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This is part six of the "Chasing Joy" blog series that will take you through the journey of one family to rescue their daughter, and walk alongside her in her healing journey.
I recently visited “Joy” while on a work trip. I hadn’t seen her in 9 months -- too long for a Mama not to see her little girl. She gave me a tighter hug than I had received in a very long time. It felt amazing! I think I needed that hug as much as she did. God is good! It wasn’t always this way…
When the initial crimes started, and she would have a court date, I would show up at the courthouse and she would either ignore me or ask me what the heck I was doing there. It felt like a dagger in my heart. Her trafficker had her trained that he (they) were her family and we were chopped liver. We meant nothing to her -- at least, that is how it appeared. It broke my heart into pieces. I dealt with the pain by drinking an abundance of wine every night; I couldn’t deal with the pain.
The reality is Joy is not a young girl anymore; she is a young lady who needs to make her own decisions. I needed to learn that I couldn’t change her. At the end of the day, our kids will make their own decisions; they have to learn from their own mistakes. This Mama wants nothing more than to make it “okay” for her daughter, yet, at the end of the day, I know she needs to work through the trauma to move onto a healthy future.
#SexTraffickinginAmerica #EndIt #everyONEmatters #DemandAnEnd #SafeHouseProject #ChasingJoy #MothersJourney
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"I'm a Mom of an adult child who has traveled a difficult road, and all the while her life spun out of control, mine was doing the same.
Sound familiar?
The journey of making a 180° shift begins when you realize you need to work on yourself whether your adult child is okay or not. This has given me a passion for helping other desperate Moms, just like YOU regain a sense of self amid the challenges that come with your adult children’s poor life choices.
I am not a certified therapist—I’m a Mom who has been there. A decade of addiction, depression and anxiety aka. "living in the pit". If you find yourself deep in a pit, or maybe just teetering on the edge of one, I urge you to seek help—for yourself and your family."