Annabell
New Orleans, LA - 2020-4-8
Annabell: I grew up in St. Louis and had a relatively normal childhood in an upper-middle-class family.
When I was fifteen I began being sex trafficked. At first, I volunteered to do it because I needed money for my boyfriend. He was trying to sell drugs and not doing a very good job of it. I was hypersexual at the time. That’s why I thought I’d be fine with [sex work]. I was like, whatever, I was labeled a slut in school already, you know?
I would sneak out in the middle of the night. I thought I was so bad, getting away with stuff but then it turned into more of a situation where I had to do it.
My pimp’s name was… you’re gonna laugh because it’s so stereotypical… Papi.
Eventually, I worked myself into a corner that I couldn’t get out of. I couldn’t tell anyone. My parents didn’t know at that point so instead of letting myself out as a harlot and disappointment, I ran away from home.
I was sixteen at that point. I moved in with Papi and was being trafficked all the time. It was really traumatic. A lot of it I don’t remember because I was addicted to heroin at the time. It clouds my memories but I think that kind of saved my sanity.
Papi got murdered. He had been violent towards one of the women that I turned tricks with and he ended up killing her. She had a baby daddy and I think he stabbed Papi. While everyone was preoccupied, I ran away.
I ran through North St. Louis. I don’t remember exactly where but it was a warehouse district, not a great place. I just kept on running. I was in booty shorts and a small cami type thing, sprinting through St. Louis with no shoes.
BW: Sounds like you went through a lot of trauma in your teen years. Do you feel like you’ve gotten past any of it?
Annabell: Does anyone ever get past stuff like that? I’m really into psychology. If I can put a name on it I can understand it better.
Annabell: Actually, I think it’s CPTSD. PTSD happens because of an event in which you feel helpless. CPTSD is developed when you are in situations that have no foreseeable end. Your brain has to adjust to a constant fight or flight mode. POWs are an example of people who can develop CPTSD or children who are in long term abusive situations.
I had a boyfriend a few years ago. We were having a better than usual day. We were so happy and in love. We had dinner at a restaurant. We came back home and were being all cute and funny and making jokes and rolling around, being goofballs and he tries to touch my boob or something, I went off on him, “Why are you ruining this? We were having a really good fucking day and you just had to blow it all by objectifying me! Turning me into a little fuck thing! Why are you doing this?”
Objectively that was crazy. We had been dating for a while at that point and it’s not like he was trying to force anything on me.
Only recently in my life have I felt comfortable with anything sexually.
BW: Did your sex drive lower right after you got out of the sex work?
My boyfriend that I had right after that was very possessive. He hit me one time because he followed me to work and he saw that I hugged one of my coworkers. He saw the coworker grab my butt. I didn’t want him to but he did. So I felt like I was cheating if I touched people. It was ground into me that if I interacted physically with other people, there’s only one reason for that.
I was also raped at around six. I don’t remember it at all.
BW: Somebody told you about it?
Annabell: I found an old journal when I was eleven or twelve. Actually, I tried to kill myself and was hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar because of that. My mom had told me to clean my closet. Instead of cleaning, I was doddling, going through shit and I read my old journals.
BW: And you wrote about what happened in the journal?
Annabell: As much as a six-year-old could. I had a lot of misspellings. Really simple sentence structure. I talked about hurting a lot and being scared and how I couldn’t tell mom. Things like that.
BW: Do you still journal?
Annabell: No. After that, I stopped journaling and I started painting more. I can paint the things I don’t want to talk about. Images aren’t so literal, pardon the pun [laugh].