I feel that without services like the women’s centre, my recovery wouldn’t have been possible. I had no other safe place to turn to, and now it’s only fair that I give back to other women and hold my hand out and say ‘I know the way out’.
Content warning: Drug use, mental health, abuse, sexual abuse, sex working
So, a little about me, I suffered from addiction for over 20 years, I picked up my first drug as a teenager, and had found my drug of choice, heroin. I never set out to become an addict, but I came from a family in which my mother’s behaviour and moods would become very erratic and volatile. I felt such loss and unworthiness, I felt unwanted and unloved, and I went on to seek anything and everything that could take me out of myself.
By the age of 18, I was a very chaotic addict, full of anger, sadness, sorrow, unmanageability, guilt, and in a place of despair, but I could not stop. I was forced into selling sex at such a young age, and it then became a choice I made so that I could fund my habit by selling my body.
But what I didn’t realise is that I was not just selling my body, but I was selling a part of my soul each time I did this. As well as the trauma I would put myself through and encounter over the next 20 years. I had lost everything and anyone in my life slowly disappeared. I had taken many attempts to take my life, and it was plain to see I needed help. There were many attempts to get clean, but I never managed to sustain it, until I was referred to the SWOP team at The Nelson Trust.
I was very resistant to getting help to begin with, but what the women’s service gave me was an option for a way out. My worker held out her hand to me and did not give up. When I had no one to turn to my keyworker was there, and it’s because she didn’t give up on me and did everything, she empowered me to be where I am today. After years of perseverance from her and the SWOP team, I finally managed to get into The Nelson Trust rehabilitation centre, which she continuously pushed for so that I could do a group that no other treatment centre offers regarding selling sex.
The importance of the women’s service and specifically the SWOP team was paramount in my life and recovery.
My life today is full of gratitude, and I am now able to see the beauty in life when I couldn’t see this before. I now appreciate life’s hurdles and do not treat them as an obstacle, but as an opportunity for growth.
I’m constantly working on becoming the best version of myself. I have my family back in my life and a strong network of women in my life, which is something I never thought would be possible beforehand. I feel that without services like the women’s centre my recovery wouldn’t have been possible, I had no other safe place to turn to, and now it’s only fair that I give back to other women and hold my hand out and say, ‘I know the way out’.
