What if one of the most dangerous places for a child was their own home? Tune in as we walk with Jennifer Bryant, a courageous survivor of familial trafficking, down a dark path that begins with a seemingly regular childhood and descends into a chilling world of manipulation, abuse, and exploitation by her own father.
Jennifer's story is a harrowing exploration of the often-overlooked reality of familial trafficking. From her father's disturbing manipulation tactics, to her being sold to a gynecologist and simultaneously trafficked from her father's bar, Jennifer's narrative unveils the horrifying reality that victims of familial trafficking endure. Our discussion doesn't just stop at her past; we delve into Jennifer's experiences in a neglectful psych ward, the mind-boggling indifference of her mother, and the repeated exploitation she faced. This conversation is a clear reminder of the importance of understanding the signs of familial trafficking and the urgent need for resources and support for survivors.
Yet, Jennifer's story isn't just about survival, it's about resilience, advocacy, and empowerment. Jennifer uses her horrific experiences as a tool to illuminate the concealed atrocities of familial trafficking and to fill the glaring gap in the anti-trafficking field. This episode is a testament to the resilience of survivors and a call to arms in the fight against human trafficking. Join us as we uncover the heartbreaking truth and the inspiring strength of Jennifer Bryant.
What if one of the most dangerous places for a child was their own home? Tune in as we walk with Jennifer Bryant, a courageous survivor of familial trafficking, down a dark path that begins with a seemingly regular childhood and descends into a chilling world of manipulation, abuse, and exploitation by her own father.
Jennifer's story is a harrowing exploration of the often-overlooked reality of familial trafficking. From her father's disturbing manipulation tactics, to her being sold to a gynecologist and simultaneously trafficked from her father's bar, Jennifer's narrative unveils the horrifying reality that victims of familial trafficking endure. Our discussion doesn't just stop at her past; we delve into Jennifer's experiences in a neglectful psych ward, the mind-boggling indifference of her mother, and the repeated exploitation she faced. This conversation is a clear reminder of the importance of understanding the signs of familial trafficking and the urgent need for resources and support for survivors.
Yet, Jennifer's story isn't just about survival, it's about resilience, advocacy, and empowerment. Jennifer uses her horrific experiences as a tool to illuminate the concealed atrocities of familial trafficking and to fill the glaring gap in the anti-trafficking field. This episode is a testament to the resilience of survivors and a call to arms in the fight against human trafficking. Join us as we uncover the heartbreaking truth and the inspiring strength of Jennifer Bryant.
You know the why human trafficking work is needed To fight for the freedom of modern day slaves. But love, passion, commitment isn't all you need to be an effective and successful anti-trafficking advocate. Learn the how. I'm Dr Celia Williamson, director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation podcast, where I'll provide you with the latest and best methods, policy and practice discussed by experienced experts in the field, so that you can cut through the noise, save time and be about the work of saving lives.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Emancipation Nation Episode 184, and I'm Dr Celia Williamson. Last week we met Jennifer Bryant. Started off life wonderful little girl. Her parents split. Her mother becomes a single parent struggling to make ends meet. Her father is a higher standard of living. Jennifer goes to her father's house to stay for a while and that is where the trouble begins. If you missed the first part of this story on familial trafficking trafficking by a family member that's what that means. Go back and listen to Episode 183. We're going to pick up now where Jennifer's father told her to jump in the van as he drives by, and that's where we pick up the rest of the story.
Speaker 2:And he drives by like seconds later and he screams at me through the van. He says, jennifer, run. And so I ran into the van and he literally kidnapped me right in front of my mom. She was bringing in some groceries. And then he drove me back to Ohio and in the back of the van he had there was a huge cooler of alcohol.
Speaker 2:And now, keep in mind, up until age 14, he was normalizing the environment of alcohol. He would take me next door to parties in his friend's house and things like that. I got used to hearing and seeing and smelling alcohol. And he also would take me into bars with him as well when I was little and people would feed me sips of alcohol and they all laughed, thought it was so cute, so alcohol was very normal. So there it was, in the back of the van and so he had me drink it. So he basically drugged me all the way back to Ohio.
Speaker 2:And as soon as we got to Ohio, it was like within a few days, he sold me to his first buyer. And his buyer was a gynecologist married to a Playboy bunny, and he was also one of my dad's best friends and he met the guy through a local pub in the neighborhood and that pub is where all the neighborhood people, lots of men, the bartender went and my dad had me work as a waitress and I don't recall ever getting paychecks or anything like that, but that was his way of putting me on stage. So all the men that came in they could check me out and they would take me home and the bartender, he would take me home in exchange for giving my dad free drinks, and my dad got free drinks. The bartender takes me home. Other men paid him a lot of drug dealings and things like that too. So that started at 14, and then, yeah, I'll take a pause here. How?
