I Was Trafficked | with Ronika Merl

Key Takeaways:

-  The reality of human trafficking is that it doesn’t always look like human trafficking. 

-  The psychological restraints we often allow to determine our self worth and our path in life- many times unknowingly. In many cases, psychological constraints can prevent physical escape from abuse. But posing the question 'Why didn't you leave?' is toxic and harmful.

-  The importance of small moments and how they can overtime, create big transformation. 

This episode sheds light on the realities of human trafficking, the challenging societal misconceptions and advocating for understanding and change. Ronika Merl, award-winning screenwriter, filmmaker, activist and all-around creative, provides a unique perspective, which underscores the role of education and boundaries in healing and empowerment.

Throughout our deep discussion, we unravel the intricate impact of abuse on self-worth and emotional healing. Through personal reflections, Ronika illuminates how abusers can distort self-perception, leaving victims struggling to justify even the simplest acts of self-care. From childhood trauma, to human trafficking and the eventual reclaiming of personal power, our conversation emphasizes the crucial journey toward self-acceptance and the profound realization that everyone deserves kindness, love, and the chance to heal.


Connect with Ronika HERE 

Ronika's Instagram @ronika.merl



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Transcript

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Human Trafficking

Kertia 0:00

Hey everyone , today we're talking about human trafficking and if you're anything like me , I am sure that at one point , whenever you've heard the term human trafficking , you'd instantly get images in your mind of someone being tied up , kidnapped , forced in the back of a dirty van , possibly drugged against their will and potentially illegally smuggled across some border where they would then go on to experience a series of unspeakable things in addition to being somebody's sex slave . Or if any of you have watched the movie Taken , with Liam Neeson playing a character whose daughter was kidnapped while on vacation , that can serve as a visual representation as to one aspect of what human trafficking can be like . So , taking all of this into consideration , this perception of human trafficking is completely true . It is very real , very valid . These things actually do happen , and I mentioned taken because it's Hollywood , it's easily identifiable .

Kertia 1:14

A handful of us probably know who Liam Neeson is , but in reality , in most cases , the victims of human trafficking often do not have a hero that is coming to save them . And there are many other movies and documentaries that covers the reality of human trafficking and what it actually entails , many of which are well-researched and produced so beautifully and really gives us a much deeper , broader insight on the issue . But there is another side of human trafficking that is not so overt in its expression of the coercion and exploitation being done . It's a very subtle form of human trafficking which is just as harmful as what I've described before and equally dangerous , especially because it is even more so difficult to identify . Now that is what I'm discussing today with screenwriter , filmmaker and activist , ronika Merrill , who is a survivor of human trafficking and who I deeply appreciate for sharing her story with us today . You survived human trafficking , yeah , tell me .

Ronika 2:45

Tell me more , okay , so I always say that I was like probably the luckiest person . I think of myself as the luckiest person in the world . I really do and that's .

Ronika 2:57

That's weird to say , but , like , the way it all happened for me was so gentle and so gentle is the wrong word . I shouldn't have said gentle , but it was . It was so kind of on the lower end of how bad it could have been , that half of that's a trauma response to like tell myself it wasn't as bad as it could have been , and you know to not acknowledge the the horrendous stuff that did happen , um , but it really wasn't as bad as it could have been . And you know to not acknowledge the horrendous stuff that did happen . But it really wasn't like I wasn't , I wasn't drugged or anything . I was put in the back of a car and driven 200 miles away and put into a room 200 miles away and put into a room . But I still had my cell phone . I still had , you know , I still had the ability to leave the house . I just psychologically I didn't have the ability to leave the house , but physically I could have just left , um , so it definitely wasn't as bad as it could have been . I wasn't beaten as much as other women have been . I wasn't , like you know , chained to a bed or God forbid , like . Oh , by the way , lots of trigger , warning for all sorts of things , lucky ones .

Ronika 4:27

Having said that , the things that happened to me shouldn't have happened . They shouldn't have the things that happened to me , the things that were done , they shouldn't have been done . Um , none of the stuff , none of the stuff that happened was okay . So you have to walk that kind of balance of understanding that you might have been very lucky . You might have been very lucky in that it wasn't as bad as it could have been , but that doesn't take away from the badness . That doesn't take away . That doesn't mean that you're not allowed to grieve , that you're not allowed to be traumatized , that you're not allowed to , you know , be scarred and hurt by this . So it's like it's a really strange balance that I have to walk every single day .

Kertia 5:13

Yeah , that's really interesting . You said something really fascinating there . You said that you were physically able to leave , but not psychologically able to leave . Tell me more about that .

Ronika 5:28

Yeah , and that's really interesting . That's a lot of the work that I do with survivors now is that I tell them the phrase you would have if you could have all the time and it's a phrase that I come back to in all sorts of situations in life is that so often I was physically I went to the shop every day . I went to the shop every single day . You know , um , I I wasn't , you know , I wasn't , like I said , I wasn't chained to to the bed . Um , you know , 24 7 it I I could , and when I finally could leave , I did . I literally I stood up off the bed and walked out the door and never looked back . So it was never a thing that I was physically held back .

Ronika 6:18

Yes , the consequences of me walking out the door were quite , you know , they were quite severe and I had to deal with a lot thereafter , but I I'm here now , so it wasn't a thing that it was physically impossible for me to leave . It was I could not have left . I could not have left any sooner because my internal um understanding of what I was capable of doing was so completely skewered , was so completely broken , was completely um non-existent . I I didn't think that I was capable of anything , because that's what I had been conditioned to believe . That's what I had been conditioned to believe from from a very , very young age that if I didn't have some sort of um , if I didn't have some sort of figure or or master , um kind of lording over me telling me what to do , I couldn't do anything . It was like I was a puppet . It was like I was a puppet without strings and therefore , just , you know , heap crumpled on the on the stage floor , and it took me a long time to realize that's not the truth and I'm still learning that that's not the truth .

Ronika 7:32

So when I speak to other survivors and that question of why didn't I , why didn't you leave sooner ? Or the question of why doesn't she just leave if she hates him , or why doesn't he just go if she's abusive or like all of that , you cannot . And to learn to forgive yourself , to really learn to to forgive yourself for the fact that you couldn't , not that you just didn't , but that you could not leave or change or or make better . You couldn't , because if you would , if you could have , you would have . And I come back to that all the time , and every time I learn something new . I kind of come back to that moment of like oh , oh , okay , I forgive myself for that . So that's a really important process , I think .

Kertia 8:27

Yeah , that is so true . That is so true because when you go through an experience like that I think a lot of people who have been abused in some way there is a lot of self-blame , you know , there is a lot of shame , yeah , there's a lot of embarrassment , right , and you think about how , in how many different ways , it's your fault or you had something to do with what was done to you . So it's really important to say , like what you just said , if you , if you could have , you would have Right . And I love that you point out the fact that , like , although your experience was not as severe as some issues , you know , with human trafficking , some of the things that happened to some of these women or children or even men , you know . Like , even if it wasn't as severe as some of those cases , there's a psychological element that , even if you can physically leave , you don't you choose . You literally choose not to , even though you can , right .

