Unmasking Digital Abuse and Healing Through Wellness

What does it take to transform personal adversity into a beacon of hope for others? Join us as Andrea Powell, an unwavering advocate for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, shares the powerful story behind her co-founding of organizations like Fair Girls and Karana Rising. Her journey from personal trauma to becoming a force for justice and healing reveals the importance of early trauma education and the urgent need to destigmatize conversations about survivorship.

In a heartfelt conversation, we delve into the psychological terrain of trauma recovery, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and respecting personal boundaries. Andrea opens up about the hurdles she overcame in navigating public spaces and interactions after experiencing trauma. Through shared anecdotes, we highlight the empowering process of identifying triggers, setting boundaries, and reclaiming personal safety and autonomy. The discussion underscores the vital role of self-acceptance and the validation of emotional responses, aiming to dismantle the stigma surrounding mental health.

The digital age has brought its own set of challenges for survivors, and Andrea sheds light on the distressing phenomenon of online image abuse. We discuss the emotional and systemic battles victims face in removing non-consensual content and the groundbreaking efforts of Electo AI in combatting digital abuse. The conversation rounds out with an exploration of wellness practices like therapy, fitness, meditation, and journaling, offering a holistic approach to mental and physical well-being. Tune in for a compelling episode that champions resilience, healing, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Andrea Powell is the Director of the Image-based Sexual Abuse Initiative at Panorama and the cofounder of Karana Rising. For the past 18 years, she has led national and international efforts to develop services, housing, and policies to advance the rights and healing of survivors of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse. 

In 2004, Andrea co-founded FAIR Girls, where she led her team for 14 years in providing case management services and establishing a safe home for survivors in Washington, D.C, and played a leadership role with the DC Human Trafficking Task Force. At Karana Rising, co-founded by Andrea in 2019, survivors lead to advance justice and healing with and for survivors who have experienced arrest and incarceration as a result of their own trafficking. Through these efforts, Andrea has served and interfaced with over 2,000 survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence in the United States, the Balkans, Russia, Bangladesh, India, and Uganda. 

Andrea has a master’s degree from the University of Bonn, Germany. In her spare time, she is a multimedia artist, author, and bunny mom living with her daughter on the beach in San Diego.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Fortifiers, thank you so much for listening to I Feel you, a Fortify Wellness production. We are into season five, where we sit down with trailblazing women in their industry to chat about overcoming adversity, moments of fortitude and, of course, anxiety. This information is not to be misconstrued as medical or psychological advice. Please contact your medical team if you have concerns pertaining to your overall well-being. I am your host, bettina Mahoney, the founder and CEO of Fortify Wellness, and today I am so excited to welcome Andrea Powell, who is the director of the Image-Based Sexual Abuse Initiative at Panorama and the co-founder of Corona Rising.

Speaker 1: 0:41

For the past 18 years, she has led national and international efforts to develop services, housing and policies to advance the rights and healing of survivors of human trafficking, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. In 2004, andrea co-founded Fair Girls, where she led her team of 14 years in providing case management services and establishing a safe home for the survivors in Washington DC, and played a leadership role with the DC Human Trafficking Task Force. At Karana Rising, co-founded by Andrea in 2019, survivors lead to advance justice and healing with and for survivors who have experienced arrest and incarceration as a result of their own trafficking. Through these efforts, andrea has served and interfaced with over 2,000 survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence in the United States with the University of Bonn, germany. In her spare time, she is a multimedia artist, author and bunny mom, living with her daughter on the beach in San Diego. Please welcome, andrea. Hi, andrea. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:55

I'm very excited. So, of course, you do really incredible impactful work, and I know you're a mother when you take away all of those titles. Who are you?

Speaker 2: 2:05

And I know your mother, when you take away all of those titles, who are you, I think, at the core and I really love this question, as we're all human beings. We're all beings who are on this planet to be deeply loved and to find others to deeply love in return. And so, at the core, I feel like that is my spirit is to generate kindness and love, and that should be, regardless of what job I have or who I'm connected to. All of that.

