New Year, New You and the Long-Standing Identity Dilemma of Survivors
My first night working at the strip club, the DJ asked me what I wanted my name to be so that he could write it on the white board for customers to see.
“Harmony,” I replied without giving it much thought. That was my name, after all.
He wrote my name in black on the dry-erase board. “Harmony”. Seeing my name up there in black and white made it all too real. “Take it down.” I urged him. “I will be Monique.”
And that was the moment that I began developing the alternate identity that was Monique.
Monique was nothing like me. She was a little ditsy, unless, of course, a customer wanted her to be smart. She had a fake dog with a fake name and lived in a different place and went to a different college. She smiled and told the customers she liked working in the strip club. Sometimes, she even convinced Harmony of this. Everything about Monique was a lie. In the sex industry, who you are doesn’t matter.
Intimacy says: I want to know you and be known by you.
Fantasy is the opposite. It says: This is who I want you to be.
The whole industry is built on fantasy. My job was to be who other people wanted me to be.
Having an exploiter further exacerbated the issue. Even more than becoming who the men in the strip club wanted me to be, my job was to become who he wanted me to be. The real me is boisterous and silly. Strong and willing to stand up for justice. The woman he molded me into through intimidation, threats, and sometimes violence, was quiet and serious. Meek and obedient. Because, according to him, women are to be viewed and lusted after, but not heard. Also, they are to do whatever their man wants them to, perfectly and expediently.
What I wanted never mattered. When we went out to eat, I ordered what he ordered. I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore. During this time in my life, I completely lost touch with who Harmony was. I became Monique.
Some people think that the commercial sex industry is just a job like any other. If it was just a job, why would most of us have to create alter identities just to survive it? The truth is, many of us hide behind them and use them to distance ourselves from the reality of our experiences in the industry.
Identity refers to who a person is, or the qualities of a person that make them different from others (Cambridge Dictionary).
A person with an intact sense of identity knows who they are. They are familiar and comfortable with their likes, dislikes and preferences, their own thoughts, feelings and opinions, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. If we are committed to an ongoing process of growth and healing, in some ways, we are probably continuing to discover new layers of who we are, bringing us closer and closer to who we truly are at our core.
Part of the recovery journey has to include a restoration of true identity.
In our free training, we continue to explore identity disturbance and the long-standing identity dilemma survivors face when their sense of self is distorted by their experiences the sex industry and/or trafficking. You will learn what is keeping them stuck, and how to help them get unstuck.