Kertia 9:40

And anyone will say , well , if you could go to the store , if you could do all these things , why didn't you just walk away ? Why didn't you run through the door and never look back ? Why did it take you so long ? And there is that element and when you kind of think about things like that , it's hard for people to speak up sometimes , because then not only are you blaming yourself , but then you have other people blaming you and questioning your decision making . Yes , right , so it's just that additional element of shame and criticism and , yeah , it does no good to no , it really doesn't , and that that element of shame is .

Ronika 10:23

I think most of my work is is centered around that particular thing , that particular question of why didn't you leave ? Yeah , it's such a toxic question and I want to dismantle it from like such a because I've been asked that question a million times . I've been asked that question again and again and again and I didn't have an explanation for a long time . The only explanation I could come up with is because I didn't feel worthy of anything better . That was , it was all that I was worthy of . So if you don't feel like there's a better thing out there for you , because anything better isn't what you deserve , then no , you cannot leave because because you are internally so so sure , so convinced that you are not going to have it better , because you are not capable of experiencing good things , because you're not worth that . And that is such a deep-seated kind of belief that a lot of the people who are conditioned by abusers experience . Yeah , and if the restraints that you are in are internal rather than external , they're I don't want to say they're much harder to break , because , of course , if you're actually actively being physically held back , horrendous , but the internal , it takes such a long time to work through the internal kind of blockage . So the explanation for the question why didn't you just leave ? Is because I wasn't worth leaving to me . I didn't feel like I was worth um .

Self-Worth and Emotional Healing

Ronika 12:21

So there was a situation I remember well actually , and I come back to it a lot . So I was , I was , uh , kind of kept in this . It wasn't even such a bad room , it was like a little studio apartment . And I love vanilla flavored tea . Right , I really love vanilla flavored tea . I love it . It's , it's just so good . If you've never tried it , gotta try it . Um , and I really love that tea . But the brand that I really loved was like maybe like a euro more expensive , um , or like maybe 70 cents more expensive , and I really loved that tea . Like , I loved it so much but I didn't buy it for myself ever because I felt I wasn't worth paying that extra . Whatever euro or 70 cents or whatever it was . I felt like , oh , no , no , no , no , I better not . I better not spend , let's say , 70 cents on myself , because I'm not worth that . I was worth about 120 in an hour to other people , but I wasn't worth spending 70 cents on myself , which would have given me like there were 20 tea bags in there , so 20 cups of really blissful moments for myself . I wasn't worth that for myself , I wasn't worth that .

Ronika 13:51

So when I noticed that I was kind of becoming strong enough to maybe one day be able to leave , when I noticed that I was actually growing a spine I've quite bushy eyebrows , so , like , my eyebrows are quite , they're quite substantial right , and I have all these like little bits , that kind of point in the wrong direction , and my eyebrows are , are they're a thing . Yeah , so it was about three months before I left and , um , I always walked past this little eyebrow and nails place when I had to walk to the bank to deposit all my illegally earned cash . And I walked past this place and there were women in there and they were laughing and there was a sense of community and it was one of those like really cold winter nights and , um , as I was . So I was so deeply broken and I stopped in front of this eyebrow and nails place and I looked inside and the woman just kind of waved at me , was like hey , and I walked in and I have my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever , right , and it costs like I don't know at the time , probably like 12 euro or something like around $11 , $10 dollars , so like really cheap just to have literally the the underside of my eyebrows waxed . But I walked out of there the overwhelming guilt of what I had just done are you serious ?

Ronika 15:19

that I just was in floods of tears of like , oh my god , who do I think I am ? What ? What kind of arrogant , self-obsessed , vain , um , um , just absolutely narcissistic person would do something like that . I am so full of myself . Oh my God , I am so full of myself for doing that . Who do I think I am ? I just wasted half an hour . I just wasted half an hour where I could have been earning money or where I could have been doing something productive . Right , I just wasted like ten dollars on myself . How , how evil am I ? That was my thought process after I got my eyebrows waxed after I did this tiny little thing for myself , right ? So , like those are the moments that I come back to for like making myself realize how bad it actually was , how horrendous the psychological effect of what was being done to me actually was , is that you do not , fundamentally , you don't believe that you deserve good things when you're being abused , but you do .

Ronika 16:43

Everybody does , we all do . Everybody can go get their eyebrows done . I haven't had my eyebrows done in years . I'm perfectly happy with them . Now I don't want to do anything about them . It's back in fashion to have them wild . But if I want to get my eyebrows done now , I'm going to walk over and get them done and I'm going to walk out laughing Because I'm gonna walk over and get them done and I'm gonna walk out laughing because I'm fine because of course I'm worth . Of course I'm worth spending whatever twenty dollars on myself . Of course I am , yeah , but that's not an of course thing when you're in that situation . So that's always the moment that I realized that it was bad .

Kertia 17:27

Yeah , yeah , yeah . That is really telling , you know , because when you say that psychologically you were unable to leave , even though physically you could move around freely , even though physically you could move around freely , when you think about those experiences , then it becomes apparent why it was impossible for you to leave . You literally didn't have that self-worth , didn't have that self-love , didn't feel like you were deserving , didn't feel like you deserve love or anything right . So why would you leave ? In your head , you're thinking well , I don't even have it that bad , right , and you know like it's not that bad . This is probably a better situation than most other situations . You know , it's probably the thing that makes sense for me right now , because what else is there out there for me , right ? What else is there ?

Kertia 18:27

out there for me , right ? Who else is there out there for me ? So yeah , the the psychological aspect of that is it's very , very telling yeah , I'm so glad that you mentioned that . I'm so like . Thank you for sharing that yeah , no , it's important .

Ronika 18:43

I , I always tell that story . Yeah , it really is . We tend to forget how deeply these scars go . And also , you mentioned something interesting .

Ronika 18:55

There is that the feeling of and that's what when you're in an abusive relationship or in an abusive situation , no matter what that relationship is , whether that's with a parent , with a partner , with a colleague , with a boss , with a child , with whatever it is , a sibling what a lot of narcissistic abusers do is tell you that nobody else could love you , only them . And then they feed you these tiny little crumbs of love and like you feel like , oh , you're so starved and you're so kind of deprived of any positive , anything positive at all . And then you get this tiny little morsel , this little tiny crumb of affection and of love , and because that's all you're getting , you like latch onto that and you're like , oh my God , this person loves me and nobody else ever could . Nobody else could ever love me because I'm so unworthy of love , but this is the one and only person who could ever , ever , ever love me . Um , and it has knock-on effects too . Even when you get out of that particular relationship , you have knock-on effects later on , because if somebody shows you like the minimum , bare minimum effort of what a normal relationship .

Ronika 20:07

Yeah , you latch on to them and you're like , oh my god , you love me . What ? And you and you , you sink your claws into them . You're so terrified of losing them and any normal , sane person would just be like whoa , what ? No , okay , calm down , loosen it up , girl , because , like , what's going on ? And that's really . And then you fall back into this cycle of like , oh my God , this person didn't love me , I'm completely unlovable , nobody will ever love me , nobody will ever think of me as worthy , and it's such a , it's such a trap that you fall into . And this is also why a lot of people , once they've been in an abusive relationship once , will seek that out again and again and again and again and will come back to abusive situations or bad situations , because they don't understand that and it's such a cliche and I hate the phrase and it's and it's been overused but you have to love yourself before you can love another .

