Personal Lessons: The Role of Love In Facing Childhood Sexual Abuse

Power can be a powerful addiction.

Many of the world leaders, the famous, gurus and most successful businesspeople have this addiction
to power…in common with sex offenders and killers.

Though many stories are shocking, my early life experience in my home country was extreme. For five
years I was sex-trafficked by politicians, business elite and aristocrats who provided their castles for orgies. I
was used as a business negotiation prop or for political favors while my family accepted money to drive me
wherever needed.

There were never more than a few children. We were valuable currency, until we were considered a
threat—then we were eliminated.

My turn came when I was 11, after getting singled out by a gangster for some time and then dropped.
When my torture began, he had a change of heart and struck a deal with the bosses for my life. He released
me and gave me a long list of precise instructions that were to ensure my continued survival.

One of my survival mechanisms had been to relax all muscles that weren’t needed during abuse, sort
of an automatic mental analgesic with the unconscious intention to minimize pain, which also resulted in the
body’s ability to experience pleasure, rendering my sense of shame intolerable, even as the good feeling was
a nurturing substitute.

This sensuality carried over into adulthood, with stress-free facial features and a still demeanor—
unnatural calm covering a crater of shame and self-hatred.

Seven years after my rescue, when I was 18, a famous actor told me that I, too, could be famous.

I was already used to being a valuable commodity, and had discovered by playing the power game to
stay alive that I liked the game—I was good at it—but the survival instructions I lived by included staying
invisible, like a gangster…to keep my secret safe.

I turned down an offer to meet with a big French film director and hid behind menial jobs in big cities
like London and Paris, feeling unworthy of earning a living, or even of being alive.

With an ego as damaged as mine, with love so lacking from the adults of my childhood, I wanted—like
they had when they had abused me—to feel powerful.

I continued to turn away from every opportunity, instead experiencing the painfully uncomfortable
feelings hiding behind the pleasurable power high: insecurity, low self-esteem, shame, humiliation…
continually re-living the frustrations of the past. This was masochistic self-imposed torture on the one hand,
and the source of all healing on the other. I could observe and analyze the confluence of emotional and
factual reality, link it back the original trauma, become aware, and grieve.

Reconnecting and integrating these dissociated parts created consciousness expansion.

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 By not acting on my desire for power, I got a look at the other side, and began to gain insight into how
perception of power and powerlessness plays into relationships, crime and fame, and that was more
important than power.

The power high can create a temporary escape for those who were repeatedly made to feel powerless
in their early years—children who were denied their most innocent impulses, were constantly frustrated in
their needs and desires, whose childhood freedom was robbed by emotional, physical or sexual abuse.

The symptoms of addiction are the same, except power addicts need other people to admire, desire,
and/or fear them to get high; this is why sex addiction is also the same: the primal motive behind sexual
conquest or assault is to feel powerful.

The fundamental motive behind all addictions, including power addiction, is to feel freedom.

But freedom from what?

In my experience, I’ve sought to be freed from the shame that wiped out my innocence.

A newborn baby needs a loving reflection from its father and mother figure and needs to be seen as
innocent.

I didn’t get this, so I grew up emotionally stuck in that early phase of life. I kept the baby’s tools to try
to get that need met, remaining excessively mentally pliable, open to absorb and take on whatever people
saw in me.

Men’s sensual thoughts, for example, of beauty or grace, instantaneously manifested in my psyche,
altered my energy and even my physique. I felt a certain pleasant vibration, different according to the person,
and stronger when many people thought of me at the same time—not unlike a morphine high.

Power addicts are attached to positive projections. Admirers, followers, lovers, fans and in the case of
pedophiles, the child victims, are parental substitutes, unwittingly providing the necessary fuel for this
addiction.

By being thought of as powerful, different, special, more attractive, bigger or better, power addicts
adopt those projections and use them as nurturing substance, feeding the damaged infant inside, which can
be experienced as emptiness or a sort of black hole if the person has no connection to that inner part.

