Escape from Modern Day Sex Slavery with Rachel Timothy (Episode 229)

*DISCLAIMER* This episode includes thematic material and may be triggering. It is only intended for mature audiences and those who are not triggered by graphic sexual content.

 

229. Escape from Modern Day Sex Slavery with Rachel Timothy

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Ephesians 5:8-14 (NIV) For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light  (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)  and find out what pleases the Lord.  Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.  But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.  This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

 

Rachel Timothy was only nine years old when she was first approached by a perpetrator who was known to her as a teacher and coach. In her books, she goes into detail of the process of being groomed and how the evil of what was happening to her in the dark remained unseen by everyone around her. She describes how she coped for so many years by blocking out the memories only to have them resurface when she was an adult with a family of her own. Rachel had no idea that when she would pursue justice it would end up putting her right back in the world of trafficking. It wasn’t until her church family saw the signs and believed what she was saying that she was able to start the process of finding freedom. Rachel shows her faith and love of God during the highs and lows of her journey and she prays for each person who reads her story. That their eyes will be opened and their actions will lead us toward ending sex trafficking in our world.

 

Stop Suffering Website

 

Rachel's Books:

Open Blind Eyes

Reflecting Ownership

Reflecting Ownership Workbook

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. Will you share your story with us?

2. Will you close the loop on an update to today?

3. How can we recognize signs of trafficking in our children and in our community?

 

 Thank You to Our Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

 

[00:00:00] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

 

[00:00:18] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: Today's episode includes some thematic material. I want you to be aware before you listen in the presence of little ears. 

 

Thank you to an anonymous donor to Midwest Food Bank, who paid the sponsorship fee in hopes of spreading awareness. Learn more about this amazing nonprofit organization at MidwestFoodBank.org.

 

Rachel Timothy is my guest today, and she was only nine years old when a perpetrator began grooming her for future evil plans. She's going to share her story with us today in hopes of opening our eyes to the reality of sex trafficking happening in our area and in our world. 

 

Here's our chat.

 

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Rachel. 

 

Rachel Timothy: Laura, thanks for having me. 

 

Laura Dugger: Well, your story is not an easy one to share, but you write about it so that we will open blind eyes. [00:01:24] I would love for you just to begin telling us more about your childhood.

 

Rachel Timothy: My childhood, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it? 

 

Laura Dugger: Absolutely.

 

Rachel Timothy: Yeah, so I grew up in a Christian family. My dad was a pastor, and so for my entire life, I've been a preacher's kid. When I was nine years old, we got switched to a different church. We moved to a new town, and it was a very small town. It was really a village. 

 

But it was something that, for whatever reason, at nine years old, I saw it as an adventure. I was excited about it. I could ride my bike all around town and feel like I was big stuff. But I remember just the adventure side of it. 

 

I was a tomboy. I was a people pleaser. I was very much a rule follower. And, I don't know, I was a happy kid. Going into school, so I was going into this new school that was going to be K through 8, and I was going into the fourth grade, and I remember being excited but nervous about making friends. [00:02:29] 

 

So I remember walking to the cafeteria one day. And, again, I'm very much a rule follower, so I still vividly remember the rules of how you walk to the cafeteria. You know, right-hand side of the hallway, arm's length away from the person in front behind you. Like, no talking. But a teacher from across the hallway called out my name. I remember wondering if I was in trouble. You know, did I do something wrong? Did I break a rule?

 

I knew who the guy was. He was not my fourth-grade teacher. There were two fourth-grade classes in this K through 8 school. He was the other fourth-grade teacher. And I also knew that he was the girls' basketball coach for the fifth through eighth-grade girls' team at this school. 

 

So I knew who he was. I knew he was a Christian. I knew he was an elder of a church. He seemed to be trusted and loved by everybody.

 

So he calls my name as I'm walking to the cafeteria, and I walk over to him, and I immediately realize he wasn't upset at anything I'd done. [00:03:32] He had a big smile on his face. He went on to say, "I'm so glad that your family moved here." He already knew so much about me. He knew where my dad was working, where we lived. He knew my brothers were athletes.

 

He started talking to me about basketball, which basketball was my love. He already knew that. He started talking to me about my cousin, who's a good basketball player and just started to take ownership of my heart in that moment.