Ronika 21:11

It's like every podcast in the world that kind of centers around these themes will eventually produce the phrase you have to love yourself and then everything's gonna be all right . Um , and I hate it , but it's true . It's true , it's such a trope , but it's so true and it's just . It's just . I hate saying it , but it's true because it's such a simplified . It's such a simplified phrase of the actual truth and the work , just the , oh my God , the endless amount of work that goes into just loving yourself . Like , yeah , it's so hard , it's so difficult to love yourself . Oh my God , like it's , it's the hardest thing in the world to just sit here completely in silence with yourself and just breathe and just exist in silence within your own body , with yourself . Like that's such , that's such a difficult thing , yeah , but to be able to do that and to be able to say you know what ? I'm okay , I'm a good person .

Ronika 22:21

I flaws , I make mistakes , but I'm a good person all the way in here . I'm a good person . I have flaws , I make mistakes , but I'm a good person all the way in here . I'm a good person , and nobody can tell me any different . Nobody can tell me that I'm not worthy getting my eyebrows done . Nobody , no , no person in the world can tell me that I'm not allowed to like nobody . So it's just it's . But I'm 33 now . That eyebrow incident was when I was 19 , so it took me from 19 until like about the age of like 31 to completely get rid of of these old , kind of deeply entrenched notions . So , yeah , it's . It takes a long time , yeah .

Kertia 23:06

Yeah , another aspect of that . On the flip side of that , you know , when you don't love yourself or when you're so used to being abused and receiving the bare minimum , when you do come in touch with others who willingly give love wholeheartedly , it's , it's like foreign to you . Yes , it's foreign . It feels uncomfortable . You have no idea what to do with all of that . You don't know how to receive it . You don't know how to react to it . You might even push it away and try to get away from it . It's , it's a mind fuck it really is .

Ronika 23:49

Oh , we can curse on this podcast . That's amazing , because I've held back so many f-bombs , um . But yeah , no , it is . And you said the most perfect thing there .

Ronika 24:00

Um , it's so foreign to you yeah it's like so the first kind of really really , really healthy relationship I had , um was only this summer . Like it took me this long because I kind of started . I started therapy during COVID , um , because I had gotten out of my latest abusive relationship , surprise , surprise , and I was living by myself and I was living completely isolated , of course , because it was COVID with my kids , and it was so quiet , like the whole world was so quiet because this was , you know , it was 2020 , so everything was quiet , so my brain was really loud , um , so I started therapy . I was like I'm clearly in need of therapy , because who wouldn't be ? Um , so I started therapy and I was in therapy for for a good few years and then , in kind of 2022 , I was like , oh , I'm , I'm feeling better , I'm starting to heal , I'm trying to get better .

Ronika 24:59

But I didn't want to enter into a relationship because , exactly that , I knew exactly that actual healthy love would feel foreign and that I wouldn't . I wouldn't even be able to recognize it , I wouldn't even be able to see . And I was so careful because I was like so if a narcissist comes along and feeds me crumbs of love again , I'm going to over heels and and love them and and just be with them because they feed me something . Um , so I was really careful and so I didn't enter into a relationship until this summer and it was exactly like that and I had done , I had done all of this work to be able to recognize what a healthy person looks like , and and I met this man and

Growing Up With Childhood Trauma

Ronika 25:46

he was . So it was , oh , the worst thing that's ever happened to him God bless him is like he broke his foot or stubbed his toe . Like the man has not had anything bad . He's such a , he's like a , he's like a little bowl of sunshine . Um , he's , I always said , I always said of him he's , he's a golden retriever boyfriend , and he really was and he agrees with it .

Ronika 26:07

So all of a sudden , there was this really healthy person in front of me and I looked at him . I was like what the fuck do I do ? Like who , what ? Who are you Like you ? So how are you so undamaged ? How does that happen ? And all he did was literally just love me , just love , just not with no big fanfare , no big like , no big drama or anything . Just there was a plate full of love that he was holding anyway , so he just gave me some .

Ronika 26:46

But I I knew exactly what was happening because I had done a lot of work to be able to recognize that . And I recognized it for what it was . And I also recognized internally that it was a really strange thing to me to see someone so unburdened and so full of love and to see someone so happy with themselves , without having to have done a lot of work to get there . But the point is that I was able to recognize it because I had done all that work . Had I not done all that work to get to that point , that relationship wouldn't have worked , that that that connection wouldn't have existed , we would not have been able to love each other because I would not have been able to reciprocate in a healthy way that way . So yeah , it's so much work , it's just endless amounts of work .

Kertia 27:50

Yeah , just to dial it back a little bit . You mentioned as well , you know another part of that , because you know , like you mentioned , like you were conditioned to believe that you needed some type of master or there wasn't that fundamental aspect of love and self-worth embedded in you from a young age . So do you want to touch on that a little bit , because I think that's really I , I love , yeah , I love talking about it .

Ronika 28:30

Um , it's very , very heavy so , but we've given all the trigger warnings . So my mother sexually abused me from like I don't know how far back but I'm presuming since I was a baby . So my parents , both my father did as well , but my mother was kind of the primary instigator of that abuse um , and it could be quite violent , like it is very heavy , so I'll keep it light . Um , and the reason I like talking about it , but the reason I think it's important to talk about is that so often we don't see women , we don't see mothers being the perpetrator of this , of this horrendous thing , and we , we and most mothers are just amazing and moms are amazing . I'm a mom . Moms are everything . Mothers are amazing people . Some of them aren't , some of them really are not . Women are amazing people . Some of them aren't . Some women really are not .

Ronika 29:42

So the kind of under-representation of female sexual perpetrators is something I talk about often and it's something I really want to bring to light , because that happens too , want to bring to light because it that happens too . The the cliche of of when we have parental sexual abuse is always oh , the dad or the stepdad or the uncle or whatever , yeah , mom , you know . So the I , I talk about it because it doesn't get talked about enough and also because when that happens , you're so far ripped away from what , any kind of understanding of what womanhood should be . What's womanhood ? Because ? Is that that's not womanhood ? Surely Women don't grow up to rape their own daughters like you . That's not that , that's not a woman . Parenthood , no , definitely like . No , that's no .

Ronika 30:58

Um , love , that for sure ain't love , so to speak about , to speak about , um , what my mother did to me and what she encouraged my father to do , um , and other people , um , was to to . I never say deprive me of love , because deprive implies that I had it at some point . I didn't that . From before I was born , she was um , she was quite . I don't want to say she was a drug addict , because that would almost excuse her . She used a lot of drugs when she was pregnant with me , so so , even from before I was born , I wasn't really worthy of care in her eyes .

Ronika 31:48

She's a narcissist . So what she would do is she would like dress me up and put me on a stage and make me dance and then tell me what a slut I was for dancing so much at like four years old and so like really horrendous stuff , like really , really so like really horrendous stuff , like really , really horrendous , horrendous stuff . And I I can talk about it now because of all the therapy , but um , so um , that the core of that's what , what I , what I was kind of alluding to when I said oh , I was a doll without strings and I needed somebody there to to like manipulate the strings . That was the role that my mother had put me into from like baby onwards

Trauma, Abuse, and Self-Discovery

Ronika 32:31

. Your body isn't yours . The the fundamental understanding of before I was a toddler , that your body is a tool for pleasure yeah not a body .

