Human Trafficking – Trauma and Survivorship With Amanda Blackwood

Howard Brown: 00:00:00

Well hello, welcome to Shining Brightly.

Howard Brown: 00:00:08

This is your Maestro with Mike Howard Brown. It's a shining

Howard Brown: 00:00:11

brightly day because we have an amazing guest. I can't wait to

Howard Brown: 00:00:15

get into it. Chop it up with Amanda Blackwood. Amanda, how

Howard Brown: 00:00:18

are you today?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:00:19

Fantastic. How are you doing, Howard?

Howard Brown: 00:00:22

I'm great. We've got a fall day in Michigan. The

Howard Brown: 00:00:24

leaves are falling and changing colours. It's It's going well.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:00:28

It's dumping snow here.

Howard Brown: 00:00:30

Okay, well, snow in the in the Rockies is always

Howard Brown: 00:00:34

a thing that happens in the fall. So I hope you're loving

Howard Brown: 00:00:37

it.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:00:38

I know my husband is.

Howard Brown: 00:00:41

Well, I have to tell you, we have an amazing

Howard Brown: 00:00:43

story. Amazing, author, amazing artists with us today. Amanda,

Howard Brown: 00:00:48

give us give us a short bio. Tell Tell tell the viewers about

Howard Brown: 00:00:51

Yeah.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:00:52

Okay, so on my business card, it says that I am

Amanda Blackwood: 00:00:54

an author, an artist, a survivor and a speaker. I'm actually a

Amanda Blackwood: 00:00:58

survivor of human trafficking. And a lot of what I've written

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:01

and a lot of what I have painted has all been part of the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:04

therapeutic process for me to get through and beyond the past

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:08

and learn how to be a public speaker on my experiences. I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:12

live here in Colorado with my husband, my foster kiddo and my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:16

six cats. Only six, only six. When I met my husband, I had

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:21

four and he had two. So between the two of us we have a petting

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:24

zoo.

Howard Brown: 00:01:25

It's the petting zoo Brady Bunch, right? The

Howard Brown: 00:01:27

Brady Bunch your cat. So you got six, wow, I was going to ask you

Howard Brown: 00:01:31

to give me something unique and different that no one knows

Howard Brown: 00:01:34

about you. But while you already have something else,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:39

I actually have plenty of those little

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:41

unique things. So one of the things that very few people know

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:43

about me is that I've actually gone to school to be a dental

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:46

assistant. I am a Certified Dental Assistant here in the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:01:49

state of Colorado and I've never done the job.

Howard Brown: 00:01:52

You know what you take training and you learn from

Howard Brown: 00:01:54

it. But you didn't put it to us. That's okay, you got to find out

Howard Brown: 00:01:57

what makes you happy and and what you want to do. So that's

Howard Brown: 00:02:00

interesting. You chose that path. And then you didn't end up

Howard Brown: 00:02:02

doing it. That's okay. We all make choices. And like, I want

Howard Brown: 00:02:07

to get a little more serious right now. Because when we first

Howard Brown: 00:02:10

met, and you and I had a pre conversation about this, your

Howard Brown: 00:02:16

story is one. Just remarkable to me. And I learned a lot. And

Howard Brown: 00:02:24

we're going to teach our audience today a lot about

Howard Brown: 00:02:26

trafficking. And I after we finished talking, I just got

Howard Brown: 00:02:30

real emotional because you had said something to me that was

Howard Brown: 00:02:35

truly stunning. And remarkable. Meaning that I said I had never

Howard Brown: 00:02:40

met anyone that had human traffic. And do you remember

Howard Brown: 00:02:42

your reply what you said to me?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:02:44

You probably haven't you just don't know what

Howard Brown: 00:02:48

made me sad. Because you helped educate me to

Howard Brown: 00:02:53

the cause. And with your particular story. And I, I want

Howard Brown: 00:02:59

to the audience and the viewers to know how serious this is, and

Howard Brown: 00:03:05

hearing it from your story and how you picked yourself up off

Howard Brown: 00:03:08

the ground because it's really amazing. So, so describe,

Howard Brown: 00:03:12

describe your trauma, and let's start there.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:16

So I started off with some early childhood

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:19

abuse, being molested at four. I was then molested again at 12.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:24

