Vanishing Fathers Series | Survivor of Sex Trafficking to Dedicating Her Life to Helping Other Women | Camille Briggs’ Story Ep 96

Developing a sense of security is an immense challenge when you’ve been betrayed by those meant to protect and nurture you. Today’s guest, Camille Briggs, was an early survivor of abuse at the hands of her stepfather and subsequently went down a path of further exploitation in a search for belonging.
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Camille’s descent into addiction and the dark world of sex trafficking was a stark contrast to the life she had envisioned for herself. But in the end, she was able to turn this pain into purpose and learn to survive on her own, all the while mending her relationships and, most importantly, finding her voice.
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As an Empower Her Network representative in Atlanta, she channels her experiences into her work to empower others. One way she’s making a difference is through her newest venture: the Krystal Clear Foundation. Her non-profit aims to help other women who have been trafficked get the education they need to start a new life.
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Tune in to hear more about Camille’s journey to true joy, happiness and freedom!
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Camille's Nonprofit
Krystal Clear Foundation
Email: info@krystalclearfoundation.org

Connect with Jamie at Truman Charities:
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Email: info@trumancharities.com

This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Trumentary's podcast. I am Jamie Truman, your host For our Vanishing Fathers series. I interviewed Camille Briggs, who has been through the unimaginable and has come out on the other side. Camille is a survivor of trafficking and has now dedicated her life to helping other women. We speak about her childhood, her journey to becoming a survivor of trafficking and the nonprofit Camille founded Crystal Clear Foundation, where she helps other women who have been trafficked get the education they need to start a new life. This is Camille's story. Camille, thank you so much for coming on and speaking with us today. How are you? Totally awesome, Good, let's start out from the beginning. Where and when were you born, and tell me a little bit about your family and dynamic when you were a young child.

Speaker 2: 0:57

So I was born in Nashville, tennessee, to my understanding, to father and a mother. Later on, about nine, I found out that the guy who I thought was my father was not my father. He was my stepfather. So I guess I kind of missed out something somewhere.

Speaker 1: 1:21

But later on I was able to meet my real father and he denied me, and how old were you when you went to go meet your biological father?

Speaker 2: 1:32

Well, actually it was Christmas. I'll never forget it. He had brought like he owned a music store. He bought a lot of gifts to us in the form of musical instruments drums, saxophones, electric piano and I was the age of nine and when he did that I probably shouldn't have been wherever I was, but then the house. But I overheard him say that he was not my biological father. So I was under the impression that me and my older sister had the same father and my baby sister and baby brother had the same father. Yeah, so I heard that. So I think that's where the disassociation came in, probably a dilemma or trauma in my life. So now I'm searching for a father figure which made me turn into going towards more of my stepfather as that father figure.

Speaker 1: 2:46

And what was your relationship with your stepfather from when you were younger up until nine years old, when you learned about him actually being your stepfather?

Speaker 2: 2:55

A normal, typical middle class family.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Okay.

Speaker 2: 3:00

There was no drugs involved in my family. They did have social, you know, like Christmas parties or, you know, typical, normal lifestyle. But there was one issue that surfaced is my stepfather, I guess, being that I was one for a father or whatever. He molested me and my oldest sister and that went on for years and then back then you didn't tell. You know, you did what your mother and father said. If not, you would get beat or whooping or however you want to say it, and it didn't never, no one never said anything about it, which for me, I was acting out, you know, in school, in different areas within that journey of that it didn't come out into.

Speaker 2: 4:04

I was about 11. We had moved to another home, a bigger space or whatever, and I saw some pictures and it was pictures of my sister. He used to be a truck driver and stuff otherwise, and so I saw the pictures. I went and got my mother. She got in the calf because I was supposed to be making up the bed, but when I've lifted mattress up there was these pictures. And so once she saw the pictures she didn't say anything. He had to go out of town because his job, he worked for Lee's company and he left, like that, sunday. I think I made the bed up on Saturday to get him ready for Sunday and then that fall when Monday, she was working on a way for us to get out.