Ronika 32:43

You are not a person , you are a . You are a tool yeah um to bring me whatever the fuck I want yeah um , when that happens to a person , I say I say it a lot actually is that your , my brain structure is literally different from a normal quote-unquote person , because my brain developed in an entirely different pattern and entirely different shapes are in there absolutelystallized in there .

Ronika 33:18

I have a condition called complex PTSD , which is PTSD , but it developed over over a long time my childhood , and so my actual brain pattern functions differently for most people . I was supposed to be and the person I was supposed to be was never even developed in the womb , wasn't even , it couldn't even develop . So when my actual cells were being put together , I was already not the person I was supposed to be because of all the drug influences and everything . And when I was born I was not supposed not you know the person I was supposed to be because of all the stuff that was done to me . But I don't know her . I don't know who she is . She might've been amazing , but she might not have been . I don't know who she is , but she's not me , right , and I'm pretty fucking awesome . So the I'm really I don't want to say I'm really glad that all these things happened . I'm not .

Ronika 34:16

Yeah , I don't want to say I'm really glad that all these things happened . I'm not and here's another phrase that you always hear on these things and I hate that phrase too but it made me who I am . I hate that phrase , but it really did . But it really did , you know . So that's what I was kind of saying when I said I had been conditioned to not feel like my body was mine .

Kertia 34:52

Yeah , yeah .

Ronika 34:52

It's heavy . I know I'm sorry .

Kertia 34:55

It's important and you know like you can go as deep or or not as deep as you want um it's so important to have these conversations because we often you often hear about human trafficking and you often hear about abuse , but you know , for people who have not experienced that , you kind of don't know . Like you , you know what to expect , but you don't know what to expect . You hear about the abuse but you really don't understand the lived experience of being in that situation . So it's really important to talk about it , you know . So , yeah , thank you so much for sharing , for sharing your experience . I wanted to ask you because you know , like , coming from that childhood having a mom that abused you in that way and also like pretty much handed you over to others , including your dad , to abuse you , that's fucked up by the way um , but are your parents the ones who handed you over , like , are they the one who trafficked you , or how did that situation come about ?

Ronika 36:08

so , um , my mother stopped sexually abusing me when I was 11 , I think , when we moved back to Austria .

Ronika 36:17

So I grew up in India in a , in a very secluded tribal community , um , but my mom was Austrian , um , so during that time , like during during our time in India , that was like the most , that would have been the most kind of um , prolific , um , kind of prolific abuse .

Ronika 36:38

And so I only actually remember what a few like a few situations where she would have handed me off to like strangers and it would have been like aided by drugs as well . So there was a situation when we were , when we were on holiday and she went to like an underground rave thing and got very , very high and I also ingested some drugs , and then the next thing I knew was that there were people around me and I was naked and I would have been five at the time . So , like it wasn't a thing of like she was holding me down and stuff was being done . It was more like she was facilitating the situations in which abuse could take place . So , yeah , so when I grew up and she was , you know , her career should be ruined anyway , but she's a teacher , ironic , um , so isn't it that's ?

Ronika 37:46

wild , yeah , I know not okay , not okay at all . I've I've tried , I've tried to report her , but it didn't . It doesn't work and , to be honest , that's a battle I don't want to fight because I don't give shit anymore . Um , it's horrendous . But so that stopped when we kind of moved to Austria when I was seven , um , and then it kind of got less and less and like . The only times it happened after we moved to Austria was when my dad was visiting um and it got it kind of tapered off and they got divorced when I was 11 and then thereafter I think she just didn't bother anymore . I think she just kind of , and I was , I was growing up , I was fighting back and I was .

Ronika 38:26

I think for her it was oh , she's starting to become conscious , she's starting to realize what's going on . She's starting to realize that what's going on is probably bad . So I should probably stop in case she tells anybody so like , because before then she always like the way she , the way I talked about it , I talked about these things with her later in life and she always played it down as like , yeah , well , you wouldn't really remember . So like , in my mind she stopped because I was starting to remember and I was coming to an age in which I was consciously remembering . And just , she stopped when I was 11 , um , but obviously , having grown up like that , sexuality is something that's like so difficult to navigate , it's it's fucking impossible to right . So when I was about like 14 , I lived in the countryside in Austria , so , like everybody was drinking , so I drank a lot to like compensate for all the trauma . And then , like 15 , 15 , kind of 14 , 15 , I put myself into bad situations again and again Because again I felt like , yeah , yeah , my body's not mine anyway , um , my body exists for sex , um , so I should probably have sex with lots of people , right , because that that was all I knew , that was all . That was the only kind of love that I knew was that , oh well , um , this , yeah , that's what I , that's what I'm here for .

Ronika 40:02

So when I was 16 , um , I was drunk , completely drunk , in this like bar , um , in our little town , and now the drinking age in Austria is 16 . So I was legally drunk in this bar and this group of Hell's Angels walked in and , as you can imagine , whenever you're in a bar and a group of Hell's Angels walks in , things get tense and shit got tense , but I was drunk and I also wasn't afraid of anything anymore at that point because I was like what's the worst that could happen , because the worst things imaginable have already happened to me . I'm not afraid of anything . I'm certainly not afraid of these motherfuckers , yeah , and one of them walked over to me , a really I have a really good relationship with this man to this day , even though horrendous shit happened under his kind of under his yoke , um , and he did horrendous shit , but he's a .

Surviving Upper-Class Prostitution

Ronika 41:09

He did horrendous shit because he , too , couldn't do any different . He was caught up in it as much as I was , and after I left , he left , but that's a whole different story . So Marcus walked in and we looked at each other across the crowded room and it really was like that . Really was like that . No , I swear and I know it sounds so bad , don't it ? But he was 35 and he was a hell's angel , and that's how it happened . And then , four years later , I cried because I got my eyebrows waxed . Um , right , so that's how it happened .

Ronika 41:54

Um , but ironically , marcus was really good for me . So he was really really good for me . So he was really good for me because he actually gave a damn about me . He really genuinely gave a damn about me . He gave a damn about me because it brought him money , of course , but he gave a damn about me as a person . And he was like oh , you have a really nice smile .

Ronika 42:13

I was like what ? And he was like you're really intelligent . I love your intelligence . I love how smart you are . You , you challenge me . I love that about you . You're different , because I love that you put up with me and that you challenge me and that you make me a better man . So the relationship I've had with Marcus and I I talk about that a lot as well we could talk like for hours just about that specific fucked upness , um , but at the end of the day , uh , if I had to blame anyone for the fact that I went into prostitution , ironically I would blame my mother , not my pimp , even though my mother had nothing to do with me going into prostitution . Yeah , but she created the conditions within me that led me to believe that my body was a tool for sex rather than a human being .

Kertia 43:11

Yeah , so yeah , yeah , man yeah .

Ronika 43:34

Cross the crowded woman Girl .

Kertia 43:35

I know he's a good person , I know , I know and it really was , and I remember what I was wearing . I remember how I had my hair done and yeah and yeah , when you're in it , you're in it , you're in it , you're in it when you're in it , you're in it so it is what it is right , it is what it is .

