An effect of trauma
Survival sex
Exchanging sex for somewhere to sleep, food, money, drugs, or protection. Not being trafficked by someone else, but doing it because the alternatives were worse. Sometimes for years, sometimes once, in a stretch you have never told anyone about. People who have been here are often carrying a great deal of shame about a decision made with almost no choices in it.
A decision made when the other options were the street or going hungry is not the same kind of decision as one made freely, whatever it feels like now. This gets judged harshly by people who have never been that close to the edge. It will not be judged here, and there are people in these rooms who have their own stretch of it and have never said so either.
It can sound like
If any of those sentences live in your head too, you are in good company here.
Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.
You do not have to carry this alone.
Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.