The power game lies in keeping one’s own negative thoughts secret while warding off negative
projections and using positive ones to maximum advantage, so obtaining the feeling of innocence through
calculating and exploitative means.

As with any addiction, when the disease advances, those secret thoughts of feeling like a fake or
feeling worthless become hidden to the addict himself, who at that point actually believes that he is the sum
total of those projected qualities, and loses touch with his innate ability to tell right from wrong.

Without emotional connection to the self, it can feel as though nothing were real, as if everything were
a game to be won at all cost to prove one’s self-worth. When the world is a playground and people are
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pawns, the ego acts like a god. The charm of certain psychopaths or of very successful people lies in their
otherworldly confidence.

Since the world loves power, no temptation is greater. An alcoholic can get support from others who
understand exactly how he feels and why it is so important not to have that one drink.

Power addicts have no support groups; there is little awareness of this addiction. Recovery can only
begin once the addict acknowledges he is powerless (over his addiction)—and this happens to be the
greatest fear of this particular group.

During my six years as a sex slave, I was raped by hundreds of adult men.

Though I experienced severe splitting and was often given drugs and alcohol, a part of me always
observed.

The men were intoxicated. Drugs and alcohol are the perfect catalyst for the unleashing of repressed
parts. Abusers experience blackouts, whether or not they are drunk at the time of the abuse.

Some pedophiles are loners, uncomfortable around adults, addicted to child pornography and trying to
make physical connections with children through the internet, but just as often they are adept at “grooming;”
the manipulative process of ingratiating oneself in a family or community to win trust, to get to the children
and win their trust, preparing them for the abuse.

Pedophiles emotionally identify with children, which is why they are often so good at attracting them.
They can appear mature, wise, be extremely gifted, funny and clever, but they are emotionally stuck in
childhood, have no self-esteem, and most important: they don’t see the child in the child. They often only
see parts of themselves they’ve lost—innocence mostly—and are obsessively drawn to those particular
aspects in an unconscious attempt to fill the emptiness they feel inside.

They often act like hurt children, which can make them appear revolting, or the opposite: so innocent
and charming that not everyone believes their victims if and when they speak out.

Pedophiles don’t know how they became what they are and offer few clues for others to figure them
out, but since they see a part of themselves in the children they abuse—a part that has been split off from
their consciousness—it makes sense to question what happened in their own childhood, particularly around
the age of the children to whom they are drawn.

They are compelled to mold the child into their own solipsistic world-view. That process of
transformation, from a lively, innocent child to one deadened by fear and trauma, is the abuse itself.

They turn children into emotional zombies, which is what they are: empty shells.

Many are weighted down by constant pressure from a negative inner voice, judging and self-loathing,
the internalized voice of a parental figure from their own past when they were not properly loved, and they
were used. During the abuse that voice is momentarily silenced, or rather, it is directed at the new victim,
and it justifies the act.

The transgression may appear to occur as if out of time, as though it weren’t actually happening. The
adults often aren’t present at all; they’re in a zone.
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 The children will likely be attuned—as prey and predators are—and take on the perpetrator’s
minimization and rationalizations and zone out to help themselves get through.

Sometimes the abuse can be forgotten even as it happens, so it never even enters the conscious mind!

What does happen is that the victim is left with a sense that they’re “bad.”

The shame lasts, and without outside help or support, the resistance to feeling that shame can
overshadow that victim’s whole life.

In adulthood, survival mechanisms will outlive their usefulness, but are sometimes given new life in
the cycle of abuse, when a victim becomes a perpetrator: consciousness splits, the old lie (that they are bad)
takes a twist; this time the victim is the abuser, feeling that they are “good,” stealing back the innocence
stolen from them, finally able to give free rein to their sense of victimization, while the new victim is
attributed the “badness.”