Speaker 1: 2:44

I agree and I think it's interesting. The only way that we can give out that love is if we love ourselves first, and that's what it is. Everyone's on this journey in this life to learn how to love themselves, and some do it really amazing and some don't, and so it's a pathway of learning that and giving yourself grace, which I think it's very impactful. Pathway of learning that and giving yourself grace, which I think it's very impactful. You know, I'm very honest about you know my like self-love journey and my healing journey.

Speaker 1: 3:12

I started this business after I was raped and it was one of those moments where I was struggling to find the care that I needed and it got me thinking why is it so challenging for people to get access to care and it's overwhelming? Why don't we have the education for the basic foundation of what to do when there's crisis? So I created a platform that's for preventative measures, a 360 approach offering therapy, coaching, fitness and meditation on one subscription platform the hopes to give people education and then to empower them to make decisions that they can utilize in their everyday lives, which is something I'm very proud of. I'm not proud of the experience, I'm not grateful for the experience I had, but I leaned into it in order to kind of make sense of it and to help others. And of course everyone has different levels of adversity. It's not always as traumatic or advanced as a rape. But I'm curious for you was there adversity in your life that sort of put you into this pivotal chapter that you're in today?

Speaker 2: 4:16

Yeah, I mean there's. I was thinking about this and first I wanted to add something I don't know where it would fit in otherwise, but I really believe that we should be educating young people, starting in elementary school, but all the way through high school and college, about how to speak about trauma, how to engage with trauma, where to get support so that it de-stigmatizes it early on. And I do think a lot of schools are doing better, but it's. But I think that there has to be more. I mean, we talk about you know, kids are exposed like different issues, maybe through film or through stories, but to have it really be much more personal and to have survivorship be sort of brought into the community in a different way, so that it's not like the siloed thing. And I am a mom and my daughter is 10 and she can understand it really well. We talk about it, we talk about trauma, we talk about survivorship and she sees it as a hero's journey and she's very interested in supporting people. And she sees it as a hero's journey and she's very interested in supporting people. And I think that that is so beautiful because, in getting to your question, I was in high school when I experienced a sexual assault and I really didn't speak about that publicly.

Speaker 2: 5:42

Well into my 30s I just I didn't tell partners, I didn't tell family. And the reasons there were many, but one was that I really thought what last vestiges of power I had in my life would be taken from me, that I would be forced to talk, that I would be forced to testify, that I would be either judged or. It felt like either I would be forced to testify and it would be out there, or I wouldn't be believed and I would be made fun of, and I wasn't sure. Neither sounded good to me, and so I felt like that. My power was in my silence. And then I went into working with. It wasn't my plan in high school at all, but I think fate has a way of reaching you.

Speaker 2: 6:25

I moved to Germany when I was right out of high school to go to university and I met another young woman who had experienced severe domestic violence and she was a victim of labor exploitation, a forced marriage, and she disappeared and I went all over Eastern Europe looking for her, thinking that she might have gone back to her home country.

Speaker 2: 6:47

I never found her, but then it just always sat with me and then, as I was getting to understand issues around like sexual assault and trafficking although that term was really not very much used back in like late 90s, early 2000s I really wanted to make an impact in that space and so really thought I'd be working in Eastern Europe exclusively where my friend had been from, and did in fact work there and develop programs.

Speaker 2: 7:17

But very quickly police started reaching out to me then in Washington DC saying they had a girl who maybe you know, had experienced trafficking, and within about two years of starting my nonprofit there were teenage girls all over what was then the back part of my house and ultimately we slowly went from, you know, a small back room to running a safe house, but along the way running a safe house, but along the way I continue to be in not every relationship, but I continue to repeat patterns of being in toxic relationships or abusive relationships.