Speaker 1:long did that last Jennifer?
Speaker 2:Okay, so a few months later. So I was there a few months when you know, once it started, and a few months later my mother came up and she, through the court system, was able to take me back and that's because she wanted her child support, so she didn't want that interrupted, because of course she needed that to pay the bills. So she took me back and now you know, I was starting to display symptoms of being traumatized and my mother didn't understand the connection between my symptoms and what my dad was actually doing, although, again, from earlier years, she could have suspected. Bad things happened when I was there, based on the profile of who my dad was and continued to be, and so she was getting increasingly frustrated with me and more abusive verbal abuse, emotional abuse just reached the end of her rope and so I started running away a lot and men were raping me on the streets because they know when you're broken into. So that increased a lot and then eventually ended up in a halfway house for teenage runaways and I had a boy boyfriend at that time, if you want to call him a boyfriend and my dad somehow got connected with my boyfriend and I at that time and he talked the guy into bringing me back out there. So I went back out there for several more months.
Speaker 2:The trafficking continued and then I was. I displayed more and more symptoms as it just kept going and he wanted a break. He was a single mom. He did not remarry for a while, after the wife, after my mother, and so he needed a break and he got rid of me, threw me back to my mother's and I was even more more wrecked by that time.
Speaker 2:So then eventually she put me in a psych ward. She told me she was going to take me to one place that ended up being a psych ward and I was in there for two months. And after I was in there for a month she came and visited me and said that I was drooling on drugs. You know this was back in 1982, so psych wards then were still a little bit archaic. You know, let's just drug them, get them drooled up and that kind of things. And I asked her I said why didn't you bring me home when you saw how they were drugging me? And she said well, I didn't have anyone at home to help me take care of you and besides, my insurance covered another month. So she needed a break. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how old were you at that time? I was 16 and a half, yeah. So I had been trafficked by my dad from 14 to 16 and a half, two different time frames, several months each, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean, what did you think about when somebody says I need to get the child support, so you need to come back and live with me. I need to get my free continue my free drinks at the bar, so you need to come with me. You're working, you don't really see a paycheck. I mean, what did you think? What did your young mind think about love and in parenthood and trust and safety?
Speaker 3:I wanna interrupt the podcast to tell you about the International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference, which is the largest and oldest academic conference on human trafficking in the world. Join us for our 20th annual conference, hosted virtually this year on September 20th through the 22nd. You'll have the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with thousands of advocates, researchers, providers and survivors from all over the world. You don't wanna miss it. Find out more and register today on our website, traffickingconferencecom. Now back to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, there was no such a thing. I had no concept of it whatsoever yeah, none. And even all that was documented in the psych ward and the reason why she put me in there it was to get a break, but it was also to label me crazy, to make it look like all these symptoms that I was having were my fault. It was something about me, because I have the reports and I've been reading through them at length and I'm amazed to see. What she reported to the psych ward was she painted a really good picture of herself and of my dad and also of her family background. She was a hard worker, had this great job nine years and still going Dad. He's self-employed, traveling salesman. She's got great parents. She came from a Lutheran family. Her dad was very it was very important education and religion. So she's just painted this really great picture. And meanwhile I got diagnosed as having conduct disorder.
Speaker 1:Wow. And when you got released, who did you? Went back to your mom's house, or where did you go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so after she took me back because her insurance ran out, and then I was even more wrecked after that because they did drug me up pretty bad in there and that caused some more brain. That caused some brain damage for sure, and so I just continued running away, Celia. I just kept running away for several more months and then eventually she surrendered, she gave up. She probably figured, okay, it's no longer worth it to get the child support to deal with this wreck of a child and she sent me back to my dad's, and that was at I was 17. So I stayed with him, 17. My, that was my last year of high school, so 12th grade, and by the time I went back out there he was married to his fourth wife and they had purchased their own bar restaurant. Now Now. So now it's no longer trafficking me out of the pub.
Speaker 2:He's putting me to work as a waitress in his own bar restaurant and he had a bartender, for example, was one of his buyers. He would take me home. My dad wouldn't have to pay him, sometimes right, In exchange for me. And, yeah, one of his customers was a drug dealer. So in exchange for me, my dad got drugs. Yeah, and I have memories of my dad.