Kertia 43:45

You know , um , you know , what do we need to know , like ? What do people need to know coming from the stance of surviving human trafficking , what do people need to know ? What do you want people to know ?

Ronika 43:59

I want them to know what it looks like when it's not , you know , drugged and bound in the back of a truck . I was driven to my new destination in the back of a Mercedes and I didn't feel like I was being trafficked at all . I was a law student when it happened . Tricky , tricky . So that's what it looks like . What we see on TV , what we see everywhere else is . That's why I always say it wasn't as bad for me as it could have been , but that's still it right . So what happened was when I was actually taken away from my kind of safe environment and just put into the absolute hell that was . That was Innsbruck , um was .

Ronika 44:51

I was a law student , I was studying law , so I I had graduated , I had gotten into law school , I , so I had graduated while I was working as a prostitute . So I was working as a prostitute from like the age of 16 . And I was still in high school , and so the weekends I would spend working , and then during the week I was just a schoolgirl , a school girl , and then I worked . When it became legal for me to work in a brothel at 18 , I worked in brothels . So my last year of high school . Um , during graduation , I literally studied for graduation in a brothel . So , and I studied for law school in a brothel . So I got into law school , which was like amazing , that was . That was like I was . I was really proud of myself . I was like really good , yeah .

Ronika 45:37

So I was in law school and I got a call from one of the other girls um , one of Marcus's other girls saying he's been arrested . You have to come home , drop everything . Um , he's in jail and I'm like , oh fuck , okay , let's go . So I quit law school , but I was hoping to . I was hoping to come back to it , and so he was in jail for a while . He was in jail for like six weeks until just before Christmas , and then he came out at Christmas time and he was like he was looking at the numbers and he was looking at like what I had made , but this was like 2010 , this would have been . So it was like in the middle of the crash , nobody had any money and certainly people didn't have money to spend on champagne and you know girls . Um , so nobody was making any money because it was in the middle of the crash , and so he's looking at the numbers . He was like what the fuck ? Where's all the money ? And I'm like , there , this , that's what it is , this is what it is , uh . And he's like , are you still in school ? Because , like , that's what it is , this is what it is . And he's like , are you still in school ? Because , like , that's understandable . If you're only working two days a week , then these numbers are understandable .

Ronika 46:44

And I was like , no , vicky told me to get out of school . I quit school . I'm not , I quit school . Which pissed him off . And he was like no , no , no , no , you're a law student , you're going to be him off . And he was like no , no , no , no , you're a law student , you're gonna be a lawyer . We need lawyers in this , we need a lawyer somewhere . Um , I was like , yeah , well , but I was told to quit school . And he was like these aren't good numbers , we're gonna put you somewhere else .

Ronika 47:09

And I was like now , hold on , I , I'm going to university in the city where my family is , like my granddad and my aunties and my cousins . I know everybody there , I'm familiar with that city , I'm safe there , I don't want to go anywhere else . And he was like no , no , no , no , you're going . And then just after Christmas , literally like that , he was like , yeah , we're going get in the car . I'm like I don't wanna . And he was like no , no , not your decision , get in the car . And so I sat in the back of his car for like three hours and I was driven to this place and then put into a room and essentially told to stay there . And I stayed there until one and a half years later like two years later almost Um and I had no contact with I didn't have much contact with my mother anyway , cause you know , or would you and um , but then I didn't have any contact with my family .

Ronika 48:17

All of a sudden , then I didn't have contact with with my family . All of a sudden , then I didn't have contact with the outside world . All of a sudden , and I was in a brothel , because in a brothel you have a security guy at the door , right , if something goes wrong . It's in a city , so if you run out the door , the police is right there . But I was in a room and it was illegal , so I couldn't call the cops , even if I wanted to . And all of a sudden there was no one in the city who knew that I was there .

Ronika 48:47

And all of a sudden , marcus was 300 miles away and all of a sudden I was locked in this room by myself , with rapists knocking on my door every day . And then , all of a sudden , the only place I ever went to was the shop where I longingly looked at the vanilla tea , not being able to afford it , and I got my jaw broken there . I got raped very severely there and I couldn't leave . And then we're coming full circle now . Right , so when I say I was trafficked , I was taken away from a safe space and put into a place where I was repeatedly raped and hurt .

Ronika 49:33

That is the definition of human trafficking . That is what happened to me . The fact that I was driven there in the back of human trafficking . That is what happened to me . The fact that I was driven there in the back of a mark . That's what it looks like . That's what most upper-class prostitution looks like . They might seem like they're there voluntarily , they might make tens of thousands of dollars , but they there's a reason . They're not leaving , even if they can right . That's what trafficking looks like . So that's what I want people to know . Is that if you're afraid of the boogeyman , who's gonna ? Who's gonna ? Put duct tape on your mouth and throw you in the back of a van . Cool , be afraid of that person , absolutely . Be afraid of that person also , but also be afraid of the things that seem less sinister , but that doesn't make them any less sinister .

Kertia 50:33

Yeah , sometimes the boogeyman drives a Mercedes . Yeah , yeah .

Ronika 50:37

Exactly , exactly .

Kertia 50:39

Exactly , and I'm happy that you pointed that out , because you know , like , when you think about human trafficking , I have thought about it in that way myself whereby , like you're bounded your mouth , your hands , your feet you're thrown in the back of a van or something , something you know , you're dragged through the mud , um . But there is also that aspect of human trafficking that when you look at it from the surface , it seems like the person wants to be there . Yeah , you know , it seems like they're enjoying it . It seems like they're , they're like living some type of life . Yeah , it can be so deceptive and so tricky those cases to identify , yeah . So , yeah , I'm definitely happy that you you pointed that out , because I think that is um one misconception when you think about human trafficking , like you expect it to look really , really ugly , and it does A lot of it does A lot of time , yeah .

Kertia 51:45

But then you have that other aspect as well , that it looks like even , in some cases , glamorous .

Ronika 51:53

Yeah .

Kertia 51:53

And you have no idea the turmoil that this person is experiencing every day .

Ronika 52:00

Exactly Like

Unveiling the Realities of Prostitution

Ronika 52:01

. In my time in Innsbruck I was invited to like millionaire roof parties . So like , yeah , it looks glamorous . Of course it does . There was a time when I was invited to this like really , really like millionaire's house and play , dress up for a night and it looked luxurious . And had I posted that party on Instagram , had I been allowed social media , it would have looked like I was living the life . I know people would have been jealous girl , but I was driven there to that party in that same Mercedes , yeah , and that's my point .

Ronika 52:39

So , like , um , andrew tate is the best example . So , like the parties that he was having and the the thing that he was charged with and the things that he allegedly did , they looked exactly like that , okay . So fresh off the news , diddy . So these right , that looks luxurious .

Kertia 53:01

Exactly .

Ronika 53:02

From the outside . Yeah , nobody had duct tape on their mouth being thrown in the back of a grimy van to get to a Diddy party .

Kertia 53:10

Yeah .

