Hi everyone my name is Angie Conn. I am an independent consultant and Advocate and I work in the field of anti-trafficking I do a lot of supporter trainings for those that are on the front lines and that really is my passion is to support our supporters those that are out there just entrenched in trauma all day every day and my heart is to come alongside of them and to lift them up and to encourage them and to to bring information to them that can help them um I'm also like um in school for a yoga therapy um I like to sit with survivors of exploitation and Trauma and really invite them into spaces of healing um and body work and so I I am also a Survivor um I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. A lot of times in this field when I'm when I'm traveling you know people want to know so what's your story um there's a quote by brene Brown that I think really encompasses it it is we either stand inside our stories and we own them or we stand outside of our story and we hustle for our worthiness and that really describes my experience in life for a very long time in childhood and in my teenage and young adult years I really stood outside of my story I grew up in a middle class family and on the outside we looked like that family with the white picket fence I have a younger brother and my parents were both working until my mom decided to stay home to raise our family and my dad had PTSD but he would not go get help and so every day in my home was this day of I didn't know if I was going to step on that land mine we will walk around on eggshells and my mom had a lot of depression that was untreated and so she was trying to I'm trying to just push through it there was a lot of verbal abuse in my home there was some physical abuse in my home and when I was four years old a family member brought in sexual abuse to that equation. So from that point on I was constantly just looking for validation but also feeling that shame feeling that I can't tell anybody the secret that I'm carrying and that translated over into my teenage years when all I wanted to do was belong at any cost and when I was 14 I experienced a sexual assault by a classmate that really turned everything upside down and I started to run away from home I started to shoplift I got in trouble in so many aspects and at 15 was surrendered to the state of West Virginia into foster care group foster care and I met my first trafficker not too long after that and from that point on it was every single day was a day of I have to survive this day it was a day of just extreme abuse and me trying to just hang on and survive until at 26 years old I was force exited um and really started to think about like how do I live this normal life um and survive like regular life now and blend in with people because I was really good at hiding I was really good at becoming what people needed me to be wherever I was so life was kind of complicated um but I know that I I have on this side of it so many lessons that I've learned and so many things that my heart just longs to share with people because I want to see people healed and I want to see people whole because I know it's possible my life is nothing like it was before and I have been married for 21 years and I have three Amazing adult children and two dogs that I love and so I know if I can do this if I can make it through those years of darkness and Trauma and all the things that come with that that anybody can so I'm so excited over the um over the next weeks to share things with you that I've learned along the way and encourage you hopefully in some way so I look forward to meeting you all and talking and sharing things with you.