My parent used to punish me with the words “I’m going to take you there again, ” high on the power
of revenge. My parent would drive me, usually on weekend nights, sometimes during school days, wherever
ordered. Usually, I would find their car parked outside at dawn, to be driven back home, deadened and
bruised.

I found out from my perpetrators that my “guardian” was getting paid just like the other pimps.

As an adult I confronted X in writing. X wrote back: “I wouldn’t do this,” and “I thought I was taking
you to sleepovers.” As long as I can remember, X thought of X as all good; a means to survive regular life.

Pedophiles often strongly protect hypocritical parents’ unconscious selfish need to be viewed as good
(a tract often blindly followed by law enforcement or journalists who interview the seemingly benign
parents), and they will more easily express remorse about failing their parents rather than harming their
victims.

With an emotional blueprint of devastation, pedophiles pass along the same humiliation that
dehumanized them, and will be compelled to do so until the time they will begin to turn their anger onto
their perpetrators.

Humiliation is the sense of being powerless mixed with overwhelming fear and shame. Humiliation is
perhaps the most difficult emotion: it is experienced during abuse, why it is so hard to be abused, and why it
is so hard to heal from abuse.

Yet humiliation is everywhere. Both bullies and pedophiles are trying to stay on the other side of their
own humiliations by shaming their victim.

Abuse is an unconscious rebellion against the unfairness of having been forced to take on shame that
belongs with someone of the past, not with the victim of the present.

There are teachers who shame their pupils, gurus who shame students, bosses who shame their
employees, parents who shame their children, men who shame women, correctional officers who shame
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prisoners, women who shame women, husbands who shame their wives, wives who shame their husbands,
nannies who shame their charges, police who shame citizens, adults who shame children, politicians who
shame politicians, and some people just shame everyone. Everyone has been on both sides of shame, and
the natural reaction of being on the receiving end is to bottle up the anger until it can be vented, once one is
in power.

The greater the humiliations, the greater the thirst for power.

Power is driven by anger.

Most people project much onto the strangers that seem so familiar through media exposure. When a
famous person appears, the group energy changes to the palpable excitement of expectation. The public
loves the star, but admiring stars is not as innocent as it seems.

Much of what we call love is fear-based projection, an emotional remnant of trying to please a
shaming parent or abuser of the past, and behind the need to please the authority lies anger and desire for
revenge for not having been treated properly.

Most people have the same emotional issue underlying attachment to power as power addicts, since
everyone has had at least a taste of being on the receiving end of abuse of power.

Insofar as frustration over past abuse or humiliations is hiding inside, it compels one to participate in
the cycle.

As soon as power is projected onto another human being, personal responsibility is abdicated, and the
victim-mentality (the idea of innocence) is assumed. The adult in the role of the child unconsciously positions
him or herself to strike out and stage a personal coup d’etat.

Protective love, like the kind felt for hypocritical parents and famous people, covers over suppressed
anger.

Victim-identification is the single pre-requisite for causing harm: it serves to justify the deed.

Every criminal feels innocent in the act. Without temporary or continual justification he could not bring
himself to do harm.

Justification rouses motivation.

The high of power felt by an abuser comes from the innocence felt while all responsibility is
temporarily waylaid, creating the idea of freedom—the way a baby feels when it is loved.

The public only engages in the first phase of the power cycle when positive, loving thoughts are
projected onto a power figure.

The first, or love stage of projection, represents the surface emotions expressed to a scary authority
figure of the past. These positive emotions are unconsciously fed to gurus, the rich and famous, and when
people fall in love, to the love object.

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 Negative thoughts are split off and directed onto figures without power, such as prisoners, or anyone
lower on the totem pole assigned the role of the child – outward representations of the unloved child inside.

In the love cycle, once the honeymoon stage is over, the love object becomes a receptacle for
repressed negative emotions.

The dark side of the cycle brings about stand-in figures for the hurtful parent no one wants to
remember. Two sides of the same parental figure are projected onto different people, or one love object is
treated as two different people at different times.