 

As a kid, when you have a teacher show interest in you, it makes you feel special. And I remember being completely clueless as to this being a red flag, because if it would have stopped at that point, it was harmless. But really I went back home, I told my parents, "You'll never guess. You know, the girls' basketball coach is so excited that I'm here. He can't wait for me to play on his team." It made me feel like I had a place in this new town. 

 

In that moment, now looking back, I see that was all grooming. [00:04:32] And it really began before he ever even had that first conversation with me. The homework that he did on me prior to that first conversation of knowing so much about me, knowing my heart, he obviously had watched me enough to know my personality, to know that I was a people pleaser and I was an easier target. That was really the beginning of the grooming process in my eyes. 

 

From there, he began to pull me out of class pretty frequently. He would send another student over to my classroom with a note asking if I could come sit with him. My teachers almost always said yes, unless I was taking a test or something. Like, they allowed me to go over there.

 

And I remember his classroom, he always had the lights off. He always had the blinds shut, at least in my eyes. That's how I remember it. That's how most of the students remember his classroom. [00:05:29] 

 

But I would go and I would sit behind his desk and we would talk about basketball. And he would just tell me how great he thinks I am. Like when I make it to the WNBA, you know, don't forget little old him. He just really made me feel important. Whether he had complimented me or not, the fact that a kid gets out of school, that's a special treatment that a kid wants to continue.

 

But I'd sit behind his desk. A lot of times he began to talk about my body. Like it switched from just basketball to then my body and muscles and getting stronger and all of it related to basketball and all of it seemed to be relevant since he's my basketball coach or will be. So he would feel my muscles if they were getting stronger and my back muscles and my thigh muscles. 

 

I've always said I remember the first time that he touched me inappropriately. He had his hand on my back and it went up around and touched my chest. [00:06:29] I remember I jumped and tears immediately filled my eyes because I knew it was wrong. Like it felt wrong. I was not developed in any way, shape or form. You know, I was 9 years old, but it felt wrong. And his reaction to me was, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, you know, that was an accident. Why are you acting like a baby?" And I thought, "Oh my goodness, of course, it was an accident. Why am I acting like a baby?"

 

But as I go back now and I think about that time, and I've always said that was the first time he touched me inappropriately. And I want to like take that back because, no, the first time he ever touched me was the first time he touched me inappropriately because no 35-year-old man should be putting his hands on a nine-year-old girl. I think that's important for anybody to know.

 

After that happened, he began to start to talk about the secrets, that we need to be a secret. And it wasn't a threat towards me. In fact, because he had done such a good job grooming my heart, taking ownership of my heart in many ways, making it to where I felt like he loved me and that I needed to protect him, his secrets were if you tell anybody about us or tell anybody about that, he would lose his job, he would lose his wife, and I didn't want to hurt him. [00:07:46] 

 

Eventually, he had a kid in this process, and he would say, "Or I would lose my kid." And I didn't want any of those bad things to happen to him, and I didn't want anything in our relationship to change. 

 

So it wasn't much longer after that I remember he brought in one of his old yearbooks, and it was from when he would have been about my age, and he was showing me pictures of him. I remember him asking if I thought he was cute and asking if I would have been his girlfriend if we were the same age. And I said yes, and it seemed as if in that moment, like we did almost become girlfriend-boyfriend. 

 

If you were to talk to my classmates now, they would say, Yeah, we knew you guys were boyfriend-girlfriend. It was almost out in the open, in some ways, our relationship. What's hard to stomach a little bit is because it was out in the open, you think as a kid, this must be okay. [00:08:45] 

 

Teachers knew I was going there. Teachers knew I was behind his desk, that he was paying all this attention to me. It must be safe then. He must be safe. Otherwise, they surely wouldn't let a kid do that. 

 

What I didn't know was there were teachers who saw it and reported it. And I had a teacher walk in when I was nine, and I was apparently... I don't remember her walking in, but she says she walked in, the lights were all off. I was sitting on his lap behind his desk. He had his arms around me and she went right away and told the superintendent. And he told her, "You don't need to worry about him. He's safe." 

