Hard Road And Healing

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Preamble:

When Trisha Baptie, 33, heard about Orato Media Corporation's plans to hire a sex trade worker to cover the trial of alleged serial killer Robert Pickton, she felt compelled to answer the call. She had heard rumors about some other high profile women being considered for the job, and it prompted her make sure Orato gave the trial the most relevant voice and choose someone who would best represent the fallen women. Trisha herself is a former sex trade worker who worked Vancouver's harsh Downtown Eastside between the ages of 19 and 26, and she counted some of Pickton's alleged victims among her friends. She, like many or most of the other women living in Vancouver's skid row, is a survivor of childhood physical and sexual abuse. Now six years into her recovery and healing, Trisha has experienced what she says can only be described as amazing and miraculous growth. She is hoping that this trial will be handled correctly by the media so that it can be a powerful catalyst for real change in the lives of at-risk women. Trisha believes she can, through covering the trial, help change the way society responds to women in trouble. This is her story.

Body:

I have managed to make it to 33, which considering what I have been through and the subject I am covering, is a minor miracle in itself. I have three amazing children and am very blessed to be in the position to do this. I guess in a biography one should start at the beginning.

I grew up in the Lower Mainland in a middle-class family with one brother and one sister and a dad who liked to beat his wife. I remember a lot of transition homes, times of staying with Grandma and always, always living in fear. Times were different back then and laws were different. It was way harder for my Mom to leave my Dad and I don't really recall the police being there for us. I do remember them walking out the door while my mom was sobbing and there were broken lamps and such all over the house. As I said though, times were different.

Eventually my Mom left my Dad, but it involved a very bloody battle between them, with me stuck in the middle, and resulted in my Dad getting dozens of stitches from him putting his hand through the window. Believe it or not, when they separated my Dad was not ordered to leave the house; he was ordered to live downstairs. That can make for fun family dinners!

When my Mom finally left my Dad for good, I was a pre-teen and an emotional disaster. If there was one thing I was, it was angry. My Mom in no way could control me, and I was a danger to her and my siblings. I had a wicked temper and was quickly spiraling out of control.

My Mom was dealing with her own issues, so we were like oil and water. I was removed from her care just before my 13th birthday and went to go stay in a group home. Being in group homes was just like being in a criminal boot camp. So, at 13-years-old, I was smoking, doing drugs, drinking, compulsively running away, committing petty crime, hanging out with a way older, rougher crowd, sleeping around and trying to escape the one person I never could: Myself.

I stayed in group homes until I was 16-years-old, at which time, I had my first child and moved out on my own.

I was sexually abused when I was younger, which should not at all be a shocker considering where I come from. I think most, if not all women and most boys involved in the sex trade, have been abused in some way. I will not go into details about it. Just suffice to say it happened more than once, but less then a million times and it severely skewed my perception of life, men, myself, love and what it means to be a female.

I got involved in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) through one of my "street" brothers when I was 19. I wish I could truly convey what it was that hooked me in down there, but I think it was mostly my addictions that were hooked and I got sucked in.

All I can say about my time down there is that I remember the violence. It was everywhere and permeated everything. I was in a nightclub with a girlfriend when a bullet took out the beer bottle on the table next to me and I didn't even flinch. I just was cranky that my shirt had got wet and now I smelled like beer.

I remember going out to work and thinking that I might not come home. It didn't even faze me; it was a job hazard. Getting beaten, raped or robbed were all job hazards and nothing more. Standing out there at night, I had this innate understanding that I did not matter-that I was worth less than every other person on the planet.

Given the way some of the other girls and my friends were disappearing, it seemed to be an absolute truth. I suppose it was this feeling of worthlessness and my inability to make sense or deal with anything I had gone through or was going through in life that fueled my drug and alcohol dependency. All I wanted to be was loved and I sought it out in all the wrong places.

Life was long and hard. There was little joy or happiness and much sorrow and pain. I have no desire to share horror stories or the atrocities I witnessed and had done to me. I feel they are too private and raw to have scrutinized with a public microscope, but I hope throughout the trial that because of these situations I will be able to give a voice to those who are now gone and those who are still trapped in hell.

*****

It was six years ago now that I met a woman who would forever change my life and the life of my family. Her name is Amanda and she did street outreach work with an organization in the DTES. When she came around and offered me hot chocolate on a cold October night, I accepted gratefully and went to walk away, but she engaged me in conversation. I still remember six years later with tears in my eyes the thing that caught my attention: She smiled at me. It was this big smile with great white teeth that seemed to convey without saying a word, "I am glad to be talking to you." I was mesmerized and ended up talking to her at great length and an immediate bond was formed. I could not for the life of me remember the last time I felt someone was actually happy to be talking to me. I ended up agreeing to leave the streets and began to start a new life.

Since leaving, I have been abundantly blessed with love, support and acceptance. I have amazing friends, attend an amazing church, have been given a chance to show my children a whole new way of life, have a solid relationship with God and am working on healing in all my relationships, and can say that I am healing more and more every day.

I feel from the vantage point I now have, looking back over the destruction and miracles that have brought me to where I am, I am blessed to be able to be a voice for those who as of yet have not been able to find their way out of hell and for those whose voice was taken from them against their will. I know all too well their struggles and while I do not miss the struggles, I miss the people. I hope that having made it out, I can show them that while it is a hard road, one can make it out. I hope that I can impress on people the value of the women still out there.

They are not wastes of human beings; they are someone's daughter, mother, sister, cousin, lover, friend, and like anyone else; they have value. Above all else they are people. They hurt, they love, they struggle, they laugh, they cry and they too can heal.

Pullquote:

I was in a nightclub with a girlfriend when a bullet took out the beer bottle on the table next to me and I didn't even flinch. I just was cranky that my shirt had got wet and now I smelled like beer.