Speaker 2: 7:56

And I couldn't I just couldn't figure out why and I had a therapist at the time that said something that really bothered me but it sat with me and I think a therapist at the time that said something that really bothered me but it sat with me and I think there's some truth there, which was I was carrying all of that childhood trauma and so I was attracting patterns to recreate it and get over it. And I didn't, was not planning to do that. I was wasn't part of my, my, my pain, but I found, the more that I'm able to speak about it when it's the right time, that that that makes a big impact and and I'll pause there, but that really, for me, was an eye opening discovery is that even though no one is their trauma, no one is what someone else has done to them, it can live inside you and impact how you interact and the energy you give out.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Thank you for sharing that with me. I know how hard it is and I think sometimes, when we share information that can be challenging, we can feel it like in our bodies, you know, sort of like a response and it can feel maybe uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Or you know something that can feel it like in our bodies. You know sort of like a response and it can feel maybe uncomfortable, or you know something that can feel hard or challenging. But I appreciate you sharing it because this is a safe place for you to share what you're comfortable with. So thank you for that. I think I identify with a lot of the things that you were talking about.

Speaker 1: 9:20

I think a lot of times after trauma it for me, I lost so much self-esteem and I was attracting the things that weren't good for me in relationships and professional relationships because I didn't love myself enough. And I think there's also this other side of healing that I didn't realize until much later, the positive side of it, which is like you get to undo everything that's not you. It's like peel away all the things that aren't you. And I got to go on a journey of like rediscovering who I am and realizing wait a minute, I'm actually, am worthy, I actually am enough, I actually do, you know, belong here. And what happened to me wasn't my fault. And then it was kind of like a domino effect. I realized, wow, I am attracting that light.

Speaker 1: 10:08

It was kind of like a shock to me when I realized, like in my body I'm actually good enough. That was a shock to me. I was like wait, what you know? Because for so many years I was so deeply depressed and struggling so hard to get my way out of it because it feels so lonely and so, um, isolating and it's kind of scary.

Speaker 1: 10:31

So I identify so much with what you're talking about, um, but I'm curious, as we talk about like that self-love journey, um, and I've had beautiful moments where I've been very present in my day to day, whether, whether it's like, wow, I, you know, I noticed the foliage, I can hear the cars beeping, I'm in New York city and just being aware and being present for so long, I was associating, it was really hard for me to be present and enjoying every moment. But was there a moment for you where you're like, wow, I think that I'm on the journey of this self love. And did you have like a moment where you're like, wow, I think that I'm on the journey of this self-love, and did you have like a moment where you sort of collected yourself and you felt really maybe like balanced?

Speaker 2: 11:13

I think those moments, they come in little waves for me. I went on a healing journey in May of no, sorry, excuse me August of 2019. So shortly before COVID and I saved up what I could and I went to about as far away as I could get from DC at the time on my budget, which was outside of Miami, and there was like a little Airbnb and it was way up, so it was like wasn't in the like party, you know Miami, but kind of more hidden, and I just I just dove literally into the water every day and I would do loving, kindness meditations underwater for as long as I could do it. I would come back up, breathe, go back in and I would do it over and over and over again and I was just trying to release and water is a healing place for me. And then I basically just wrote and started writing a book that I actually just am getting ready to publish. It took quite a while to get the book to where I wanted it to be, but that process of releasing and writing and just really taking the time to feel all the different sensations maybe similar to you, like feeling, you know, and I try to do this every day, but just like OK, I'm here this every day, but just like okay, I'm here, I have like the birds outside and I listen to them and and just really finding almost these little like grounding rituals and that I think can be really healing because it creates like a container so that you're not free for all, and then also just having like the grace to be okay with certain things.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Like I cannot be in any public place in which my back is to the door. It just triggers me. I have to see who's coming and going, and if someone comes up behind me and touches me on the shoulder, I jump like three feet. I can't, I really can't have people doing that. And for the longest time I couldn't lay in a public place, like, say, the swimming pool, on my stomach I had to be on my back. And that one I've kind of overcome. It's not my preference, I've kind of gotten better. But the other two I've just decided that's okay.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Eventually I may not be that way, but I'm not going to do what I used to do to force myself to face my with my back. I get to the. I was trying to challenge myself, but then I would have back pain all night from like holding the trauma, and I was like you know what Part of self-love is, saying like these aren't flaws, these aren't character deficits, these are just part of me and it doesn't mean that anybody won anything over me or took anything from me. It's just, it's just there. And I think that that grounding, acceptance, has been a slow process and a lot of that has to do, I think, with having a daughter too is realizing, like just watching how she's so grounded, she's so like positive and so joyful and so aware, and it's like that's really beautiful. I learn a lot by watching her wow, thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 1: 14:29