 

And it seemed like if she were to push it, she was not tenure. She didn't have a lot of years behind her yet. And so she didn't feel like it was something she could push. Granted, she has a lot of guilt towards that now that she knows the extent of what it all went to, but she didn't know that at the time. [00:09:44] 

 

So he had showed me his yearbook. And I remember him saying, "Why don't you take this home?" I lived like two houses down from him. And he said, "Let's use this as a way for you to come over and see my house." So he kind of gave me the explanation that I could give my mom. And I asked, "Hey, can I return this book to my teacher?" And she said yes. So that Saturday I went over to his house to return that yearbook. 

 

I remember the first time being in his house, all the lights were off. The blinds were shut. It was just that he doesn't like light, which is ironic. But he gave me a tour of the house. He was very nice, very cordial and everything, like got me a snack. He took me over to this little side part of his house where it was his music room, showed me his soundproof room. In a way, I felt like he was flirting. 

 

Nothing happened when I was there that first time. Then we started to make more plans for me to go over to his house. [00:10:44] At this point, as I had said earlier, I would ride my bike all around town. That was pretty common back then. I mean, 30 years ago, like I would ride my bike for an hour, go back home, check-in, go ride my bike for a couple hours. 

 

Or I would go over to a friend's house. And there'd be times when I would leave there early and walk over to his house. But it was all within like a few houses of each other. 

 

The next time that I went to his house, he started talking about this great idea he had about we could make some extra money and I'd be able to get my parents a neat Christmas gift and he was going to help me do that. So he pulled out an envelope and it had all these pictures of kids, and he's like, "These kids, they make money off of these pictures and you're more beautiful than all these kids. It would be fun." He made it seem like a great idea. He made it seem like no big deal as well. 

 

So I remember we walked back into his bedroom. He had three disposable cameras sitting on his dresser and he just began to take pictures of me and he was goofy and fun and I enjoyed it. [00:11:46] He made those silly photographer poses as he was doing it. And it seemed like no big deal.

 

Then we had a conversation about it at school however many days later and he said that he had gotten the pictures back and that they were good but that they could be better. I mean, I had no idea what that meant.

 

But the next time that I went to his house, he pulled out another envelope of pictures but this time the pictures were of kids and they didn't have any clothes on. And I distinctly remember the look in the eyes were just totally different between the first group of kids that I saw. It was not kids that I knew. I have no idea where he got these pictures. 

 

I think he saw the reaction I had, the shock and he's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the beautiful way that God made them. There's nothing wrong with this." In fact, we're showing the beautiful way that God made you. And I was a preacher's kid and so anytime you throw God in the mix, that meant it was the right thing.

 

So when we went back in his bedroom again, he had disposable cameras, he put a sheet around me to start and then he proceeded to take pictures of me. [00:12:52] And he was not fun. It was not this joyful, like silly experience this time. It was very serious and it was scary in a way. 

 

I remember I was the one who had remorse over it. Like I was the one that knew this was wrong. And I actually had a conversation with him. I was like, "I don't think we should be doing this." And he said, "But it was your idea." And then I started thinking back, "Maybe it was. Maybe I did want to do that."

 

With being a preacher's kid again, the shame aspect of this stuff was so heavy. And he added to it by saying, "Your family either they're not going to believe you or they're going to be so angry at you." And I believed him. So not only was the threat with, you know, not wanting to hurt him, now it was dealing with the shame that I had. And that kept me quiet.

 

I believe it was the next time that I was at his house, I was really shocked to see that he was not the only one there. [00:13:57] I was taken back into his bedroom and his brother was actually standing in the corner. He had a tripod set up with a camera, a video camera on it. Actually, his brother's wife was there as well. Immediately, it was just not the same atmosphere whatsoever as the fun person that I had originally got to know.

 

My coach went on to explain and show me what making love was. And it was all videotaped. And I remember him telling me that the Bible says that the two become one and so that I literally belonged to him. The woman that was there cleaned me up. She told me, you know, if there's blood in your underwear, you need to make sure you throw it away before your mom sees it.

 

There was just immediate darkness that came over my life. One of the… I call it a gift from God, and in many ways it is. And I think God designed our brains to shut off when things got too awful, especially as a kid when you couldn't handle it. [00:15:05] So I would disassociate. And literally, I would go to a place in my mind... It's not like I went to this field of flowers like all is well. I just don't have memory of it. It just was blacked out.