Again 13 Again at 15 and raped at 17. But things got really

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:29

serious at 18. When I was trafficked the first time I was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:34

trafficked three different times in my life once 18 Once it 19

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:37

and once at 31 years old. And people are usually shocked by

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:41

this because what the media portrays as being human

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:45

trafficking involves nothing but children and children. It's

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:49

horrible when it happens to children. But that's only one

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:52

quarter of all the victims worldwide under the age of 18.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:03:55

Most are over the age of 18. And this is a huge problem that's

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:00

being largely ignored. Because it doesn't match up with what

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:04

the media says it should look like. I didn't even realise that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:09

I was a survivor of human trafficking until I went to a

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:12

conference in 2018. And I started to learn more about it.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:15

I was going to the conference because I wanted to fight back

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:18

against what was happening to the kids. I didn't have any clue

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:21

that this was something that had happened to me and I still

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:24

needed to learn how to fight back against that too.

Howard Brown: 00:04:27

I know and you also enlightened me by telling

Howard Brown: 00:04:31

me there are types of traffic and not just sexual trafficking.

Howard Brown: 00:04:34

There's servitude or slavery, trafficking. And I saw the

Howard Brown: 00:04:39

others right. I'm sure I'm missing. So

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:41

forced marriage. There's Oregon

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:44

trafficking. We don't have a whole lot of Oregon trafficking

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:46

here in the US but there was a case just recently, I believe in

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:50

San Diego where a man woke up in a hotel room with one missing

Amanda Blackwood: 00:04:55

kidney. And we've been seeing a lot more of that here. I mean,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:00

here in the US, it probably takes up less than 1% of all

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:03

trafficking cases, but it is starting to seep in. Sex

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:07

trafficking is huge here in the US and forced servitude labour

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:11

trafficking is definitely on the rise. But the the the most

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:18

popular form of trafficking worldwide outside of the US is

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:22

Labour trafficking, and child soldiers.

Howard Brown: 00:05:30

Just trying to take it all in. Wow. It's a lot

Howard Brown: 00:05:33

I know. It is. So tell us more of your story. Continue.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:41

So, when I was 18, I was dating a man who was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:45

more than twice my age. And this man decided that he wanted to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:50

give me a free trip to Las Vegas with a buddy of his. So we

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:55

jumped on an aeroplane and I went with his friend to Las

Amanda Blackwood: 00:05:58

Vegas for a birthday party, I didn't realise that I was the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:02

birthday party, I was being given as a gift to exploit and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:07

do as they pleased with. In their words, later on, it was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:12

cheaper than hiring somebody once they were in Las Vegas. So

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:18

it was a $99 ticket to get there. That's all they had to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:22

spend on me other than the food. Once we got there, I was told I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:25

was not to leave the hotel room. I could get room service only

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:28

once a day and the hotel had strict instructions to leave the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:31

food outside of the door. So there would be no questions. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:34

nobody thought that I was being trafficked. They nobody asked

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:38

any questions. They never asked if I was okay. I was stuck in

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:42

that hotel room for 52 hours. And after 52 hours, we flew back

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:47

to Vegas, and people have asked and I flew back to Arizona,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:50

where I was living at the time. And people have asked me why

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:53

didn't you just leave the hotel and go to find police there in

Amanda Blackwood: 00:06:57

Las Vegas. I didn't trust police. I had already been a

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:01

foster kid myself, I was moving in and out of my home. The

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:05

police kept on taking me back to the abusive situation because

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:08

those are the people who said that they had authority over my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:11

life and I didn't trust the police anymore. If I had just

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:16

left the hotel room and had gone out on the streets of Las Vegas,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:19

I would have ended it been in a worse situation than what I was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:23

already in. By being there and being molested and raped. I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:27

wasn't ready for that. So I waited until I got back to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:31

Arizona and I grabbed my stuff and I left that place as quick

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:34

as I could. I bounced around for a while for a little while I was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:37

homeless, ended up marrying a different abusive man who was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:41

more than twice my age. And in my efforts to escape him, I left

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:46

and went to Florida to go stay with my grandmother. And when I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:49

got to Florida, my grandmother left me at the Daytona Beach bus

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:54

station, and said that she wasn't going to take me in. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:07:57

it came out later on that it was because my parents had called

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:00

her and told her that if she took me and they would never

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:02

speak to her again. I was taken in by a young couple who told me

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:07

that they would allow me the time and energy to get on my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:12

feet and they would give me free room and board while I did as

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:16

little is as they had they were willing to share it with me and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:21