I agree in the sense that our body gives us information and I'm very protective of you know who who touches me, and sometimes people don't really know like understand, you know, I'll get a tap and I'll kind of go why is this person touching me? This isn't you know, yeah. So it's kind of like you're teaching yourself how to be safe again. You know how to tell your body that you're safe again.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Oh yeah, there was a. I felt a little bad about this, but this was a few years ago. I was by myself in a cafe just moved out here to the San Diego area and a guy came up and put his hand on my shoulder to say something and I had on like a strapless dress. I turned around and I threw his arm down on the chair and I was in defense mode.

Speaker 3: 15:13

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Speaker 2: 15:45

You know what? I'm actually not sorry. You shouldn't touch people without their consent. I'm going to let you go, but my instinct, though, is to say sorry. And then I decided. I decided like, okay, that was definitely more of a reaction than maybe someone without trauma would have had, but I'm not going to be sorry for defending my body and also it's not normal to touch someone that you don't know.

Speaker 1: 16:10

I bet he didn't do it again you know that's, that's a, that's a boundary. And I think it's interesting because back when I was assaulted, I was so young that I didn't have the confidence to say this feels wrong. Something about this moment right now feels wrong, and I didn't have the awareness, I didn't have the confidence and I kind of felt like I deserved it. And so now that I am aware of what happened and the emotions that I was feeling and why I felt it, I feel more empowered to go no, I didn't deserve that and no, I will set boundaries. And in your case, I would probably anyone would probably feel the same way, especially as a woman. It's not normal for anyone to touch them. So I want to kind of, you know, validate that for you, because I think that's the other part of this for me is that education is so important, the more that people understand everybody in school systems and it's not done very well, you know, after kindergarten, I don't know why, you know, teachers and school systems stopped talking about emotions and feelings and why we're feeling it.

Speaker 1: 17:20

I think it actually could help a lot of people, especially adolescents, when they're in puberty. There's so much going on. I think it's very, very important and I also think in terms of de-stigmatizing mental health. It starts by talking about it and with your inner circles to make people feel seen and less alone. There's nothing worse for me as a survivor to um, you know, hear people talking about sexual assault in a way that doesn't resonate with me from someone that you know could be a psychologist or could be a PhD, but it's more in-depth than that. People haven't hit the mark yet, at least for me, as far as what we're going to do to productively and proactively help people through and for preventative measures.

Speaker 2: 18:10

And to really recognize the emotional labor that goes into healing, and that's something I've come to just validate and recognize. I work with a lot of individuals who've also experienced either trafficking or technology facilitated gender-based violence, and one thing I encourage them is when they're speaking publicly if they choose to do so sorry, they like testifying or doing a media piece I've let them know I was like you should build in an amount of time after that to decompress and it shouldn't be optional. If someone tries to get in that space, that's non-negotiable healing space because if you don't, it will come out of your body in profound ways. And in my, in my first 14 years of doing this work again, I wasn't talking about my past, although I know there were a few other survivors who you know. It was unspoken and I remember times when I would get eye contact in that way and I would like deflect it out, you know, and you know, but it was there.