 

I remember hurting, I remember feeling a darkness but not having a reason to understand why. So those things that had just happened, I didn't have in the forefront of my mind. And so as time went on and I would go to his house and other men would show up, I mean, my understanding is they paid money to be able to have sex with me. It then proceeded to my fifth and sixth-grade year. Now I am on his basketball team and I'm still very much protective of him. 

 

He played these mind games with me. I feel like in the beginning he took ownership of my heart. But through the process, he began to take ownership of my mind with these mind games. And he would be all about me some days and just love me to pieces. [00:16:04] And then some days act like I didn't even exist, would look through me, wouldn't talk to me, would ignore me. 

 

I spent majority of my time at school wondering, how can I make him happy? Like I wasn't a normal kid anymore. I wasn't thinking about kid-like things. I was, how do I keep him happy? That was an ownership that I feel like he took hold of all my thoughts.

 

Then I feel like whenever he started to make me question, was it my idea, was this me wanting to do this? And then me like so badly wanting to make him happy that I would almost agreeingly do things. It was like an ownership of my soul. It was no longer me making those choices. It was him through me.

 

And so I feel like those pieces of ownership led to where then he had ownership of my body. And there was really nothing left in me to fight it. There was nothing that I could have said to anybody, for one, that would have made sense because I didn't remember the whole grasp of it. [00:17:06] 

 

But two, he had all of this hold on me. If somebody would have sat down with me and said, Is anybody hurting you? I would have said no.

 

But if somebody would have said, and this is what I tell people all the time when it comes to kids who you're wondering, is there something going on? Ask them, "Who makes you feel special? Who gives you special attention? Who do you spend time with the most?" 

 

Because if somebody would have asked me that, I would have had so much fun telling you about my coach. You wouldn't believe how much he cares about me and that he thinks I'm going to be the greatest WNBA player ever. That would have given you an indication that there is a weird dynamic between a grown man and a little girl that shouldn't be there.

 

Laura Dugger: And then even to follow up, you did try to escape one time because it was such a slow, long, strategic on his part process. 

 

Rachel Timothy: Yes. 

 

Laura Dugger: You said that there were certain times that you had these red flags, but he would mess with your mind. [00:18:11] But also when you tried to get away, that did not work either as he was progressing this into bringing others in. 

 

Rachel Timothy: Yes. 

 

Laura Dugger: Is that right?

 

Rachel Timothy: Yes. So there was a point where he had brought in another... it was actually another teacher from my school. It was really confusing to me because he was the next person that came in and I was just taught that we made love and I belong to him. So now there's a new man showing up and I was supposed to "make love", quote-unquote, to this man. And I didn't want to. Like I wanted nothing to do with this horrible, ugly man. And I did try to run and I got stopped at the door and I was actually told either you will make love to this man or you will make love to a knife. And it was, I mean, obviously what choice I made. And it wasn't a choice. That's not a choice. But things got really, really dark, too dark for a kid to be able to comprehend. 

 

So then here I am fifth grade and I was on his basketball team and I was a pretty doggone good basketball player. [00:19:16] So one day at the beginning of school, which it was not uncommon, he would pull me out of this entire gymnasium full of kids, he would pull me out and talk with me down on the gym floor. And he was doing this again. 

 

At this point he had said, you know, you get to practice up with the high school tonight. Like instead of practicing with us, you're going to get to practice with the high school. I'm going to have a car pick you up and take you over there. There was no time for me to go home and say, "Hey, guess what, Mom and Dad, this is what I get to do." Like I was told in the morning, this is what's going to happen in the afternoon.

 

And so practice came and I was so excited. I remember going to practice and then him showing me, "Go out that door, there's a car waiting for you." And I went out there and it was my coach's car, but it was his brother standing next to it. And I knew at that point I was not going to practice. 

 

My coach, he was the one who really was like the grooming and the pulling on my heartstrings and all that. His brother was mean and I was terrified of him. [00:20:17] He was big and ugly and just super, super mean. 

 

So what he said I did out of fear. When he said, get on the floor of the backseat of the car and don't look at where we're going, I did it. We probably drove maybe five minutes, but with it being such a small town, we were in the country by the time we got to our destination. 

 

I was taken out of the car and we were at this country house. It looked like an absolutely normal little white country house. This ended up being a place where I was taken often, often enough. I couldn't even tell you the exact number of times just because it all kind of begins to flow together. But I would be taken there and I would be put in a room and men would pay money and I would see the money exchanged.