Speaker 2:He continued grooming was, for example, one of his neighbors. He took me next door and they sat me down. It was, there was an old guy next door and they put out lines of cocaine and pot and alcohol. And I'm like 17, just trying to get through high school, right, and all I need is my dad and love and a safe place to stay where I don't have to keep running away. And so they drug me all up and the guy starts molesting me in front of my dad and my dad's sitting there watching it for a little while to make sure I guess I'm not resisting, right. And then he gets up and walks out yeah, leaves me alone, so that. So he was very well aware of what these men were doing and he got a lot out of it. And also other men's daughters as well. I realized that too. He would always flirt with my friends. You know girlfriends I had from high school.
Speaker 1:He would be flirting with them, yeah, so, so safety was really not something you understood. And when, even when you were on the run, where did you go? That was safe.
Speaker 2:I would sometimes sleep in abandoned buildings. I remember that, like in the like, underneath the stairway, you know, I found a little space. I remember that there were kids from high school that I knew, you know, so sometimes I could hang out with them, stay overnight at their places. Yeah, my mother locked me out once and I remember that when I came back she'd locked me out and I slammed my elbow through the glass door and I still have a scar on my elbow from that. They're just trying to get back in because sometimes I didn't have a place to stay.
Speaker 1:Wow, Once you became of age, you're 18 years old and older. What happened in your life during those years?
Speaker 2:Right. So, as you can imagine, by the year I'm getting more and more damaged from all this abuse, all this neglect, all the running away, all the rapes in Virginia, all the trafficking by my dad in Ohio, and plus, you know, now I'm 18, so I'm legal, which increases the risk factor for my dad. And he never taught me how to drive a car or anything like that, so I had no clue about how to be an adult, what to do in the world. So he got one of his buyers to take me across country to California to get rid of me. So that was his way of getting rid of me let's get her far away. And so I was with him for a few months and he you know I wasn't happy there, as you can imagine. And so I got a job as a waitress for Denny's, at Denny's M. I saved up enough money. I didn't let the guy know I was doing this and I ended up purchasing a Greyhound bus ticket to go back to my dad's because I had nowhere else to go.
Speaker 2:And so I went back to my dad's and I remember calling him from the bus station, the Greyhound bus station in Cincinnati, ohio. He was in Cincinnati at this time now and I said, hey, dad, I'm back. And he screamed at me and he says oh, jennifer, I thought I got rid of you. Now he said it way worse than that. So that was my welcome home. And then he came and picked me up and I got in the car and he screamed at me again and he said if you're gonna stay with me, you're gonna have to earn your keys, you're gonna have to earn your keep. So I remember he said it it sounded way worse than that, celia, and that, yeah. And then it was just continued trafficking, you know, up until I was almost 20. And then he just couldn't deal with me anymore and then got rid of me on his own.
Speaker 1:He dropped me off at a friend's house in Virginia this whole time, you know, when you're a child, through your pre-teen, teen years, when you were in schools, when you were maybe picked up as a runaway, did anyone in any system ask any questions or think anything was strange?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the best question, right? So in Ohio, while all that was the trafficking was happening, no, there was no one in high school, none of the teachers, you know. There was no neighborhood adults, you know I was in the bar, like there were women and men in the local pub that saw these older men taking me home with them. Like no one asked and they weren't all bad guys in there. I'm sure there may have been a couple of nice ladies in there, but no, no one asked ever. And then back in Virginia, my mom's there was. I did have a counselor at one point I think it may have been in like 10th grade, and she felt sad for me, I remember, and but she never questioned, you know, anything regarding abuse or anything like that. But she did take me to the beach one weekend as a way to just kind of show me some kindness. But even she didn't yeah, she didn't dig in either.
Speaker 1:And no child protection, no school counselor, no school nurse, no teacher, no police officer.
Speaker 2:No, not at all. Even in the runaway home. I was in that halfway house at one point and my mother had me an outpatient treatment, which started soon after the trafficking began, actually when my dad took, when she got me back after I had been, you know, 14, a few months with my dad being trafficked, and then she got me back and then, due to these symptoms that you know, suddenly I'm like really depressed, I'm sad, I'm anxious. You know, I'm just not right. I was totally different than before the trafficking started and so she did get me evaluated with different therapists and you know outpatient treatment, which they ultimately ended up recommending she put me in the psych ward, so, where I could have gotten help. The help actually got worse because that was the worst place I could have ended up.