I was grateful. But when they said what, until I got on my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:25

feet what they really meant was until I found the highest bidder

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:28

because they sold me to a guy named Esteban. I was locked up

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:32

in a small room for 23 and a half hours with no food, no

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:35

water, no bathroom facilities. And thankfully, I watched a lot

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:38

of MacGyver growing up. And Richard Dean Anderson saved my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:42

hide, I was able to MacGyver my way out of that room and I ran

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:48

ran for my life. And again, I ended up homeless for a little

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:51

while, bounced around from one place to another and dependent

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:55

on the kindness of strangers in spite of what I'd already been

Amanda Blackwood: 00:08:57

through. I ended up out in California, and I lived there

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:01

for a number of years. And I was constantly looking for

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:07

acceptance and love and appreciation in whatever way

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:10

that I could find it. I never had it as a kid growing up. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:14

this is part of why I kept on ending up in these horribly

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:17

abusive relationships, because that was the person who was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:21

offering that kindness, as well as what I was familiar with from

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:26

my youth. When you grow up with abuse in your own household.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:33

People become conditioned to believe that the abuse goes hand

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:37

in hand with love when one does not exist without the other. So

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:41

these abusive relationships were what I was familiar with. It was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:45

the way I had been raised. This was normal. This was comforting.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:48

This was comfortable. And I was afraid to leave that. But I had

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:54

known one particular man the whole time I was in California.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:09:56

I've known him for seven years. He was a police Officer in

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:00

Scotland. And I had known a couple of police officers who

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:04

had kind of changed the way that I saw the police. I was getting

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:09

to where I was trusting them finally, and this man, I was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:12

watching his daughter grow up in photos. And we've just always

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:16

stayed in contact. And he lived too far away, we were never

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:19

going to have an actual relationship. And we had

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:21

resigned ourselves to that. But after seven years, he finally

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:25

came over to see me, I went over there to go and see him. And we

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:29

decided that we were in love. And that was all we needed. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:32

we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. So I got

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:35

a fiancee visa. And in January of 2011, I moved over to Kobe

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:39

with him. And it took him seven years to get me there. And it

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:44

took him seven days to start trafficking me once I got there.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:49

Almost instantly, he had my passport, my driver's licence,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:52

all that stuff, everything. And it took me 152 days to be able

Amanda Blackwood: 00:10:58

to get my way out of there. I spent what little money I had

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:03

left on an emergency flight home after less than a month of being

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:06

there. And I ended up so sick with a severe kidney infection

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:11

because of the abuse that I was having to endure that I ended up

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:14

missing the flight. And the ticket was non refundable. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:18

it was every penny that I had. It was an upside down time, I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:23

ended up convincing him that I had Stockholm syndrome. And I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:28

told him, at the end of my visa, if we're not married, you can

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:33

get in trouble or lose your job as a police officer. And we

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:35

don't want that. I was pretty convincing, far more so than I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:40

just was. I convinced him that he needed to either send me back

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:47

to California for six months, and I could return or he needed

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:50

to marry me. And I was praying that he didn't choose the option

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:54

of marrying me to keep me there. And he went for it, he was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:11:59

convinced by my act that I had Stockholm syndrome and that I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:03

was in love with him and I would return to Him and to the abuse

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:07

after six months. So after multiple attempts of convincing

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:13

him, he finally bought a round trip flight for me to leave

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:16

Scotland, and to go back to California for six months. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:20

if I could use the round trip flight, I would have landed back

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:23

in Scotland six months to the day after I left just in time

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:26

for Christmas. And I'm proud to say that I still have that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:30

ticket and it's hanging in the shadow box filled with things

Amanda Blackwood: 00:12:33

that I did and did not do my year back. That kept me alive.

Howard Brown: 00:12:38

Let's give you a break for a second because I

Howard Brown: 00:12:40

know you tell your story and you relive it here but it's you

Howard Brown: 00:12:45

shared with me the details of of basically, servitude, slave

Howard Brown: 00:12:49

labour cleaning that house taking care of a child, you

Howard Brown: 00:12:52

know, servicing him sexually. And it's just a lot. Yeah, for

Howard Brown: 00:13:01

for people to take in so and you know, but God, how do you how do

Howard Brown: 00:13:07

you even move past this? I just you know, I'm a cancer survivor.