 

And then they would come into the room where I was and have a certain amount of time with me. I would then be taken back to the school, I would go into the bathroom and I would clean myself up and I would go right back to this acting like everything was fine. [00:21:24] 

 

And really like to the point where I believed everything was fine. I could disassociate, shut down when the awful evil things were happening, and come back to the school and clean myself up and just be a different person. I mean, I smiled a lot in the beginning. I never struggled with my grades, really. I had friends like those type of signs were there in the beginning because I believe of the dissociation. 

 

Now, this went on through my fifth and sixth-grade year for whatever reason. I don't know if it's because I was developing, I was no longer a kid and that was more of the desire. But by my sixth-grade year, when that was over, I don't believe I went back to the White House, that little White House after that.

 

But my sixth-grade year is when a lot of the signs started to show up behaviorally, emotionally. I hurt so bad and I couldn't tell you why. I would have flashes of different men standing over me. And that didn't make sense to me. [00:22:27] I saw images of a place that I don't remember going to, but it was all just little bits and pieces. And my heart hurt so bad. My heart and my gut is where I carried most of my pain. 

 

I began to cut. I began to have suicidal thoughts. And I did share that with some people. I tried to cut my wrist at school one day and I remember being taken to the principal's office and getting the nurse and all of that and them calling my parents in. My mom, I think, was the only one that was there. And I remember being told I was seeking attention. I was attention-seeking. And I got in trouble for it. So nothing was dealt with. I was just this preacher's kid that wanted attention. And I heard that time and time again. 

 

So my 7th grade year then... behaviors were still going on as far as I was not okay. And then my 7th grade year, I was able to put enough together in my mind to know I had been raped at some point. [00:23:32] And I had an image of a man from the neighborhood, from the area and I was putting enough together where I was able to say, not in like great detail, but I'm pretty sure I was raped by this man.

 

And so I told friends. That was a safe place for me. I told some friends and they told teachers. They did a great job. They did what kids should do when somebody confides in you. They told the teacher. The teacher told the principal. The principal called my parents. I remember then being taken home. My mom sat me down on her bed and I remember her saying, "This is what was told to me." And I said, "Yes." And she said, "You're lying." And I said, "No, Mom, I'm not." And she said, "Yes, you are. You're lying." And I said, "Mom, I'm not." And she said, "Yes, you are. You're lying." And I said, "Okay, I'm lying."

 

And she went on and told my dad. She made it all up. Again, I was punished for attention-seeking. And then they proceeded to have me go to all of these people that had heard about this and apologized, including the man who had raped me. [00:24:42] And I remember being taken in his house and my dad telling him, "This is what my daughter said about you. She lied about you. I'm so sorry. She's here to apologize to you." And the man crying because he just couldn't believe that I would say something like that about him. It killed another piece of my soul. Like, that was trauma on top of trauma. 

 

Even if a kid does not necessarily make sense in what they're saying, listen to them, believe them. Something is going on. Because, no, like, I couldn't give you A to Z what was going on. But there was obviously something. And ignoring it made it to where the trauma went on into my adult years. 

 

Like, had it been dealt with in that moment, had it been addressed in counseling, and believed and action taken, I believe that my adult years would not be like it was. But because it was all pushed under the rug, it was my fault, it shifted a lot in who I was and who I saw myself as. [00:25:48] 

 

So you already have the words from your abuser saying, you know, this is what God made you for and then you have, your Christian family and your Christian circle either seemingly seeing it but not doing anything or hearing about it and saying it's your fault. So all of that just compounded this feeling of maybe this is who God made me as. Maybe this is my lot in life.

 

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

 

Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank exists to provide industry-leading food relief to those in need while feeding them spiritually. They are a food charity with a desire to demonstrate God's love by providing help to those in need.

 

Unlike other parts of the world where there's not enough food, in America, the resources actually do exist. That's why food pantries and food banks like Midwest Food Bank are so important. The goods that they deliver to their agency partners help to supplement the food supply for families and individuals across our country, aiding those whose resources are beyond stretched. [00:26:53] 

 

Midwest Food Bank also supports people globally through their locations in Haiti and East Africa, which are some of the areas hardest hit by hunger arising from poverty. This ministry reaches millions of people every year, and thanks to the Lord's provision, 99% of every donation goes directly toward providing food to people in need. The remaining 1% of income is used for fundraising, cost of leadership, oversight, and other administrative expenses. Donations, volunteers, and prayers are always appreciated from Midwest Food Bank. 