Speaker 2:And I will tell you I've even written out a list of the symptoms. So these are what was recorded in my records, what they saw me displaying. So my mother even knew and reported to the psych ward that I had a miscarriage at age 15. My dad put me on the pill. So all that happened in the first several months that I was being trafficked. No one asked why did she get pregnant and have a miscarriage and then be put on the pill while she was at her dad's. No one even asked to make that connection.
Speaker 1:And no one no mental health professional, no social worker said yeah, why are these symptoms popping up? What do we attribute this anxiety and depression to? It's just the diagnosis was what conduct disorder.
Speaker 2:Conduct, disorder and depression. No one asked why I was depressed, none of that. Remember my mom painted a good picture of herself and my dad and my mom's family background which, by the way, wasn't good her family background and so these are the things that were documented. I was suicidal, I was cutting. In my records it says Jennifer quotes that she is fantasizing about being dead. Jennifer says I think about being dead almost every day now. Jennifer says I wonder what it would be like to be dead. So this is once the trafficking began. Now suddenly I'm showing up suicidal, I'm cutting on myself, I'm running away. They said I had a problems with substance abuse, but no one asked well, where did she even get all the drugs and alcohol? Oh, maybe at her dad's, and my mom knew that he was an alcoholic.
Speaker 1:These were things that were withheld, and it's actually it's pretty classic I mean this is an oversimplification, but it's pretty classic when one of the parents or two parents show up and say we are just wonderful people, please fix this child. Well, you immediately look at the parents and tell them what's happening. So that just doesn't add up. And I know the 80s a different time and a different place, but still this is not rocket science. I mean, this is clearly pointing to a timeframe when you start exhibiting these symptoms. It's just unreal what you're telling me. I mean, I totally believe it. I think some of those things even happen today to young people and to advocates who think that traffickers are always strangers or people that befriend someone. And so that's why your voice is so important in this issue, so that we see all sides and all types of trafficking that occurs. So this happened up until you were 20 or in your 20s, or how long did it last?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was almost ready to turn 20. And then my dad got rid of me because now, all of a sudden, I'm supposed to act like an adult, know how to work in the world, know how to pay bills, know how to drive a car, get myself to work. I wasn't equipped with any of that. So he got rid of me and I stayed with someone for a little bit and I went down the street. There was a Denny's and I was just looking to make friends and I was drinking and my dad had gotten me hooked on drugs and alcohol pretty bad by then, starting as a real little kid, taking me into bars with the Sips, right, that's really where it started. So I was near dad from alcohol by the time. I was almost 20 and I made one friend at Denny's down the street and I told him I was gonna kill myself. And he said, well, I used to go to these things called AA meetings and I'm like what's that? And he said, well, it's a place where you sit around the table. Everyone talks about their problems. And I said, well, I need to know where that is. I said you find out where that meeting is tonight. I need to go now. So I always wanted help, and even in the psych ward the documents I have it even states that Jennifer wants help. She just doesn't know how to receive it, because Jennifer has a problem with trusting people. So, right, right, right, but see, that was my fault, right, there's something wrong with me because I don't trust whatever. So, anyway, fast forward. I'm like help is available, really Like I don't have to kill myself.
Speaker 2:And so he took me to, yeah, a 12 step meeting when I was 19,. But I was almost 20. And then I kept going back and they told me there, they said you never have to drink again. And I said, really Well, I drank because I had to, because in order to be with my dad, live with my dad and not be sent back to my mom, I had to drink. Do drugs be with all these old men? You know, I had to do whatever my dad wanted or I would lose a place to live and I'd be back on the streets.
Speaker 2:And so that was the beginning of my recovery was in 1986, when I was almost 20, and I stayed with it. I never veered off of 12 step recovery. So that saved my life. And they taught me there yeah, they taught me how to drive a car. They could see the things I didn't know how to do. I didn't know I was supposed to know how to drive and all these things, but they saw it. They taught me how to drive. They taught me how to work, why you work, how to pay bills, how to open up a checking account, how to write a check. I mean, they taught me all that. They became the family I never had. Without 12 step recovery I would have died Absolutely. I had a bloated liver upon entrance but I was happy, happy to put down alcohol. I didn't want that.
Speaker 1:It just seems like you know young person trying to thrive, just trying to be loved and be safe and to grab hold to whatever life has to offer and denied at every front, until you get to the AA recovery program. Are you still connected to AA and have you been involved in any other type of counseling or trauma work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I actually, throughout the years I entered into various 12 step recovery programs because, coming from my history, we need a lot more help. You know you to put down the substance is the beginning and that's critical, but then you get down to the deeper causes and conditions, which I've received that level of help in two other programs that deal with childhood sexual abuse and also dysfunctional family systems. Yeah, adult children of alcoholics.