Howard Brown: 00:13:11

I'm helping other cancer survivors try to rebuild their

Howard Brown: 00:13:14

lives and put their survivorship plan in place. And how do you

Howard Brown: 00:13:19

how do you do this? And how do you help others to do this, it's

Howard Brown: 00:13:22

just please share.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:25

I didn't know how for a long time. So I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:27

mentioned my shadow box, I've got a huge shadow box hanging on

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:31

the wall just outside of my bedroom door. And this shadow

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:35

box has tickets and pictures and mementos. And fridge magnets and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:40

all kinds of stuff hanging in it are all the stuff that I did to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:42

keep me busy that first year out. suicide rates among new

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:46

survivors is just incredibly high. You don't want to survive

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:51

after something like that. You feel broken. You feel like

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:55

you're less than human. And it's a horrible place to be. It

Amanda Blackwood: 00:13:59

wasn't until after I had been out for a while and he started

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:02

putting up photos and videos of me being raped during the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:07

molestation that he started putting all these up on

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:11

different pornography websites and making a bunch of money off

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:14

of it. When he was doing this, he was putting links to my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:17

social media. People were able to find me and they knew who I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:22

was. And they were sending me pictures, screenshots of these

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:26

videos. And it was it was awful. So I had to go into therapy to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:32

try and figure out how I was going to get through this. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:35

eventually I learned that if he's gonna make me famous,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:40

people might as well know the truth. And that's when I started

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:43

standing up and fighting back and I wrote my book and I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:46

started getting on stage. And just this became a part of who I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:51

was, rather than just something I was running from rather than

Amanda Blackwood: 00:14:55

just the past. This became a part of my mission and I knew

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:00

that if this was happening to me, it was happening to other

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:03

people too. And they needed to find their voices, they needed

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:06

to figure out how to fight back. It's not an easy thing to do.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:09

And not everybody can write their book, not everybody can

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:12

stand on stage and talk about their own traumas. But they can

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:15

process it, they can move through it and beyond it and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:18

have productive, meaningful lives, even after massive

Amanda Blackwood: 00:15:23

amounts of trauma. It's still possible.

Howard Brown: 00:15:27

It is and I mean, there's a lot of exposure to

Howard Brown: 00:15:30

this now with the Jeffrey Epstein case. Yeah. And it's

Howard Brown: 00:15:33

just Layne Maxwell case now of of trafficking young women. And

Howard Brown: 00:15:39

I love that you said no the truth. People need to know the

Howard Brown: 00:15:43

truth. Because we live in this digital society where half the

Howard Brown: 00:15:47

stuff that's put in front of you, you have no idea if it's

Howard Brown: 00:15:50

fake news, or real news or anything as well. So thank you

Howard Brown: 00:15:53

for sharing that. So your your recovery process is started. And

Howard Brown: 00:16:01

it's probably continues forever. And now you also help others.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:06

I do I have a podcast where I interview other

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:10

survivors of trauma to give them a platform to be able to talk on

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:15

most of the people that I interview with the exception of

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:18

maybe two have not written about their experience. So typically,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:22

it's authors who have these experiences, and they want to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:25

also help other people through. So they're trauma informed

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:28

therapists, and they're people like yourself, they're published

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:32

authors who know what they've been through is not an anomaly.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:36

I mean, you're you are an absolute miracle. And people

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:39

need to know that this kind of miracle is possible, and that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:43

there is healing and there is recovery. And that's, that's

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:47

kind of my goal in life is to make sure that people recognise

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:50

this. And they realise that if they need help, there's help

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:53

available, they can reach out to me directly if they're being

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:56

trafficked, or they're a survivor of trafficking, and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:16:58

they need that help to be able to move beyond that, and find

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:01

organisations to be able to help them. I didn't know that that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:04

kind of help was available to me, until I got involved with an

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:08

anti trafficking group out here. And if it hadn't been for them,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:11

I wouldn't have had that therapy, I wouldn't be where I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:14

am now.

Howard Brown: 00:17:16

Well, I appreciate that. I do feel very blessed,

Howard Brown: 00:17:20

very grateful and very lucky. And I know you do too, but you

Howard Brown: 00:17:23

are courageous. You are the definition of courage. So I

Howard Brown: 00:17:30

guess, you told me before how you how you gotta celebrate the

Howard Brown: 00:17:35

wins, because you've had plenty of losses or devastation going

Howard Brown: 00:17:39

on. So how do you celebrate the wins?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:42

Sometimes I make myself a cookie. I love to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:46

cook. Sometimes I will go and purchase a nice big juicy steak.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:51

And I'll cook it for my husband because I'm not supposed to have

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:53

very much red meat. I have Crohn's disease. And I know that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:17:57

if I cook him a big juicy steak, I'm going to get a bite or two.