Speaker 2: 19:20

But after 14 years of doing crisis work and just I would joke like, oh, I'm more scared of donors than I am of, like, the traffickers and like, but it does like the trauma, trauma, trauma, story, story, story. And then I left that organization to take a break, story, story, story. And then I left that organization to take a break and my body went through riveting pain for months because all the all the trauma that I had been putting in there, I had never have an outlet to put it out. And so, speaking with a friend of mine he's a former Marine, he was in Iraq and he went through a lot of horrible things and he was like you have PTSD and it's. You have combat PTSD. Like I was never in combat, like you were. You were in psychological combat and sometimes physical danger and finally, after about six months it subsided but I had a cardiomyopathy as a result of all of that and other things that were going on.

Speaker 2: 20:19

But it was like my body just kind of decided.

Speaker 2: 20:21

It was like well, if you're not taking a break, we're taking a break and you're coming with us and boom, I was walking down the street talking to my best friend and like I don't feel good and I woke up in a hospital and that was such a wake up call. And if anyone in anyone listening like if you, if you feel your body like contracting and shutting down or feeling really unwell, what it can be like pain in your hips, it can be your heart racing, head tingling there's a lot of things that different people experience. I personally think it's fine to just tell whomever you're speaking with I'm sorry, I have to take a break, or you just walk away. I've done that a few times.

Speaker 2: 21:04

If someone is just really freaking me out, I'm like I am not going down that road with the cardiomyopathy again. Bye, bye, and it's not a, it's not being rude, it's not. It's really about like finding protection and space and I feel like that needs to be honored more in a workplace, in a school setting, in a public setting and I think, people, I think that there's pockets of the world where it's getting better, but it's definitely. I think there's a long way to go.

Speaker 1: 21:35

I agree, I've had moments where I felt unsafe and I've had to say I need to disengage from this conversation, and I'm also at a point where I don't feel the need to explain myself. Yeah, a lot of men don't explain themselves, and so when I'm in a situation where I feel uncomfortable, I go, I actually have to go, I have to run, you know, and I don't even explain myself anymore because part of my healing journey is just going like no, I, I pull my boundaries, I'm respectful and professional and I don't have to show all my cards. And there's a point where I felt like, oh, I got to tell everyone, so everyone needs to be aware. But no, I think also, sometimes you know, you think that you're ready to talk about something and then later your body goes no, I'm actually not ready to talk about it, and so your body and be super proactive about that.

Speaker 1: 22:27

We actually have one of my therapists that's on my platform. She's also an advisory board member. She's a dance, she's a clinical therapist and a dance movement therapist. So we're very aware of, like, how the body keeps score and how you can really lean into the body and and use your body as a source of information to empower you to make that decision, whatever it is, whether I have to walk away, explain that the conversation needs to be over or you know something else, but I think it's so important for people to do that, and I think it also stems from a place of confidence, of going no, I'm worthy enough to go, this isn't for me, and it took me a really long time to get to that point.

Speaker 2: 23:05

Oh yeah, I actually, in a not so distant but past relationship, was dating someone who would really try to invalidate how I was feeling. And there was one thing he said and it was like it just was the last straw to use a saying, but it really was, and I felt so good walking away. And what he said was he was saying some really unkind things. It's not important what it was. I asked him to stop and told him that that was verbal abuse and I was very calm about it and he said to me you don't know the difference between criticism and abuse. That's your problem. And I just looked at him and I said I actually don't want either. And I walked away and I didn't explain, I didn't justify nothing, nothing, and I think that that was really. It just felt so empowering to to just clean slate and I think that that is. It's okay.

Speaker 2: 24:09

And girls are often taught, you know, um, how to minimize and justify and explain, and I just watch it in so many different settings and then you know, I think that, like my daughter, I mean, she's, she's 10 and there was there's been some severe bullying in her school and the boys were saying such a vicious things that I could just see her little heartbreaking and she's such a strong young girl. But I let her know it's like it's okay to, it's okay to breathe that in and to feel that. But we're going to figure this out together. And the response I initially got from the school was sort of like a boys will be boys and initially I was like I'm sorry, did I hit my head and wake up in 1982? Initially I was like I'm sorry, did I hit my head and wake up in 1982? But really I just felt like I had to truly hold space for that and also think about the whole cycle of trauma.