Speaker 1:What are you involved in today? Why are you bringing this message of familial trafficking to, to the advocates, to listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there is a little bit of a gap in the anti trafficking field when it comes to familial trafficking, and that's just because it's, I think, for a lot of reasons, but it's really just it's hard to imagine, right, like it's hard to imagine parents, you know, abuser children, hit them, talk down to them, that there's incest going on, like that's hard enough to wrap your head around. But to actually imagine that you know a parent would traffic their child in exchange for drugs, alcohol, popularity and other men's daughters, that's a hard one to wrap around. So I understand that and I want to use my story to really explain what that looks like from the inside, because I've always had these memories and I've been in and out of therapy throughout the years to talking about them and I just but I was coming from the angle of, you know, I was sexually abused as a child, but it was only like a year and a half ago that that, you know, with Epstein Weinstein. You know all that in the airwaves. You know trafficking and you know, and I'm like, trafficking, what is that? There's that word again, because I'd heard it before and I just discounted it and then something told me to just start educating myself.
Speaker 2:You know, just start watching webinars and look it up, google it and I started learning about it and I'm like, and I'm watching all these webinars and things and I'm signing up to you know organizations, their websites and things, and I'm like, why does this resonate with me? Why does this feel so parallel? But it can't be my story, because I never they never called it familial trafficking. They called it, you know Pimp Control Street, you know commercial, you know kind of like the, the movie Taken, you know that kind of image. And I was like, okay, good, I'm glad I wasn't, I'm glad that's not my story after all. So I really just just I could relate to it, but I couldn't apply it because they never, I never heard it being done by a parent until until in my inbox one day a year and a half ago, because I had researched it for about several months prior.
Speaker 2:And then in my inbox one day it said Sign up now for a webinar upcoming on familial trafficking. And I was like what? And so I signed up, I registered and I watched it and I screamed my brains out the entire time and I reached out to the woman who was putting it on. I said I think I'm a. I think what happened to me is called familial trafficking. I need to tell you my story. So we met on zoom. I told her my story in 40 minutes and it got confirmed yes, I am a survivor of familial trafficking.
Speaker 2:And that was the beginning of my mission of like okay, it's now time to use my story for the good, because it's a devastating story. I mean it's it's it's devastated my life in so many ways. I'm like there's got to be something good I can do so. Then I signed up for Elevate Academy with Rebecca Bender, learned a lot there. I found out about the North Carolina survivors network. I joined that, went through the speaker's bureau and I just keep learning more and more about familial trafficking. There's not a lot of resources out there, but I'd like to see that build, you know, because now I understand that almost half reported cases of trafficking victims are done by family members.
Speaker 1:They are involved at some point somewhere in a lot of the sex trafficking cases, and so one thing I'm dying to ask you is where are your parents now, and have you ever had a conversation with your father about the trafficking or the abuse?
Speaker 2:I have, and, and what he told me was that I wanted it. Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:So further abuse, emotional abuse, insult the injury and are they, are your parents, alive now?
Speaker 2:They are. They are both alive and I have no contact with my dad. My mother is little to no contact because, to this day, both of them refused to be accountable for what they did. My mother was complicit, obviously, and my father refuses to claim 100% accountability.
Speaker 1:And do you have a support system now, a family? You know some of us we have to create our own families, but do you have a support system that you would call family today?
Speaker 2:I do. Yeah, I have my local church. I've got a couple of ladies there that I've opened up to about my story. They're very supportive. In fact, one of the ladies is gonna take me, drive me an hour and a half away in a couple of days and I'm gonna be video recorded, interviewed my story for an anti-trafficking organization they're putting together a training to show churches in different places. So she is supporting me and also I have a 12-step program group. It's for survivors of childhood sexual abuse of all kinds, including trafficking. There's a few in there that were trafficked by family and so we all help each other. I help, I moderate meetings, I advocate for other survivors.