Howard Brown: 00:18:03

Yeah, but also, I saw the most beautiful picture

Howard Brown: 00:18:06

on LinkedIn today of you painting in nature. Thank you,

Howard Brown: 00:18:09

that brings you joy, too.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:11

I absolutely love it. So that was part of my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:13

therapy. Also, I just started painting in January of last

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:16

year. And I'm now painting my own book covers, including a

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:20

historical fiction series. And I'm highlighting that on my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:24

social media right now, just because it's been a fun series

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:27

for me to paint. I've got four in the series completed, there's

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:30

going to be a total of 10.

Howard Brown: 00:18:32

Well, that's awesome. I love that you're

Howard Brown: 00:18:34

putting your energy into that. So where do you derive your

Howard Brown: 00:18:38

inspiration now?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:40

Oh, my gosh, my husband is probably one of my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:43

my biggest inspirations. All my life. Like I said, I was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:49

searching for somewhere that I could be accepted and loved. And

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:51

I always saw it as coming hand in hand with abuse. He's been

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:56

through some kind of crazy stuff in his past also. And because of

Amanda Blackwood: 00:18:59

that he did go into counselling. He learned enough about himself

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:04

and about the way men react to things versus the way women

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:07

react to things. And I've never known anybody more patient in my

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:11

life. He is patient and resilient and kind and gentle

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:14

and understanding. And did I mention patient, he's very

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:17

patient. He's all the things that God knew that I was going

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:21

to need in my life long before I ever did. And he has been such

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:26

an inspiration to me. He gave me the ability to now pursue this

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:31

full time rather than going into dentistry or continuing on

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:37

working for corporations as some little peon in the bottom of the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:41

totem pole when struggling. I'm a high school dropout with

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:44

really very little education otherwise, I wasn't going to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:49

make ends meet very well. And because he's been able to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:53

support me in this way and just tell me go do it. Go pursue your

Amanda Blackwood: 00:19:57

dreams. Because of that either. actually been able to make huge

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:01

strides just this year in my writing career in my art career.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:05

And it's, it's been amazing.

Howard Brown: 00:20:07

You might not have formal education, but you've

Howard Brown: 00:20:10

developed street smarts, toughness, resilience, and you

Howard Brown: 00:20:15

found your knight in shining armour who is patient and loving

Howard Brown: 00:20:17

and unconditionally, and, and so deserved. It really, really is.

Howard Brown: 00:20:22

So there's going to be people asking for resources. And what

Howard Brown: 00:20:26

do you tell someone that's going through this? And do you have

Howard Brown: 00:20:29

resources for them?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:31

Yes, probably the biggest resource that I know

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:34

of right now here in the state of Colorado is a group called

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:37

covered Colorado, covered Colorado was the group that I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:41

partnered with, they were the ones to find the therapy and the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:45

counselling for me when I needed it most. They offer other

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:48

services to survivors as well, such as housing, food, day,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:20:55

daily essentials, cooking classes, they do life skills

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:01

classes, I mean, just all the stuff that that a lot of kids

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:05

learn growing up in normally functioning households, but that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:08

survivors of abuse and trauma and human trafficking, never got

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:12

a chance to learn growing up. And they were hugely beneficial,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:15

very helpful. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a big

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:19

one. They're willing and able to help people get out of those

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:24

situations and find safe places for them. And the other one here

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:29

in Colorado is shift shift is who was putting on the the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:34

conference in 2018, where I learned enough about human

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:37

trafficking to learn that I was actually a survivor. I've since

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:40

partnered with them, I'm on their board of advisors, as

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:43

having my lived experience. I'm a subject matter expert, I go

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:48

around and speak with them at local schools talking about the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:52

safeties and dangers of social media for change children and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:21:55

teenagers. And they just they're doing amazing things, the

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:01

founder of shift, his his shift, his his mindset has kind of

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:07

shifted in recent years, he's no longer doing the big

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:09

conferences. Instead, he's building an algorithm

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:14

intelligent software to help teach people and train people

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:18

across the nation on what signs to watch for when it comes to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:22

human trafficking, how to prevent it, what to do, if you

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:26

spot it, who you can contact and it's just, it's amazing. I love

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:30

being involved with this kind of stuff. But John Do Young is his

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:33

name. And he's just his mind blowing with the ideas that just

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:37

pop out of his head on random occasions, on ways to be able to

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:41

fight back.