 

To learn more, visit MidwestFoodBank.org or listen to episode 83 of The Savvy Sauce, where the founder, David Kieser, shares miracles of God that he's witnessed through this nonprofit organization. I hope you check them out today.

 

Rachel Timothy: So this whole process, this whole time from fourth grade through eighth grade, my coach is still taking me out of class, I'm still sitting behind his desk, still having these intimate conversations. He's very possessive of me as far as doesn't want me to go out with boys my age. [00:28:02] 

 

But by my eighth-grade year, he actually asked if I could go to a basketball game with him. So there was a high school game that was taking place probably 40 minutes away. And to us, it was a date. And my parents agreed to it. So he picked me up, just like a boy would pick up a girl for a date. He picked me up, we got in the car, and we went to this high school basketball game to just watch it.

 

We only stayed till halftime, and we listened to it on the radio on the way home, so I knew what to tell my parents as far as how the game went. But he took a different way home, and he ended up brutally raping me on the side of the road in his car on the way home. It was one of the most evil experiences I had been a part of at that point. It really was awful. Then when it was done, he was this happy guy again. Like, it was a very odd experience for me. 

 

When I graduated, there was no more communication from him. [00:29:02] Occasionally I would see him here or there, and he would still kind of flirt with me, but I was no longer living in that little area. We had moved further, probably five miles outside of town. So I went to a different school so that the access to me wasn't there. But not only that, I was not a kid anymore, and I think he was attracted to little kids. I know he was. 

 

So I went into high school. I dove into basketball. That became my coping skill, which seems like a very healthy coping skill, except for the fact that I would go to any length to be the best basketball player I could be, even if it meant destroying my body. And my body was not in great shape anyway, due to everything that I had been through, but I would not stop. 

 

So I had knee surgery after knee surgery while I was in high school. Still got that D1 scholarship that I needed to have in order to be happy in my mind, like, in order to be okay. I got it. [00:30:01] But I was never able to play a single game because I had destroyed my body so much in the process of trying to find happiness, despite the pain that was inside. 

 

Eventually, by my sophomore year of college, I was told I no longer can play basketball, my career was over. And so that was devastating. Now what? How do I fill this odd void, this pain in my gut? So kind of my next coping skill was, okay, I'm going to set up the perfect life. I'm going to find the perfect husband and have 2.5 kids and eventually be a stay-at-home mom. And I'm just going to make my world safe and okay.

 

So in 2009, I got married. 2011, I had my first son. 2013, I had a little girl. So 2014 rolls around. At this point, I had a 2-and-a-half-year-old and a 6-month-old. It was January of 2014. I remember scrolling through Facebook, and I came across a Facebook post of a friend of mine. [00:31:03] She was sharing a painting that her little girl had done. The little girl was probably fifth or sixth grade, went to the same school that I had gone to.

 

The mom was just talking about how great the painting was, but then in the comments said, "Thank you to my coach for spending time with her daughter after school to work on this painting. And in that moment, my whole world fell apart. All of those moments where I had disassociated and I had seemingly forgot or just wouldn't acknowledge in my mind came to the forefront of my mind, like image after image and memory after memory.

 

And I ran to the bathroom, and I puked, and I puked, and I puked. It was things I knew, like it was almost the puzzle pieces that I knew were there, but I had never really acknowledged. If you've ever read the book, The Body Keeps the Score, it talks a lot about how your body does not forget the trauma. Your mind might, but your body always remembers. [00:32:02] And it was like that connection was made in that moment between my mind and my body. So it made sense, but at the same time, now what?

 

Like my husband left that morning to go to work having no idea the depth of trauma that I had had as a kid. It was to the point where I had asked my coach to sing at my wedding. Like that was where my mind was. I still thought he was, quote-unquote, "a good guy", made some mistakes, maybe we had an inappropriate relationship, but I didn't remember the depth of the darkness. I had always just remembered the good things that I could about him. 