Speaker 1: 4:59

And then, how long from discovering the photos did you leave?

Speaker 2: 5:04

So my mother went to the authorities and she got a court hearing. All this was supposed to be like closed case situation, but it didn't happen that way. What happened is, when he came back from his job, the police was waiting for him. He was on the newspaper about the fact that he had molested two of his children, which that did a big turn, you know, within me and my sister's life. She's four years older than me and she ended up getting pregnant by him. It was just like all blown out the whole thing to be so young I think I was by then. Nine is when I actually came out about it.

Speaker 1: 5:56

You were 11 when your mom left him and when the police authorities came, and at that point your mom's or, I'm sorry, your sister then is 15 years old. And then how did that feel when he was arrested?

Speaker 2: 6:11

I had no emotions. I had no emotions about it, plus the fact you know you're young and all of you know being abused in that type of way of being molested. You kind of like suppress your feelings and you don't really know how to address some of the things that you feel about the whole situation. When I think about it, from probably maybe five to 11, we were bit while I was at that age, being molested. After that, like I said, I started acting out. I started being involved with boys Eventually by the age of 13,. I was already sexually active by the age of 16. I started using drugs. I attracted older guys, maybe five, 10, 15, 20 years older than I was.

Speaker 1: 7:09

When you were 16? Oh, talking all the way Actually.

Speaker 2: 7:12

I graduated from high school at 16.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2: 7:17

Yeah, I had my first job at 13. That's kind of like something my mother mostly instilled go to work or school period. I'm still doing that now today. Just a whole lot of different events really turned in my life. I started gravitating mostly and attracted older men. For us older men it was like a trophy to have a younger woman. For me it was the glamorous life of what I can get from that person. And then I was into the drug scene and I'm with the older people and I thought I had it going on. I thought I was grown, I know how life is supposed to be At the age of 19, I was abducted and taken and ended up doing sexual exploitation, prostitution and the whole other state, because the guy took me from a whole other state and that went on a mental and physical abuse about that too, mind you, I never did heal from the beginning as the child Did you know this man.

Speaker 1: 8:36

Well, I did not know him.

Speaker 2: 8:39

I didn't know him from my age. I just so happily to be. I ended up at a hotel at one point due to the usage of drugs. I was walking to go get something to eat and I ran into these three guys. Never seen them a day in my life. They had drugs. At that point I had a good paying job or whatever. Just the drugs kind of like took me on out and so when I met him he had it.

Speaker 2: 9:11

I'm 19 though. I'm still a child, being still a child, but still trying to be grown in a child's body, in a child's mind. I like to say it was a robbery in process. It's what this was for me Now that I'm older. I was robbed from my life of what I could have been and even with using drugs and being in that prostitution lifestyle, I still try to come out of it in some type of way of being positive, trying to do something different. Then kids came along. Then being on the run, being on the run, then I mean it was just a breathable effect of mentally and physically and spiritually broken down. I think about 96, from I don't know, maybe 89 to about 96, that was in that abusive relationship.

Speaker 1: 10:15

And you said that you went to a different state. Right, he had taken you to oh.

Speaker 2: 10:18

I've been to 32 states and lived 32 in the life. Also, along the way, I was that recruiter. After a while, when the kids started coming along, I was the recruiter and I brought the women in. I would always run them off, though, because I was late. He had me mentally and physically. I was like you don't need anybody else, I can do this for you. I know I'm older now, but I don't look my age. You look very young.

Speaker 2: 10:53

Well, that's another story. But yeah, 96 came. It was on Americans Most Wanted. They finally got us.

Speaker 1: 11:05

What were you, on Americans, most Wanted for?

Speaker 2: 11:08

Well, actually, it would have been for him, okay, you were just a wet man Because we bled a whole state. I'm kind of skipping into some things. I can name off all the states if I needed to. I don't see what.

Speaker 1: 11:26

No, that's okay.