The public unconsciously partakes in the vicious cycle of power by each member’s own small version of
the same problem.

Everyone feels like the victim sometimes.

The only difference between criminals and most of us is the lengths to which the criminal has to go to
feel innocent, the degree to which he has to abdicate personal responsibility to make up for emotional
deprivation.

The power game never ends and leaves one feeling empty; like other drugs it doesn’t give the love and
nurturing that are truly needed.

The hardest thing about love is not that it isn’t there—it’s that with broken self-esteem it is impossible
to recognize or accept.

All the criminals of my past and many of the powerful people I’ve met are simply too emotionally
damaged to discriminate, and can never truly feel loved.

Stuck in a mental template of exploitation, it becomes impossible to recognize a genuine gesture of

kindness or a simple smile: everything is either buying or selling; innocence is dead.

A child needs to receive some unconditional love to have an emotional blueprint to know what it feels
like to be innocent and lovable.

The trick is to let the love in, because only love heals. Love really is all you need. I don’t know what
makes or breaks a person when it comes to the ability to feel it. For me, a caretaker who loved me in the first
three years of my life made all the difference.

I currently work in prisons, teaching yoga, meditation and mindfulness.

The Buddhist creed and message of all religions, to serve those in need — karma yoga — is so
incredibly rewarding, because it provides a connection with the powerless child inside, and gives it the love
and attention it craves.

I have found mindfulness the most powerful tool to break through isolation. When I can be fully
present for someone, just to feel what he or she feels without trying to change anything, something seems
to change.

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 I went into the prisons to give and instead found that I was receiving. It’s not necessary to be a
compassionate being to do service – it’s the opposite: service facilitates acceptance of love, which creates
compassion.

Of course, many power addicts are doomed to roam an entire lifetime through the galleries of the lost
souls. The one common denominator for all psychopathic criminals, famous pedophiles, alcoholics who won’t
stop drinking, gurus blissed out from the power high, hypocrites clinging to their image of “good,” the one
percent, and all those on the outer fringes of society, is a deep sense of victimization and loneliness.

Everyone who has had the great good fortune to know unconditional love and is capable of making
meaningful connections can try to be mindful, look inside and observe power relations.

Who gets placed higher up and who gets put down in the mind’s eye?

It’s important to come out of denial and look at what pedophiles do, even if it’s nauseating, even if we
thought of them as wonderful people.

Understanding comes by looking inward—not outward at particular cases or scandals.

It’s possible to stop feeding power to the powerful, see beyond appearances, and cast a more maternal
gaze on the soul-dead. They need our understanding. We are not victims. We are one.

FEBRUARY 16, 2014

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 There is a cut-off line between love and fear; between the ability to heal from trauma, and the tragic
inability.

There is a cut-off line between love and fear; between the ability to heal from trauma, and the tragic
inability. Looking at that inability, it's easy to see the world we live in runs according to it, as fear mongering
thrives, toddler-level greed rules, and we are fed violence from childhood onward. At the helm are those who
never entered into the first stage of healing, fighting off their own truth and pain, imposing their emotional
sickness on all. Others appear on the other side of the spectrum, those who are eternal victims. They use all
their life energy to live through dire abuse and circumstances related to being taken advantage of. When
given a chance to change, they perceive abuse in that benevolence, and self-sabotage until they find
themselves back inside a familiar trauma story of loss and pain. They may kill themselves, or find an outlet for
their rage onto one other person. As children of such eternal victims, we try to love and love and love those
parents, in the hope that they might receive it, and finally become parents. My mother was such a parent,
and I was her only victim. I spent my life keeping myself small so she or her underdog substitutes could feel
bigger. I attracted eternal victims, supported them however I could, giving them love and support they were
seeking from abusers and weren't able to receive from me. And now, I'm letting it all go.

Photo taken by trafficker, a few months before my release from the network, at age 11. 1974.

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 There was a mentally disabled boy in the network, whose innocence was unaffected by the abuse.