 

So now here I am remembering all of this, having to share this with my husband. I began cutting again. I began an eating disorder that lasted a long, long time. We started to get me into counseling. And the number one thing that I wanted to accomplish was to make sure that little girl was okay, because I knew what she was going through. [00:33:00] 

 

We talked about meeting with the police. I had actually met with the police. I was going to file a report. But what we ended up doing because of fear was we filed an anonymous tip through DCFS. They went into the school. My understanding is that they went to him and they interviewed him, my coach, and then they went to this little girl. 

 

Now me and this little girl are close now. She's actually the one who designed the cover of my book, Open Blind Eyes. She's a special, special girl. But I had asked her about it, like, what was that experience like? And she said, "They basically came in and said, has anybody ever hurt you?" And she said, "No." And that was it. And I knew, like, that's not enough. That's not going to get you any answers. Whether she had disassociated, didn't fully know, was trying to protect him, whatever, that's not enough to know if something was going on. [00:33:59] 

 

Laura Dugger: And like you had said, had you been that little girl in that moment, you would have responded in the same way, even though he was absolutely hurting you in your 9- and 10-year-old mind. It was something different.

 

Rachel Timothy: Exactly. The hard part with youth is that you can't just simply ask a blunt question and expect a blunt response back. Their mind is not going to be able to do that, especially if grooming has taken place. 

 

So they called the case unfounded. Honestly, I didn't know that there was anything else that I could do at that point. Then I found out that the case was not anonymous. It was supposed to be anonymous. However, it was not. I actually found out probably just three or four years ago that my name was actually put on it.

 

But about a month after I had made that anonymous tip, I was outside in my yard. At this point, I had an almost 3-year-old and 11-month-old. [00:35:03] My coach walked into my yard. My little girl was sitting on the ground, and I froze when I saw him. He picked up my little girl and walked straight into my house. 

 

Me and my son followed, and thank God he put my little girl down. But then he turned around and walked towards me and kind of backed me up against the wall and proceeded to just threaten me to tell me, if you ever talk about this again, I know people who will hurt your family. And I know he did. I remember those people now. Like I know he's not lying with this. 

 

And I don't know how to explain it, but I was not 28 years old standing there before him. I was that 9-year-old little girl. And I had no power against this man. Emotionally, I was 9 years old, and I have no doubt he saw that. Because over the course of the next, like the 2 weeks after that and another 2 weeks after that, I was hurt. Like he would come and beat the crap out of me, just reminding me again, you are not to talk about this. [00:36:05] 

 

Then another 2 weeks after that, approximately, I was assaulted by both him and his brother. I had not told my husband. Like I went right back to the way that I was as a kid, 2 separate worlds. I'm just not even going to go there. 

 

Then when that assault happened, only by the grace of God did I have the strength to get on my phone and I simply texted my counselor and said, "I was just raped." And I remember she tried calling me, and I couldn't get words out of my throat. And I hung up on her. And she called again, and I hung up. And then she texted and said, "Get your kids and come to my counseling office." And so I did. 

 

We ended up telling my husband. They were like, "You have to go to the hospital, and you have to file a report." I didn't want to do either one. I was terrified. I was traumatized. I was a hot mess. So at that point, it really wasn't my choice. [00:37:04] 

 

So we went to the hospital, and I did have a rape kit done and I was interviewed by a police officer. I told them everything except for the names of the men who had hurt me because I was scared. I remember my husband saying, "Either you have to tell them the names, or we're going to have to move." And I said, "Then I guess we have to move." 

 

We real quickly, within two weeks, uprooted and went about an hour and a half away. My husband got a real quick new job. We just were hoping to start life over. I remember I had so much anger towards myself because to me, this was all my doing. I didn't fight back. I didn't tell anybody the right way. I didn't do any of this the right way. So I felt like it was my fault. 

 

About nine months after this, my husband got a new job. And so we ended up taking this new job. [00:38:06] It was going to have better insurance, better hours. And it would be about 30 to 40 minutes from where my coach lived. And we had hoped that would be enough distance. 

 

There was still a lot of trauma in me, but also in my husband. We were not communicating very well at this point. He was angry. We were both very distant. We just had a lot of other hard stuff tied to all of this going on. So we got this new job. We moved to this new town. We're renting a house. 