Speaker 2: 11:27

Kind of like re-living it. Sometimes, looking back over it, I can't believe that I allowed myself to get so deep within the drug, the prostitution and the lifestyle, because that really wasn't raised like that. My mother did a hell of a job raising four kids. Yes, everybody wants that typical husband-like thing, but she was the mother and father of that household. Yeah, when I say a robbery in process, it did start at home, because it was like whatever my stepfather if he wanted something, I wanted something. That's where the pattern started at Right.

Speaker 2: 12:17

So you recognized that part. Was I aware that I was doing that? No, really wasn't. Did I want to continue doing that? No, even as I got older and I think that's where the drugs came in, mostly too, because I medicated myself so that I can even deal with the point that somebody's touching me. Now, here today, I really don't like. I don't even have a boyfriend and I'm not a bad-looking woman or whatever, but I just feel like I need to just learn how to love myself more. So If God wants me to have someone, then it will happen.

Speaker 1: 12:57

Tell me a little bit about in 96, we'll go back. So you guys were on America or he was, but I was done there also because my mom was looking for me.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Ok, she had been looking for me because I had been gone so many years. Nobody knew if I was dead or not. She knew that I used that. She didn't know anything because I didn't have a communication. Once he took me out of town, that was the cause of anybody who loved me period. Learn how to love him, depend on him because he rehearsed me into that, rehearsed me into that. The carpet was green. I knew it was blue. It was green, 96, yeah, we had lived in, like I said, pretty much 32 states, and finally it was Minnesota, like 95.

Speaker 2: 13:56

And he had gotten some girls from a trap house and they were already beat up, not knowing that their parents was looking for them either. He showed me the people but I told him that they were too young. He was like, you know, shut up, be. You know what you're talking about. Whatever the next thing I know, our phone was tapped. That's how we ended up being with Americans, most wanted, because whoever the girls were, they were looking for him. And so his brother was with us also and he went to the hotel. When he went to the hotel, I'll never forget it because it was New Year's Eve he went to the motel to find out why they blown the phone out so much because the police was waiting for him to come back. He didn't come back, he sent his brother and so his brother jumped us, on us, and so they tapped their phone. When they tapped their phone, then he came up with a plan, as usual to get away and we parked the cars in the garage. He called somebody, he took one of the cars, one of the Cadillacs, and he left. He sent for somebody to get them to drive for him and then the next day I packed up all the kids.

Speaker 2: 15:16

This was my lifestyle for years packing up all the kids, making sure all paperwork, going to the bank, getting money out, because all this stuff was in my name. I mean everything, houses, cars. It was never all me. So when they were looking for him, they were looking for me, and I didn't even know that I was in the lifestyle because I didn't grow up from that. I was green in that, yeah. So I mean that went on for years. You mess up in the state, we pack up, we go. That's how the 32 states came into play.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Then 96 came. We were already on the run because it was on Americans Most wanted. They bought us some of this at the movie theater. They had cleared up the movie theater. We didn't even know about it and since we walked out the police was coming up. They opened the trunk. We had clothes, we had fake IDs. I mean just a whole nine yards.

Speaker 2: 16:23

We were supposedly to be armed and dangerous, and so they expedited him to all the states that we had went through and then expedited me back to Nashville, my hometown, never been in trouble a day in my life. I'm talking about no juvenile, no jail or anything until October 1996. It was a day before my birthday. That's what I know. It's so funny, people don't really forget dilemmas in their life. That was a dilemma in my life because I'm here now six and a go to jail for something that I didn't realize that I was in. But what they did get me on and it was because he taught me how to do it was criminal impersonation and forgery, because they saw all these different IDs with my name, everything on there.

Speaker 2: 17:28

So, that's what they expedited me for and put me in jail, and I stayed in there for about two weeks before they let me out and they let me out on my own. Recursion is whatever it is, and once I did get out, I had a nervous breakdown. I didn't know how to restart my life. Luckily, my family came into play to help me out to raise my kids, but it really helped me also to push myself back out there, because I didn't know how to change at that time.

