I lost how to dream through my years inside prostitution.
Dreaming made me too vulnerable. Dreams give hope I could not hold on to.
I lost my dreams – but they were always deep inside.
Inside was the child who saw good in her bleak landscape.
A child who held on to love even when pain surrounded he.
A child who cried when Louis Armstrong died, and imagine she could play a trumpet like him.
Inside was a teenager who dream of living in safety.
A teenager who had close down music and access to joy in case it made her too real.
But a teenager who long to dance without sexual demands, to laugh without control, and to cry without shutting down.
Inside my adult prostituted soul had to imagine what it was to dream.
Remember a time when her mind and body were connected, not warring against each other.
A time so distance, when she could dream, she could be vulnerable, could laugh, could have ambition – a time she had forgotten how to reach.
The sex trade and its consumers destroy that human right to dream.
To dream is to move forward. To dream is be an individual who is not owned and controlled. To dream is freedom.
The sex trade and punters need to destroy that for dreaming will feed the prostituted with hope that there is a real alternative which is in their reach.
I watch the documentary “Dreamwatcher” last night, I was crying.
Crying at the ease that the sex trade destroy hope, destroy pride, destroy self-respect, destroy all that matters to being fully human.
Crying at the fight inside prostituted women not to be destroyed – the fight to find and hold on tight to their dreams.
My dreams are slowly becoming true – not the dreams of a child, but the simpler dreams of my teenage and adult prostituted self.
My dream was to have a life without constant events – events of deep pain, events with no way out, events that I could never control, events that made my life a living death.
I dream of a boring life – life that had stability, life where routine was safe, life where I learnt I could sleep without one eye open.
My life now is boring – full of TV, going out, and solitary times.
I have made my life slow down, not demanding constant stamina in order to avoid knowing myself, not looking for danger but asking for help.
I dream of having a home, a place that was mine.
I now have live in this flat over 25 years – not the constant moving or running away, in order to live on an edge where all thought of safety was a luxury.
I dream of being well enough to have pets.
I have now know, but I had my cats for about 22 years, and they live so long coz I was good at caring for them.
Mostly I dream of living without violence – without constant raping, without knowing torture, without mental manipulation.
I can say that for nearly 30 years now, I have not been inside the world of prostitution.
I have not been raped for about 15 years now.
The same with mental manipulation.
I have not known torture for about 25 years.
The reason I can write this blog, the reason I can speak out – is coz that world is my past, and is staying there.
This does not means I do not hold that violence inside me, or that I consider myself to be safe.
But it does means I am safe enough to stare into the black hole of trauma – and try to make it public.
And know I learning to cry, learning to be vulnerable, learning to trust.
All that was a dream – and now it is real.
Rebecca Mott 