 

About three or four months into living at this new place, my coach shows up again. And this time, he's in tears. And I'm still 9 years old when I'm talking to him. This moment of being in my kitchen, having this conversation with my coach, I regret more than anything. Like I wish that I could have had a different response. But as he went on to say, you know, I'm stuck in this ring. I'm stuck with this awful group of people, and I can't get out. And I don't want to be here. Like this is not who I am. [00:39:09] All of those old feelings began to come back.

 

And when he said, "I need your help. And I'm going to have somebody come tonight. And when a truck shows up and revs his engines, you know, if you would go out there and just this one time, just help me." And I said, okay. And I did. 

 

That night, in the middle of the night, I heard a revving of engines outside my house and I left my house, and I got in the truck with this man I didn't know. And I was taken to a hotel probably a mile and a half from my house and was raped for about three hours. And driven back to my house, came back inside, and literally just went right back to my old habits. I went to the bathroom, I took a shower, I cleaned myself up, and I got in bed with my husband, and I acted like everything was fine. 

 

But because I did it that one time, there was no stopping it at that point. I was threatened, you know, we're going to tell everybody what you did. We're going to hurt your kids. We're going to hurt your family. So my worlds just became separated again, and I began to leave in the middle of the night. [00:40:16] 

 

Anytime I heard a revving of engines, I would go out. I would get in a vehicle with somebody I didn't know. I'd be taken to places, whether it was a camper out in the country or in a house that people didn't know that it was actually a brothel or a hotel or just a group of guys in a car. I was taken to these places and sold repeatedly and then brought back home and acted like everything was fine. 

 

My husband, I mean, he knew something was wrong. I began to lose a massive amount of weight. I would wear long sleeves and long pants even in the summer because I was hiding cuts and bruises and marks from this awful abuse. He assumed it was because of the assault that had happened, you know, the year prior. He knew I was struggling from that.

 

Then in the middle of the night, he would wake up and I wouldn't be in bed with him. He assumed I was in bed with one of the kids. You know, like you don't assume, oh, my wife's out being trafficked, you know. You don't think those thoughts. It was poor communication between two very traumatized people. [00:41:24] 

 

It ended up going on for a year. Like it was awful. And when you think of this type of stuff, you know, like I had one lady one time say, Do you just really love sex? Like, no, that's not what this is. This is not like what you would picture between a husband and a wife. It is beyond evil and beyond what your mind can think. It's not something anybody would want.

 

There were videos made. This is why I say anybody who thinks that pornography is a harmless sin, it is not. Those women don't want to be there. Statistically, they say 90% of the women on a porn site, video, whatever, are being trafficked. You don't see what's happening before the video or after the video. They maybe appear like they want to be there.

 

But whether it's force, fraud, or coercion, them being on that video, it's not their choice. No woman wants to do that. So people make the assumption, even men that would come and pay for me made the assumption, I wanted this. [00:42:28] 

 

And that's not the case. You don't see all of the trauma that took place prior to you showing up or prior to you watching this video. So really, you watching pornography, you are paying a trafficker.

 

Laura Dugger: I think that is so important to pause there and reiterate. There is such a lie that this is a secret thing. This is harming no one. This is just me. And that is just not truth.

 

Rachel Timothy: It's not truth. I mean, you can go into all the reasons just within your own marriage. You are rewiring your brain in a way that is not healthy, not of God, is not going to benefit your wife, your kids. I mean, all of it is evil. But when you recognize that you're actually watching a victim of sex trafficking, it does take a little bit different turn for some men. So I do want to point that out.

 

I've had times when I've gone and I've spoken and I've had men come to me and say, "I want to apologize because I was one of those men that watched porn." [00:43:33] I had no idea. There's no judgment there. Like I'm not angry at them. I just want change. It needs to be taken care of.

 

We need to be pouring into our men, keeping our men accountable, asking our husbands, our sons about, are you watching porn? The average age of a kid that sees pornography is eight years old. And that changes a mind.

 

And the amount of trauma survivors that we work with in our program, whose older brother sexually abused them because they had watched porn, you know, a little sister's easy access. It causes things that you would never think possible.

 

Laura Dugger: Also for women and for girls as well, their statistics to support pornography usage and viewing is going up so much, especially since COVID, it was compounded, but both men and women.