them in the first place. He looked me straight in the eye while his buddy raped me and then told me what a ‘rotten fuck’ I was. ‘How disgusting I was and why did he think I would be worth fucking in the first place’.
These are the types of rapes and orgy type of events that were such a huge part of my teen years. Most of them took place after the rape via shotgun barrel, but it certainly didn’t make them any less traumatic. As I got older it became more difficult for me to be lured into the parties because I was finally working and did my best to be gone as much as possible, especially if I could work late shift at the cloak room of the restaurant. Thank heaven for work because it became my way to escape it all. I didn’t have to be at home slaving for them if I was working. I didn’t have to be available to attend the late night parties if I could work instead. Malcolm and I began fighting each other constantly.
I’m not so sure just how much my brother and sister knew about all of the parties, rapes, orgies, but I know they knew about the beatings and the molestations from Malcolm himself. Either way they too were just children and trapped in the same alcoholic daily fueled home I was in, so I wouldn’t have expected them to do anything for my rescue even if they had the chance. I know there were a few times when my adopted brother John protected me, which happened more so after my other brother went off to the army at 17. John was still living at the house mainly because he really didn’t have anyone else who wanted to claim him as their son. Mother opened her house up to any child that needed a place to sleep, eat, rest, call home for awhile or just needed some form of kindness. Funny though, she didn’t give a crap about what was happening to her own daughter. Anyone could do anything and she would call me the whore for allowing it to happen.
My God, what would it take for her to just see me as her little girl, her daughter, her flesh & blood, the child she created and carried, gave birth to and cared for; at least until the man she married began attacking me while she was home, in the next room, giving me away, parading me as if I was some type of treasure for others to use. A treasure which only he could determine who and what they did to me. A treasure he could force or coerce into whatever situation suited his sadistic pleasures at that time.
These days there is a lot of excellent work I’ve done in my healing from being a sexually abuse, raped & molested, beaten & tortured child. However, there is also a lot of accepting in what my body has been put through with the many other men. How do you tell people that before you were 17, you have no idea how many teen boys & grown men had used your body for sex?. How do you tell people about how they were multiples at once, not just a guy here or there? How do you explain to people that when you look them in the face, knowing they know all about your past, you’re terrified of what judgment passes through their mind?
So many had used me one way or the other, orally or raped, and then told me I was like screwing a dog or a horse. I wasn’t worthy of them even admitting they had sex with me. I can understand the older men in our little community, because I was just a kid and they were paying Malcolm to come to the parties so they could feel up the child who was forced to drink, get high, and be their entertainment; all while Mother sat in her bedroom watching TV and giving me a snide ‘Have Fun’ as she closed the door.
Its bad enough to accept that you have no clue how many men there were throughout those years. Its horrifying to know that I barely escaped as Malcolm wanted to put me up in my own little trailer; have his own little private lock with his own little private key; so we could have all the little private parties he wished and invite as many as would pay!!
Sadly, I’m not so sure that what’s been swirling around in my head lately is because I’ve been looking more into working directly with some anti-trafficking advocates & task force rescuers, or if its because I’ve been pushing myself to promote the book? Anytime I start putting myself out there on display, be it in promoting the book; or really, doing anything that brings the attention and focus to my special anything, I instantly start hearing all of those voices saying to me; ‘What a dirty, ugly, rotten fuck I was and they had no clue why they thought I would be worth their time or money.’ As I got older it would be boyfriends & husbands who smashed my head into the mirror while screaming about how ugly I was and why in the hell did they end up with me?
All of these condemning words accompanied any type of vulnerable position I might have been in and today as I’m reaching out with some focus on me and on the book, I am right back there again and it’s like a jagged knife ripping away at the healing I’ve built up to protect me.
How and when does it end? When will all that they have done to me be over and all their evil have passed through my spirit so that I can truly be on the other side? Why is it that during all those horrific teen years of my life did not one person ever feel like I was worth saving? What was it about the blue eyed child that made me such an outcast by all of those around me? Was it the rot of my skin, the stench of my body, the broken black fangs of my teeth? Was it the evil of Malcolm and his wicked games?
Maybe one day I will get my answer, but truly I’m not so sure that will ever come. As I’ve said, this has been eating away inside this past couple weeks and I feel like, as one dear friend put it so well, ‘Like Trecia Ann is screaming I’m alive and no one is listening, no one feels that I am worthy once again.’
What a tragedy life can be at times. How horrible the feelings of being a sex trafficked child and knowing in your heart that so many knew and chose to do nothing. How am I supposed to feel about all of it now? Angry, yes I am, but trying hard not to express it. Who would I express it too, there is no way to address all those who took part, witnessed, or just didn’t give a damn. Malcolm is gone now and Mother made sure he was buried with full military honors. Mother is out of my life and we haven’t spoken but a few hateful words in the past five years. None of my siblings want anything to do with me at all, and that was way before the book went public or before I even thought about writing it at all. Who should receive the anger, myself for what I took part in with the alcohol and weed, cocaine and a few downers? Could I have escaped any earlier than I did? Could I have done something to stop it all from happening? Was I that trained to just simply obey or did I know the beating may not be survived if I turned them all down and started screaming?
I’m not so sure what to think of myself now. I’m not so sure how others will accept this when they read it. However, something tells me much like my writing to help those molested and raped by their parents and others, this too is a way they will be able to feel and process another part of their own pain. I’m taking a huge chance at putting this out there, I can only imagine what whispers will be shared. However, in my healing and building a new life for myself, one without shame and without pain, this is a part of the process I must work through. Let’s pray that it reaches those it should. That it helps just one young person who has been forced to endure these same types of vicious crimes. Maybe someday it will all be done and I will then simply be able to just be me and just be happy.
‘I am screaming, I am alive, I do matter!!
Patricia ‘Trish’ McKnight 
Butterfly Dreams Abuse Recovery
Author: ‘My Justice’
©Butterfly Dreams Abuse Recovery 2012
http://www.butterflydreamsabuserecovery.com
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