Speaker 1: 18:07

I said where did you stay?

Speaker 2: 18:09

So I had a house, we had a house in Nashville and right up the street from Nashville I mean right up the street from the house that we had in Nashville there was a girl that I knew he used to serve drugs to and she also came and cleaned the house up for drugs and also came and babysitter, you know. So I knew that she lived up the street and so I got her and killed her, because I went back to where he stashed the dope and the money and all that. I went back to Nashville and got it, came back, had her with me. I didn't know she was strung out as much as she was, but she was, because I still don't know or understand about the lifestyle. Even at that age, even though I was going through it, I didn't know that's how clouded up I was and I really didn't know. And so I got her and she didn't know I had like over $10,000 on me and I had like a thousand and a half of drugs. I mean, you know she didn't know that, she just knew that I would leave out the room or whatever. And I did it and I'll bring it back to her.

Speaker 2: 19:22

And so then when I had the nervous breakdown, had ulcers on my tongues, my ears was smashed up or whatever. She kept coming to me. I was so deafly sick and I ended up going through all of that stuff, all of it, by giving it to them. They're saying they're selling it. I'm trusting in you to bring me back the money. You're not. It was a big mess because it wasn't my lifestyle and I had to do it Right. But as time went on, then I learned how I start surviving in it. I started learning more of how it worked on my own until I ran into another tractor. I had three by the first one and one by another one. He lived in my hometown, which I didn't know him at first, but you kind of like, go with wherever to her it went, you know somebody's using. You end up where somebody's using.

Speaker 2: 20:24

And what year was that 10 years I met him about in 98. It went too much longer.

Speaker 1: 20:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Right after that, about 98. And it started off. I went through a program trying to get my stuff clean, got out of the program and then that board had car house, everything, that board and took myself to the life, back out there to where somebody's using because I don't know where it is in Nashville. And I lived there all my life pretty much, you know, other than when I was traveling. So what's that happen? I used to go over there like when I got paid and then I'll go home or whatever, but then it was a time that I lost my job Due to my usage, so I ended up there and ending up there still in the house or whatever, but ending up there I was there and was in a car accident. When I was in a car accident, all of this was on. I have my eyelid oh yeah, this blinking, nothing here, oh wow, and a hairline fracture in my pelvis.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Oh my gosh, that's a very serious car accident.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Well, I wasn't driving, someone else was. We was going on a run and she had been up, she had an electrical pole and when she hit that electrical pole, that was it, and nobody even told me I was messed up the way I was. Only thing I could think of was to use. I even went on a date on a walker because I needed that money so that I can be able to get high. This is the insanity I bet.

Speaker 1: 22:25

So you're, when you're saying a date, you mean like a client.

Speaker 2: 22:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 22:31

Yeah, and the client told me I didn't know you was that serious, wait till you heal up and then come back. But we still did whatever. So he's just as sick as I was, but whatever, I tried back in 2002. That's because some friends of mine, they got out of the way and they would come back and get me and I hang out with them for a while and then I'll go back and stay in the lifestyle. But eventually I did go and to I'm not really sure if I should say the name of it or not, but I'm back down with Düsselphalm. I stayed within that. It's a two-year program. I stayed in that for nine months and then I went back to that same trafficker, the one I have the accident with. I stayed out until 2018. From 2018, that's all I did.

Speaker 2: 23:32

I just come up with bright ideas to be able to get one more, came up with this. I had jobs, but it was temporary, not knowing that all it is is just spiraling, spiraling, spiraling, spiraling, spiraling, trying to live on both sides of the fence, trying to my kids with my family, but trying to give them money. I was there physically for, as money-wise, wasn't there mentally, which now I'm still patching up the relationship now about that, and they're growing now, so that's even worse. I don't care how many times I tell them sorry, I wasn't in my right mind, or whatever. I have two that's my two oldest are on board. The last two, oh my God. We need to go to something.