Ronika 53:11

Exactly what was the outcome ? So that's my point . I'm not saying I was at that high end of things . I definitely wasn't , but there's a scale to these things and I was like on the lower middle class kind of scale of that . I wasn't in like depths of it , but I wasn't at the top of it . I was in the middle class kind of level , which is it exists and that most of the people that came to me were middle-class people , were teachers and dentists and dads and , and you know , restaurant owners or or firefighters or doctors or whatever .

Kertia 53:59

That's wild to me .

Ronika 54:02

But these people weren't evil either . They weren't evil . It wasn't an evil thing that they were doing . They weren't trying to oppress women . They weren't trying to rape me , like most of them weren't . Some of them did , of course , but most of the people who came to see me weren't rapists . They weren't violent . They weren't trying to perpetuate a system of oppression . They were lonely and they needed someone to talk to , or they had a fetish that they couldn't talk to their wife about , or they had just not been with anyone in so long that they felt a need . Like you know , on that aspect , I always I'm a huge advocate for sex work , because it's a hell , it can be a healthy thing . I always felt in those moments , I always felt really fulfilled in what I was doing because I felt like choice .

Ronika 54:49

Right , I was caring for these people and that was that gave me energy actually . Yeah , you said that's a choice and that's exactly it .

Kertia 54:58

Yeah , it's okay when it's your choice , like this is what you want to do for your own reason , right , but then and it's , it's really , you know , sorry to cut you off , it's just no . No , yeah , it's really sad in your situation because I'm sure those people who were lonely or who had fetishes that they couldn't explain to their wives and just needed someone to talk to or maybe they've , they haven't had intimacy in a while most of them probably didn't realize that you were being trafficked . There were just like paying for a service that they needed and like it it's it sucks .

Ronika 55:37

And whenever they asked me if like , because some of them cared , obviously and wanted to know whether there was anything sinister going on or whether I was just a girl , you know , trying to make a little bit of money on the side , and that's what I always said oh no , I'm just a girl trying to make a little bit of money , I'm happy nobody's there . Like that's what I always said , because that's what you have to like . You can't just , you know , and , ironically , I'm not opposed to , I'm not opposed to entertain the idea of going back into prostitution . I won't ever Like , it's not going to happen . But had I never been in prostitution , and if this was like an option that was laid up to me now , I would entertain it as a thought , because I'd be like oh yeah , well , this is not something that is that's an evil thing to do .

Ronika 56:31

Prostitution isn't a bad thing . Sex work isn't , it's not icky , it has . There's you , you know , when there's no forcing involved , yeah , um , when it's consensual , it's a healthy thing for society to have . I think it should be legal , I think it should be regulated , I think it should be , um , I think taxes should be paid , like austria and germany really have it down beautifully because it's regulated . There's's doctor's appointments that you have to go to every week and then every few months you get a blood test and you get medical care and you pay taxes and it's safe and it's regulated . Love that I think that's great , I think that's so healthy . But the sinister side of it obviously is not . So . Sex work as a whole is not , is not something I would . I would dismiss or remove from the world if I had the power to do that , because it can really be care work yeah , yeah , that is so true , but you know , society is conditioned to see , to perceive it in a different way .

Kertia 57:45

as to the lens of human trafficking someone , yeah , that's a completely different story . Yeah , what has your healing journey been like , has your healing journey been like ? But I want to , I want you to kind of like take it to when you first walked away and never looked back . What was that like ? And then , what was your healing journey like after that ?

Ronika 58:27

so the decision was made on the 12th of April 2012 and I woke up that morning , um , and because I had been growing a spine over the last few months , I had a cup of vanilla tea .

Kertia 58:39

Look , at you .

Ronika 58:41

I had a cup of vanilla tea that morning because I spent 70 cents on myself . Hey girl .

Ronika 58:52

So I had a cup of vanilla tea that morning . What a symbol , like what a symbol . That cup was Right , I mean , and so empowering to have some tea . It's the little things . So I woke up that morning , I had a cup of vanilla tea , it was springtime and I looked out my tiny little window it was the only window I had . It was like a tiny little window with frosted glass so nobody could see in . And I looked outside and it was the sun was shining and it was spring again , and it was 2012 and I was 20 years old and I it was like something clicked in me .

Ronika 59:36

It was like something . It was like something clicked in me . It was like something . It was like a , do you know ? Like an engine that just slowly clicks into place and just , and it clicked and I stood on my bed . I was sitting on my bed with my tea and then I stood up on my bed , like on the mattress , and looked outside and I was like I'm actually really smart . I got into law school . I graduated like in the top kind of you know , top 10 of my class , speak three languages , I know Latin .

Ronika 1:00:17

Like why am I here ? What am I doing ? Like , what am I doing ? I thought I was more than this . I want to be a writer . I want to be in film . I want to work in film one day . I want to be a writer one day . I'm not doing that right now , I'm not writing anything . I shouldn't be here , I don't have to be here anymore . And I walked out the door and walked over to the bus stop to get a bus into like the center of town and I just walked around town and then I came back and then I looked up jobs on the computer and I got . I found like a little call center job doing surveys and I called them up and they were like , yeah , yeah , come in , come into the office tomorrow .

Ronika 1:01:15

The next morning I woke up and my work phone was off , like my work , like my call girl phone was off and I had my vanilla tea and I walked out the door and walked into the office and got that job . They were like , yeah , no , of course we'll hire you . And I stood there and I was like what do you mean you'll hire me ? Like what do you mean ? How ? Why would you hire someone as stupid and as ugly and as horrible as me ? And then I walked out that office and I was like I have a job . I'm clearly not too stupid to get a job . Like , obviously I'm not the worst person that has ever existed in the history of the universe , clearly not Cause .

Ronika 1:02:10

I got a job Right and then I got another job . I got another job working for amnesty international , right , so that was my second job out of prostitution . Was was um in the office at amnesty hq , yeah , um in ensbrook , and I was like now , hold on now . A month ago I was a whore , now I work , work at Amnesty International . So I'm not dumb .

Ronika 1:02:41

Exactly , and then more and more things kept happening that made me realize that I'm not a bad human being . More and more things kept happening that made me realize I'm actually a good human being . And then I make mistakes , mistakes and like . Whenever I made a mistake , I immediately fell back into like , oh my god , oh my god , I have made a mistake . I'm the worst . I can't , I shouldn't , exist . I'm just the most horrendous person .

Ronika 1:03:09

I remember very early on , um , in another relationship . Um , I wasn't in the mood for sex and the the guy was like hey , do you want to get into it ? And I'm like I really don't feel like it today . And he was like oh yeah , cool , that's fine , of course , that's cool , that's fine , which is a normal reaction , right ? That's like oh , you're not in the mood for sex , let's not have sex . Normal , that's a normal reaction , right ? That's like oh , you're not in the

Overcoming Fear and Healing Trauma

Ronika 1:03:39

mood for sex , let's not have sex . And I sat there and I was like oh my god , I'm so sorry . Oh my god , I'm so sorry . No , of course we can have sex , of course , of course , of course we can have sex . I'm so sorry . I said that I'm so . Please forgive me , I'm so sorry . I said that I didn't mean to reject you of course I shouldn't reject you and he was like , what the fuck ? Like , if you're not in the mood for sex , we're not having sex . Like I'm not having sex with you if you're not in the mood for sex , and why are you apologizing to me because you're not in the mood ? Like where is that coming from ? And then I sat back and I was like , oh , oh , I'm allowed to say no to sex , which I don't want to , because I really actually like sex . My sexuality has that's a whole nother topic . I'm really happy with the fact that I still enjoy sex , which is .