Howard Brown: 00:22:42

Now we're gonna put the 800 number and the

Howard Brown: 00:22:44

website links. It'll scroll across on the on the podcast.

Howard Brown: 00:22:49

which book do you want to feature today? A few. So which

Howard Brown: 00:22:54

book would you like to tell us about?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:56

So my autobiography custom justice.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:22:59

This is currently in talks of being either a film or limited

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:02

series within the next year or so I'm very excited, but also

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:04

terrified. Because this means that everybody's going to know

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:07

my life story. This book starts and we're

Howard Brown: 00:23:10

gonna know the truth about your life story. I

Howard Brown: 00:23:12

want to go back to that.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:15

Yes, that's, that's very true. It starts off

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:18

when I was four, and it talks about some of that early abuse

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:21

without going into graphic details, but it does show how I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:25

was predisposed to being more susceptible to being trafficked

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:28

later on. Most victims of trafficking did grow up in

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:32

abusive households and they just like me, were looking for that

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:36

love and acceptance wherever they could find it. This book I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:40

started writing in December of 2020. I finished it in December

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:45

of 2020. It's 300 pages and the very last page ends with my own

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:49

baptism. So it's my

Howard Brown: 00:23:54

Where Did someone get the book?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:57

This is available on Amazon or Barnes

Amanda Blackwood: 00:23:59

and Noble they can also get it from my Etsy shop if they want a

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:02

signed copy directly from me that I will send to them

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:05

personally with a little note on say where else I said I think I

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:10

think there's a couple of copies on ebay but I would say don't

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:13

get those because that means that somebody else has read

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:15

them.

Howard Brown: 00:24:16

No, no, no, we'll get the book links and we'll get

Howard Brown: 00:24:19

the st link as well. How do you want people to get in touch with

Howard Brown: 00:24:23

you?

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:24

They can always reach out to me through

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:25

my website detailed pieces.com they can email me directly

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:29

author Amanda blackwood@gmail.com. I'm on

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:33

Facebook very active facebook.com/author.com facebook.com/amanda

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:43

Blackwood survivor. I'm on Instagram and Tik Tok and

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:47

Twitter under at detailed pieces.

Howard Brown: 00:24:52

You can be found,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:24:53

I can be found and I am willing to be found

Howard Brown: 00:24:58

so Let last word, as we come to a close

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:03

up, if you're interested in human trafficking

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:05

get educated. It's not what it looks like in the media. less

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:09

than 2% of all victims actually survive. The fact that I'm still

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:13

standing here and still able to breathe is a miracle in itself,

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:19

of those 2% even less are willing to talk about it. So as

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:22

we said, towards the beginning, you probably have met a survivor

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:25

of human trafficking and you just don't know. And in some

Amanda Blackwood: 00:25:27

cases, they might not know it either.

Howard Brown: 00:25:30

Incredible, incredible. Thank you for

Howard Brown: 00:25:32

spending time. My book shining brightly is doing really well.

Howard Brown: 00:25:37

speaking gigs are happening, and publicity and it's, we're both

Howard Brown: 00:25:42

helping people get back up after they got knocked down. And you

Howard Brown: 00:25:46

can reach me at my website, shining brightly.com. And I just

Howard Brown: 00:25:50

want us to put on some glasses today together, Amanda, because

Howard Brown: 00:25:53

you are shining brightly in the shining, brightly spotlight.

Howard Brown: 00:25:57

Thank you for sharing on a very tough subject, but unnecessary

Howard Brown: 00:26:01

education, just the fraction of education that we're able to

Howard Brown: 00:26:03

give the audience today. And I am grateful for you. And thank

Howard Brown: 00:26:07

you, and I just wish you strength with your knight in

Howard Brown: 00:26:09

shining armour. And what a great information and your story and I

Howard Brown: 00:26:15

do hope it gets to be made a movie, people need to know the

Howard Brown: 00:26:18

truth.

Amanda Blackwood: 00:26:19

Thank you. Thank you, Howard. This was

Amanda Blackwood: 00:26:21

awesome.

Howard Brown: 00:26:22

Thank you. Thank you