Speaker 1: 24:22

And how many children do you have? I have four kids, four kids.

Speaker 2: 24:26

And 10 grandbabies.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's a lot of grandbabies.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Yeah, 2018,. I moved to Atlanta, Went to another two year program In a pandemic. That would have been the logical time to go out and use and stuff. But I was determined this time that I was going to make a change in my life. What has happened to me, the drugs usage, whatever that I have back in the past gone through I'm not going to let that dictate what my life look like. I'm just not going to do it.

Speaker 1: 25:05

And why do you think that particular time was the time that you decided that this is it?

Speaker 2: 25:12

If I tell you you'll be like, oh my God, this woman is crazy. But what made the turnaround is that it was Thanksgiving 2018, the people who was with in my house, home and my other kids' father, my last child's father. We had a house together because his dad gave it to us, because I helped take care of him through all this madness. I still was a caretaker, but anyway, I went on that last run to get the drugs because the dope dealers still eat with their families and stuff, right, and I call myself doing something nice. What are ones that can't go home, have burnt bridges, my morals and stuff although I was using and stuff. I always tried to be kind to other people. It's just in me like that, when I say no, my heart won't. Let me say no, I will still do it anyway, and so I cook this turkey and ham and macaroni cheese with sweet potatoes. I mean just the whole Thanksgiving dinner. I left and when I came back, the turkey was gone out of the. Seriously, now where?

Speaker 1: 26:33

was it.

Speaker 2: 26:34

The people who I left in my house took the turkey and blamed it on the dog, and I just lost it. When I tell you I lost it, I lost it, I know. For eight hours I was on the phone calling people telling me I made this big family dinner and everything and somebody stole the turkey. The blamed it on the dog. It was just, I mean, all day I messed up because I'm drinking and still smoking and there's this turkey gone.

Speaker 2: 27:07

But the next day the person who stole it came back and I took her hair and I wrapped it and I just literally started feeding this woman out of body experience and I know people on the body. Yes, I can see myself looking down at myself beating this person to a pump. And I could feel it in my body where I wanted to kill this person, because all the years I've been living I've never heard anybody steal a turkey. I didn't anybody stop it and that was the day I knew I would no longer live like this. I never want to feel that in my body again. Where I can. I could be sitting in jail now if I would have. Well, it took about eight people to get me off of her, but I'm just saying, you know, if it was differently I could be sitting in jail, right now Right, those other people weren't there.

Speaker 1: 28:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:11

So I reached out to my friends that I tried to live on both sides of the fence with, and they contacted Atlanta, Hola Melanta, and they sent me here and I've been going every since.

Speaker 1: 28:26

And how was that? Like the first few days, it was a relief.

Speaker 2: 28:30

It was a new beginning. Did I know what it was going to be like? No, because you're looking at 32 years worth of wreckage, knowing and unknowing Things. I needed to really start looking at Things. I really needed to work on Things. I needed to start being accountable for and having responsibilities, and I didn't know how to do it, so I needed to take my hands off the wheel and allow somebody in to help guide me. It was like I was crawling all over again and crawling like a taller until I could get on my feet and start walking and dictating what my life is supposed to be for me. I was no longer in bondage. I was free and I didn't care what or who and why. I didn't even care about that anymore. I started caring about me, and it's been the most beautiful journey that I have ever been on in my life. I used to always say I'm joy sapping free. Now I know what joy sapping free is. I really do.

Speaker 1: 29:57

And so what is your relationship now with your family?

Speaker 2: 30:01

I never stopped having a relationship with my family. They didn't understand it because they never used drugs. I'm the one that made us choice to go the way that I went. I did that to me. I didn't have to. I'm very much so educated Do your relationships have?

Speaker 1: 30:23

changed, since you've been here Like.