Ronika 1:04:29

That was not easy , but I was like , oh , I get to say no to people . What , that's okay . I get to say no to people . I get to set boundaries , mind blown right , like what . I get to set boundaries , I get to enforce them . I people don't get to walk all over me for a healthy boundary , like it was .

Ronika 1:04:54

It was these tiny little moments that kept happening and kept happening and kept happening , in which I realized just how damaged I had been . So to go back to the eyebrow story um , thinking back on the eyebrow story in the moment didn't , didn't feel like it was such a horrendous , like it was , how bad it actually was . But thinking back as a healthy person , now to the eyebrow story , and it's that that makes me realize just how bad it was , and that's me that makes me realize just how far I've come to now be able to say , no , I'm doing whatever I want . So what made up the journey were tiny , tiny , tiny little moments that were so fleeting and so kind of minuscule , so kind of minuscule , but they all added up and they all had a positive trajectory . But what I firmly believe , what I really really very strongly believe , is that the only thing that made me realize those tiny little moments and made me recognize them and made me understand them for what they are and then be able to use that understanding to further my healing , is education .

Ronika 1:06:16

I was so privileged , so privileged , to have been sent to a really , really , really good school . I was enormously privileged to have a real interest in psychology . I was reading all the time . I read fiction , I read nonfiction , I was reading the entire time . The only reason I am as healed as I am is because I had the resources and the education to recognize what was going on .

Ronika 1:06:47

So had I not had that opportunity , had I been illiterate , had I not been able to have a good education , I would not be here . I would not be , as I would not be as healed as I am , which is why conversations like these are so important , which is why everything I do in this kind of work is to educate people , to talk to them about the things that go on and the things that can happen , because education is the only thing that can really really save you , because if you don't understand the inner workings of what's being done to you , of what is going on with you , you cannot save yourself , because you don't . You cannot put into words , you cannot explain to yourself , and if you cannot explain to yourself , no-transcript .

Kertia 1:08:11

So that is what healed me . Yeah , yeah , and just going back to what we said earlier about some of the misconceptions , people would look at a situation and think like , well , you're stupid if you couldn't or if you didn't , or even you might think you were stupid . But , girl , you were in law school , exactly right , you were studying , you were doing all these things . But I don't think people truly , you know , and I won't say all people , of course , I don't want to over generalize but I think a lot of us take for granted the psychological impact that our environment has on us right and what that can do to you when you've experienced , especially something that you've experienced Like no amount of intellect can save you , when you're operating from that mindset .

Ronika 1:09:01

Yeah , yes , 100% , exactly . No amount of intellect can save you from going from being abused , but intellect can help . Not intellect , but , yeah , education is the only word I can find . Yeah , can help you get out of it . Exactly , because knowing more about what's going on , become aware , understanding , yes , yeah , yeah , yeah , exactly , that can really help . So the smartest people in the world , the smartest people in the world , can fall victim to something . Exactly . And I want to be very clear here as well that I don't come across as saying , oh , I'm smart and therefore I got out , and whoever doesn't get out is stupid .

Ronika 1:09:46

No , no , no , no , stupid , no , no , no , no , no . That's not what I'm saying . Um , if you stay in an abusive situation , that doesn't mean you're stupid . If you get out of it , that doesn't mean that you're intellectually intelligent or whatever . That has nothing to do with in that . I want to stress that very much that I'm not saying that just to highlight that this can happen to anyone .

Kertia 1:10:06

Like . No one is immune . You've always experienced abuse , Like since you've since you were alive , right .

Ronika 1:10:15

Anyone , anyone can experience human trafficking .

Ronika 1:10:19

And anyone can get out and anyone can get out Also , kind of the lack of fear . And to literally come back to the actual title of this podcast , to come out on the other side of fear , to use the phrase , is I don't have a lot of fear left right , um , which I think is a very sad thing . I would love to be able to afraid , to be afraid , um , because my lack of fear for anything is a remnant of having faced horrendous things . So I'm not afraid of being raped . I'm not afraid of it Because , yeah , I got through it , I'll get through it again .

Ronika 1:11:17

I'm not afraid of being killed . I've had a gun stuck down my throat . I face death . I have faced death several times . I know what it's like to make peace with death . So when that moment comes and I'm gonna die , I'm gonna be like , hey hi , death , I've , I've met you before , let's go .

Ronika 1:11:38

So I wish , I wish I was afraid of things still , or had the capability of being afraid of things like normal , mundane little things , because that would mean I'm a very healthy or that would mean I'm a person who hasn't , who didn't have to experience and make peace with the more horrendous things in life . The more horrendous things in life . So I'm not afraid , but it is a . It is a . It isn't a sign of . It's not a sign of strength . A lack of fear , I don't think is a sign of strength . This is a sign of , of of deep hurt and it's a source of great sadness and grief . So that's . Another thing is that , yeah , we can come out of these things . We can , we can survive these things , but the scars that they leave turn you , like we were saying earlier , turn you into , into a person that you weren't supposed to be . Um , so , yeah , I'm not the person I was supposed to be , but I'm really okay with the person that I am . So it's a . It's a weird kind of duality yeah , yeah .

Kertia 1:13:02

Now from your situation like how can others survive human trafficking ? Like do you have any tips as to how others can potentially help themselves in these ?

Ronika 1:13:14

situations . Um , I think , well , it really depends on how like severe it is if you're , if like there are situations that you can't just get yourself out of , like you know , if know , if it's the situation where you're being thrown in the back of a van and , you know , shipped off and bound , no , you can't just get out of it , like I did , you can't just walk out the door , like there are situations that you just cannot get yourself out of situation . If you're in a similar situation that I was in , or an abusive domestic situation , let's say you won't get out until you get out

Journey to Self-Acceptance and Empowerment

Ronika 1:13:56

. So it is a process , it's an internal process that has to run its course and , like we were saying in the beginning , you have to forgive yourself for the length of time it takes for this to run its course . What you can do , just active measures that you can take to shorten that , to shorten the process of I think something's wrong , like the journey from . I think something's wrong to I'm leaving . Like the journey from I think something's wrong to I'm leaving . To shorten that journey is to listen to other people , is to I hate that phrase again to learn to love yourself , because it's stupid , but is to um , dare to buy that vanilla tea is to dare to go get your eyebrows done , to stand in front of the mirror and it can be really , really hard to look at yourself . It can be such a difficult , triggering , traumatizing thing just to look at yourself , but to be to find those tiny , tiny little moments of bravery . And if you can't , if you can do it once and then you can't do it again for six months , fine , you already did it once . If it takes a long time for you to get back , it takes a long time .

Ronika 1:15:20

Forgive yourself for the time it takes you , the more you forgive yourself for every second that you're quote unquote wasting . It's not a waste In the space that you're being abused in Tiny little moments of taking a breath and forgiving . I'm here right now . I forgive myself for being here . I'm here right now . I forgive myself for being here . I'm here right now and I'm going to be brave and appreciate myself for 10 seconds . Then I'm going to feel shit about myself again , but for 10 seconds every week , every month , I'm going to tell myself that I'm okay . And you watch how those 10 seconds turn into a minute , turn into 10 minutes , turn into an hour . I'm going to tell myself that I'm okay and you watch how those 10 seconds turn into a minute , turn into 10 minutes .

