Post Plea Comment by Attorney Cusumano

Grief of the Survivor of Prostitution.
excerpt from "Prostitution-induced Changes in Emotion: the Dance of Rage and Grief," by Joseph Parker, Clinical Director The Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation

"It is easy to forget that, while all these bad things are going on, a whole range of normal and good things are not.

Prostituted people pass through the same world everyone else does. They go to stores, pass by schools, and see people living in houses and driving cars. They are aware that, by their 20's, most people have some degree of education, a job, a house and a car, perhaps a spouse and children, a pet, or whatever portion of those things they may choose.

Most people are free of compulsive alcohol and drug use, are free to go wherever they want without the permission of the criminal justice system, and are allowed to keep most of the money they earn. They see others treated as people, not things to be used, hurt, or stolen from. They watch all this as if through a wall of glass, able to see, but not able to touch.

They grieve for all that the have lost, including good health, children, and a normal identity, as well as for all the things they never had, but see that others take for granted.There is a difference between grief and depression. Most survivors have depression, and respond to treatment for it, but even the best treatment cannot give back the things they have lost. People grieving the expectable losses of normal life usually can count on the support of others, because others can understand the losses, and know that they could have or have had similar losses themselves.

Grieving survivors of prostitution are isolated because they dare not tell anyone how they lost what they lost. They justifiably fear that they will be told that they brought the losses on themselves, and even deserved them.The intensity of the grief is another problem. People who have had luckier lives often choose not to tolerate contact with that degree of distress, and withdraw from the survivor, whether or not they even know that the losses are prostitution related.

The pain must be managed some way to survive. The crude way is with alcohol and drugs, but that method is retraumatizing because of what is involved in obtaining and using them. They trigger intrusive recollections and flashbacks of bad things that happened previously, related to substance use. The chemicals may "release" feelings and behaviors which are even more painful or destructive than those the substances were being used to control."

full article http://www.prostitutionrecovery.org/emotional_state.html

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