Speaker 2: 30:25

I said I think me and my two youngest kids. They're in their 20s, they in that age bracket that they rule the world. Now that's not just mine, that's all of it, yeah, so I'm trying to get that figured out, trying to mend that bond with them. I think it's kind of hard a little bit. It's hard a little bit because the only thing everybody seemed like it was okay when your mother was out there and she was doing whatever. And now that I'm not, it's like you don't have anything to talk about what you do, but you choose not to. You choose to talk about what hurt you, which the usage of the drugs or being with their fathers or whatever that look like. And I've always had an open channel with them. My mom said I shouldn't have told them and as far as I was concerned, well, mom, if you would tell, you shelled that springy street, but I still took myself to the streets due to curiosity, or it was glamorous to me not knowing that I was taking the wrong path or wrong road. So I felt like I had an open channel with them, so they wouldn't have to go through that. But along the way they're feeling some emotions are valid, I get it and there's some work and some work that needs to be done in it. But just pray about it. I'm gonna allow you to come to me. I've already been going to you trying to have a conversation about it and you're not ready, so fine. So whenever they do decide if we need to get a therapist or somebody to mediate it, okay, fine, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2: 32:27

Since this journey did the two years of program, I completed it. I have the two bedroom townhills, two full bath and I have the room dining room. I ran into, like the last six months of the program, empowered, her network, and they have been in my corner. They have been guiding me, they have been leading me. I have been well, my affidant. She just passed away here recently so we just finished graving it. I'm still still grieving in it because she became, like my mother, my mentor. She did a lot of impact. She really believed in me. Some of those times I didn't go out and use or getting a relationship or nothing, but some of those times that I felt like you know, giving up, she was there. I'm still here today.

Speaker 1: 33:27

I'm also a representative for Empire, her network in Atlanta and what do you do as a representative?

Speaker 2: 33:34

So basically it's a group of us from my state for Empire her network, kind of like a sisterhood amongst us. Since my applicant just passed away, they kind of closed it down for a minute, so they're trying to rethink of how they want to continue. You know that part of the program. But what I did do so far we were in a lot of trainings to be able to speak, as I'm going now today, to be able to talk to other surviving women Also within Empire her network. Most of the series that they had I was able to go back in. I facilitate groups or ending the games at different organizations. I started with the one that I was at, because for two years, not one time, did you talk about some of the issues that we needed to work on. So I took a curriculum back and then we began for that. So I've been I don't know, they just leveled me up to the next level.

Speaker 1: 34:48

You've also done a lot with other organizations as well.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Yeah, well, it's my life. Now I wanna be able to give back and to help other women not to go through the same things that I have gone through knowing and not knowing. I want to be that advocate or that voice for another woman that wants to get out of the lifestyle and don't know how to get out of the lifestyle which moves me into. I took a business class with Shynes San Diego and completed the class and I have started my own organization.

Speaker 2: 35:27

Tell me about that which is called Crystal Claire Foundation, narrating the gouts of what we've missed. I've noticed so many different organizations. It's not enough just for housing. There are other things that we're needing as a survivor, things that we might have not known how to do, and so I'll be mostly resourcing. I'll be working with the ages 18 and up, because that's when I started and tell you a whole book which I'm trying to write, that now too, got a lot of stuff on it. I don't know I don't have enough time in a day, but I get it a lot done. So I'll be working with 18 and 25, and we'll be having school. If they didn't have their GED, ged will be into it. Then medical assistance, behavioral health and CNAs will be within that organization, which is my extension. I have my 501c3, if I only got it yes, congratulations.

Speaker 2: 36:36

Yeah, that's where I'm at pretty much now you have accomplished quite a bit.

Speaker 1: 36:42

I'm very excited about your nonprofit.

Speaker 2: 36:44

Me too.

Speaker 1: 36:45

Yeah, well, before I let you go, is there anything else that we haven't covered that you want to talk about?

Speaker 2: 36:52

Just trust and believe someone else has already done it for you and if they can live to talk about it, then please trust and believe it's real.

Speaker 1: 37:02

Well, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us. I think you're going to help a lot of young women.

Speaker 2: 37:07

That's my intentions.

Speaker 1: 37:10

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