Kertia 1:16:12

Turn into an hour .

Ronika 1:16:13

Turn into eternity when , all of a sudden , oh yeah , you know what ? I'm good , I'm a good person and you cannot treat me like this .

Ronika 1:16:22

You're not allowed to treat me like this because I'm a good person who's worthy of love 10 seconds , and then then 20 , and then 30 , and then a minute , and if you do 10 seconds and you never do them again , you had 10 seconds of living your fullest life . That is enough . If that is all you achieve , that is already enough , right ? So tiny , tiny , tiny , tiny little steps , as tiny as you can possibly make them , because once you've taken that tiny little step , you did something successful , you completed a task , you did something , you achieved something Huge . That's huge . You set yourself of , of , of walking out the door and and I don't know taking over the world . You're not gonna do that in a day like , it's just very difficult to achieve target , but setting yourself the target of , of looking in the mirror for 10 seconds and not letting the voice in your head tell you that you're stupid and ugly and horrible , okay , that you can achieve , yeah , so that's what I would say I love that .

Kertia 1:17:32

I love that . That's beautiful . Tiny steps , tiny , tiny steps , tiny steps .

Ronika 1:17:38

Yeah , I love that and they really add up .

Kertia 1:17:42

Yeah , yeah , over time it makes a difference . Yeah , you know it's . It's just so important what you're doing , the way that you're using your voice to bring awareness to this experience , and you know yeah , I feel , yeah , I feel very lucky and privileged . Yeah , yeah , thank you so ? Much like tell me more about your work in the film industry .

Ronika 1:18:07

Yeah , I love talking about that too . My work is pretty straightforward . I work as a screenwriter , so half the time I work on my own scripts , which tend to be stories that are very character-driven , very kind of heavy on internal , internal issues , like issues , the questions like how , how do you get out , how do you survive , how do you live on , how do you become yourself ? Um , so those are the stories I'm really drawn to as a just as a writer , um , but then I work on a lot of commissions as well . So my most recent commission I'm so glad I get to talk about it now , because it was under wraps for like a while and I couldn't talk about it . But now I get to talk about it because it's kind of um heading , heading towards , uh , something .

Ronika 1:18:52

Um was this really interesting fantasy project which is kind of like a game of thrones , vibe , um called matriarchy , which was which kind of capsulates the moment in in human history and it's all based on archaeological finds and it's all based in reality , but the moment in human history where Europe turned from being a matriarchal society towards being a patriarchal society and like the moment of , like the shift of having like a kind of in peace with nature , tribal culture to a conquering kind of , you know , war , like culture and the pivotal moments that happened in that time , and it's all based in science and it's all based in reality . And I could not be more excited to be working on that project . I was very lucky to be involved , I was hired on that project and I was very , very glad to be involved . So it's very much my vibe . So that's kind of my screenwriting work . I , every year , I publish a poetry collection .

Ronika 1:19:56

So that's kind of my more therapeutic type of writing , where I'm just like allowing myself to be myself writing , where I'm just like allowing myself to be myself , um , so I love that . I love that very much . And , and every year I invite another writer to to write an introduction for me , um , which is always great because I get to collaborate with these amazing other writers . So , yeah it , I get to spend my day telling stories , yeah , um , which is just the best thing ever , like it's . I'm so privileged , I'm so lucky that I get to do that , uh , that I get to that . I get to spend my whole life now , for the rest of my life , creating things , and I get to be on exciting film sets and I get to go to Cannes , I get to , like , I get to do all these amazing things , which is so good and which is so amazing . So , yeah , I was very lucky to be able to do that .

Kertia 1:20:55

That's amazing , Ronita . That is so , so amazing . Is there any more of your work that you'd like to mention while we're still here ?

Ronika 1:21:06

Yeah , I mean my , my books are available on Amazon . So if anybody's interested in kind of experiencing reading short stories or reading poetry that very much reflect the journey I was on , anybody who kind of hopefully , hopefully , people enjoyed , um listening to us now would probably enjoy reading , reading those books , because they they do really reflect every philosophy that I've spoken about today is reflected in that work . If anybody is struggling with a story that they'd like to get out , I'm always happy to help out with . I've coached many , many writers , um to kind of help them with , you know , especially , especially when they're stuck with , like characters . Um , I tend to , I tend to always get invited in to help out with when they're stuck with characters . So if there's any budding writers out there who need help , um , I'm more than happy to help out . But yeah , that's me in a nutshell . That's the plugging done anyway .

Kertia 1:22:14

Is that your artwork behind you ?

Ronika 1:22:16

Yes , this is Medusa Obviously Medusa , for all the symbolism that we get to see . I painted her while I was living in an off-grid cabin in the forest . I was living in a cabin that had no electricity and no like . No electricity , no internet , no heating , in the middle of winter in Ireland , and it was amazing . It was so good I like Ireland , and it was amazing it was so good I like had to chop wood every morning um to like keep myself warm and like made soup every day on the fire . It was amazing . And then I painted her . Um , I painted Medusa , uh , to remind myself that women , um , even when we have snakes on our heads , we are still empowered and beautiful , beautiful . So that's my Medusa , yeah .

Kertia 1:23:12

I love the colors yeah , she's , she's very .

Ronika 1:23:18

I like her very much . She's very , she's a very good composition that's beautiful , ronika .

Kertia 1:23:26

I love it Any parting words . This was an amazing conversation . Thank you so much .

Ronika 1:23:32

Oh my God , I had the best time . Thank you so much . This was really . This was so . Thank you so much for the opportunity . I knew we were gonna , I knew we were gonna gel . I was like I knew this . It's been such a pleasure . Oh my God , Thank you so , so , so much . The work that you're doing is really important . The work that you're doing is absolutely incredible because what you're doing is you're giving a voice and you're using your own voice as well , and we underestimate just how powerful that can be , how powerful your voice is . So thank you for the work that you're doing . Please keep doing it . It's , it's incredible . So , yeah , absolutely I'm I'm so glad , I'm so glad we got to have this chat . Thank you .

Kertia 1:24:24

Thank you so much , renika . It was such a pleasure it was , it was , it was amazing .

Ronika 1:24:32

Thank you , thank you so much .

Kertia 1:24:37

This was such a beautiful conversation . I am so grateful to Renika for sharing her heart with us . This was so informative . It was emotional . It was so touching to hear her share details of a very personal story , something so personal , so close to her heart , um so I'm so , so grateful for that . If you'd like to reach out toika , if you'd like to hear more about her story , I've included her links in the show notes of this episode where you could get her books , where you could also reach out to her . For budding writers who would like to have assistance , you've heard Renika offer to assist you . So for budding writers who are just getting in , who would like some direction , who would like some assistance with their character development or probably anything else , reach out to Ronika . I've included her contact in the show notes . Thank you so much for listening to the Other Side Affair . I am so grateful for your presence . I'm so grateful for your support . Love you all . Take care Until next time . Thank you .