There was a mentally disabled boy in the network, whose innocence was unaffected by the abuse. On
the set of Real Women Real Stories in New York, I spoke about the sex trafficking bill, and also shared more
about my story. There is always something rising to the surface, to be worked out more fully, to offer deeper
understanding. The mentally disabled boy had been on my mind. I loved him. He was maybe seven years old,
and I was nine. I wanted very badly to protect him, his innocence and sweetness, which I thought I had
already lost. I seemed so much older and more in control. He didn't survive. In honoring that boy's life by
telling his story, and feeling that pain, I also reclaimed my own child self. Yesterday a friend acted like an
aggressive boss. My survivor's guilt would have overlooked his offensiveness in the past, but a new boundary
is up. I give everything in my power to help others in gaining self awareness, but I'm not a substitute mother
there to receive a little boy's unresolved anger through the adult man. Not anymore. If a man can't treat me
with basic respect, I lose nothing if he disappears. This is what empowerment looks like.

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 The process of harming, or abusing, requires finding abusive qualities in the other, to get in the
victim-consciousness - from where you can justify causing harm.

The process of harming, or abusing, requires finding abusive qualities in the other, to get in the victim-
consciousness - from where you can justify causing harm.

One way to see if you are involved in such a dynamic, is when you focus excessively on the other. Once
you stop speaking about yourself, you're off in projection land, and you can get so lost there you may never
find your way back to the reality of the other person. Even if you think of yourself as the al-anon type, if you
engage with a narcissist and focus on them and their actions, you are unconsciously setting yourself up to get
your revenge.

Liberation Prison Yoga teachings focus on recognizing the state of feeling victimized as a younger part
of yourself. The key is to turn inward instead of outward, to try to communicate with that part of the self that
has been magnetized in the interpersonal dynamics leading to the painful result. I recently got a big test and
needed to use everything that I teach. I made an unusual choice that pushed me forward like never before: I
decided that I don't have to suffer.

When you get emotionally intimate with a narcissist, you know one thing: the degree of intimacy
predicts the degree of abuse that follows. Love and abuse are one and the same in their emotional blueprint
(and perhaps in yours too), and they test you, from their child self, in the only way they know how - the
impossible way that only proves that they cannot be loved. When the abuse comes, you withdraw, bring
yourself to safety, and learn about yourself. And you don't focus on him or her, and on what they did! That's
the new, hard part.

As a ten year old girl trapped in the pedophile network, I suddenly received the protection of a
charming, very handsome 20 year old gangster. The special attention, protection from rapes, his show of
respect and his apparent concern for all I had already been through, turned into horrific child abuse, and
complete disregard for my well-being. He beat me black and blue, violently raped me, stabbed me. Once I
saw myself in the mirror after one of his beatings, and after my mother ignored the bruises: I was shocked. I
barely looked human.The people on whom I depended for my life were so crazy they didn't even care. It
would have been impossible to continue to live in that state of fear, so I felt deserving of the abuse, in fact
felt close to the gangster through it.

That little girl, the shame she felt for her bruises and scars, completely alone, abandoned, and abused
needed me to be her parent these last days. When I started to sink into depression and thought of suicide, I
reminded myself that this is not all of me: this is this part, this girl, and imagined holding her in my arms,
giving her a teddy bear, letting her play with our puppy. The girl didn't need to take care of things - the adult
could care of things while the girl could rest safely, held in my mind and heart.

I had to keep reminding myself I am not her, and that she was trying to find expression through me
because I never before allowed her to exist. She was shut out of my consciousness through the shame. I'm
ready now to be a parent to that very abused, very victimized girl. Not suffering doesn't mean not feeling for
her: I grieve for her, but it has a sweet, healing quality. Had I felt the pain while focusing on the other person,
it would only be a matter of time before the same process would be repeated all over again, with someone
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else. As to the person who triggered all of this, I visualize them in divine light, and send them thoughts of
peace and harmony. And I will keep myself safe.

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