Speaker 1:If someone wanted you to present, wanted to hire you as a presenter to talk about familiar tracking. Is that something that you're open to?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely yeah, I can be contacted by my email. And what's your email? Yes, so it's Jennifer Bryant, c-o at gmailcom, and I'll spell that. So, jennifer, with two Ns, j-e-n-n-i-f, as in Frank E-R Bryant, b-r-y-a-n-t, c-o, like Colorado, at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I would encourage listeners who have organizations, agencies, churches, other faith-based communities to consider having a presentation about familial trafficking, because we don't wanna inadvertently send the message that trafficking looks a particular way or a certain way. We need to be giving, equipping people with the eyes and the ears so that they can look and see, they can see something, they can say something, and so they have to know all of the ways that human trafficking happens, and a lot of times we think it's somebody outside the home that is grooming or selling, when a lot of times it's somebody inside the home, it's somebody connected in a family manner. So we have to be aware of that and educate people around us about that so they can say something. So, jennifer, where do we see you and your work, or you personally, where do you see yourself in three to five years from now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just continuing to educate the public in whatever way that I can. Whoever is willing to listen to me, hear the story, listen to what it looked like, I can very well paint the picture. I've spent a lot of years putting all the pieces of my story together. I'm happy to share all the signs that I displayed, all the cries for help, all the red flags, the vulnerabilities, and that's what I want people to understand is how vulnerable children are to this, even within their own families. So I'm never gonna stop. This is my life mission now. Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:And for people who are listeners, they're advocates. They want to do the best job they can possibly do. What would be your advice to them?
Speaker 2:Just to believe. Believe that this is a real thing. I mean, it's very real. I know it's hard to believe that parents can actually do this to their children or older siblings or uncles or grandparents. I mean, all family members can do this within church systems, not in church systems out of the local bar restaurant. It can happen at any time, any place, by any family member. And just believe us, I mean that's what we need more than anything and to know what familial trafficking is. So then, that way, if a child or a teenager or even an adult who finally figures it out begins to disclose, you're already, you're right there, ready to say I know, you're not making this up. I believe you because I know all about it, I've learned, because that's what we need. We weren't listened to as children, we weren't heard, we weren't believed. All our acting out behaviors as children were ignored. So that's what we need more than anything is to be seen, be heard and be believed.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, jennifer. I appreciate your time. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay, that was Jennifer Bryant, courageous, brave Jennifer Bryant. And you know there is a lot of familial trafficking going on and sometimes when we don't educate ourselves enough we don't listen to these podcasts or read books or attend workshops to further our knowledge base we won't know we might have an inch deep worth of knowledge, and a little bit of knowledge is sometimes dangerous. We need to understand that familial trafficking happens, that human trafficking or sex trafficking doesn't appear often in the type of package that we may have been educated to look for. It's a tragic story. I my heart breaks for Jennifer's experience.
Speaker 1:I am also ashamed and embarrassed about a profession that diagnosed her with conduct disorder, diagnosed her appropriately with depression, without worrying about where the depression came from. That bothers me. Let me tell you what conduct disorder is. I'm gonna read it to you. It's a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others are major. Age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated. So it's manifested in the presence of three or more of the following criteria within a 12 month period, or at least one of these happening within six months. Aggression to people or animals. So this is totally now that you know her entire experience. When you are diagnosed with conduct disorder, this is your inappropriate behavior, right so your aggression toward people or animals. There's actually 15 criteria If you've bullied somebody, threatened, intimidated somebody, gotten physical fights, used a weapon was physically cruel to people, physically cruel to animals, maybe you stole, maybe you forced someone into sexual activity. Here's another one destruction of property, deliberately engaging in a fire setting or deliberately destroying other people's property, or being deceitful, or being a thief, broken into somebody's house or their car or building, or lies a lot to obtain goods or favors, or have stolen things of value, stays out at night despite their parental prohibitions, runs away from home, is truant from school these are the things that describe conduct disorder.
Speaker 1:Jennifer's case very, very victim blaming from the professional association, the profession, the institutions are saying you something's wrong with you, not what happened to you, but something's wrong with you. And we call that system imposed trauma. You understand trauma informed care that's the buzzword of the day but system imposed trauma, trauma that is caused by the system. This wasn't long ago and we know today. When kids run away from home, why are they running away? Often there's a logical reason what are they running from? What are they running to? Those are the two questions that we should always ask.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there are logical reasons that kids run away, man, so I love when people choose to shine right, even when they've been through the storm. Jennifer talked a lot about this happened, and then I was wrecked and this happened and then that wrecked me further. But let me say I love people that have gone through hell, walking through their own personal wreckage, coming out stronger and wiser and coming out carrying tools the jaws of life to get other people out of their personal wreckage. That has now become her life's mission. Until next time, the fight continues. Let's not just do something, let's do the best thing. If you liked this episode of Emancipation Nation, please subscribe and I'll send you the weekly podcast. Until then, the fight continues.