Speaker 2: 25:13

And these boys, they're also 10 or 11. They're little and I'm thinking like I wonder what's going on for them that they are engaging in that behavior, like I think that that's another big piece of it is like how do we have these full-faceted conversations to see how unmet trauma can lead people down very different routes? And you know, even the partner I just explained a lot of abuse in that person's childhood and they went a different, they went the other direction. They're lashing out, they're aggressive versus like I think not always, but a lot of women I've met and girls that I've met go the, they become like water and it's just like easy to just mold and shape and move and it's a survival mechanism and it's and it works for a while.

Speaker 2: 26:06

But something I've often said to our, my clients who are sex trafficking survivors, is some of the survival tactics that have gotten you this far won't take you to the next level. There's new ones that we can learn and test out and see what's going on. And anger isn't taboo. There's good anger and there's not good anger. But if you were not angry about what you've been through, I think I'd be a little concerned. You know about what's going to happen in a few years when your body decides to do it themselves.

Speaker 1: 26:40

I agree.

Speaker 1: 26:41

I think emotions are demanded to be felt and then we need tools, as you're talking about, to be able to deal with them.

Speaker 1: 26:49

I think emotions should feel empowering and I'm learning to lean into that and also encourage others, through our platform, to lean into it as well, because I think it can be empowering. I think we can utilize those tools and then apply it to real life to manage adversities, big or small, and I think we're taught so often to sort of just like marinate the emotions, bury the emotions, and it's not healthy. And so it really stems from the home, the family life, the values that you're brought up with, and the home, the family life, the values that you're brought up with and the ways that you know you're taught to deal with the worlds. And I think I'm curious because you kind of touched upon that at Panorama Global I'm curious for you. You know what is lacking with those clients that are part of that company, what's lacking for them as far as support, especially in like a technology-based world we live in right now. How can digital wellness apps or, you know, technology-driven platforms best support people that are working through trauma and are survivors?

Speaker 2: 27:59

Yeah, I, you know, I think that's a really good question. So I had taken on this role in working to create a global coalition of people with lived predominantly people with lived experience who've gone through this, and the first thing that we did was we hosted a private 20 person summit for 20 survivors, and I had an agenda. I had it all laid out. We did none of that. Instead, like literally, it was just like no, it was a three day witnessing session and it was so intense, it was just so sad. Most of these individuals they were all identified as female, but one guy, poor guy, and they had not gotten help. They couldn't. They tried. The police turned them away. Called them prostitutes, said there was nothing they could do. Way, called them prostitutes, said there was nothing they could do. They would then try civil protection to sue their abuser. If they knew who it was, which isn't always the case, they would try to get their images down and that often didn't work. Tech companies were unresponsive, saying well, we don't know if it's really you, we don't know.

Speaker 2: 29:14

Like you know we don't want to violate the creator of the content, like different reasons, and there was no, there was very limited trauma support. It depends on where you are in the in the world. The UK has a group called the Revenge Point Helpline and they're amazing, but you're. If you're not in the UK, then there's not a lot out there, and so, and oftentimes these individuals are having to collect their own images, their own abuse, and then negotiate with the police, negotiate with the tech platforms, and so the way I describe it is it's like you're making your own digital rape kit and now you're cleaning up your own crime scene alone, and it is really devastating. I mean just the stories, and it's not just stories. Like I get really close to the people I work with, and so it's a community. We have a private chat group, we organize panels together, we talk all the time, we support each other, and you know, and they know, a little bit about my background, even though mine does not involve an online component in that way, thank goodness, and that was something that was also like this epiphany for me, in that like I got to be silent right after my assault and never, ever would I have thought that that was like a privilege ever would. I have thought that that was like a privilege, but these individuals assaults are out there for the whole world to see and mock and engage with, oftentimes before they even know. Most of the time it's up there on Pornhub or other sites and they don't even know, and then a friend tells them and then, by the time they know, there's hundreds of websites with this content, and it's it can. It can range from ai generated deep fake abuse. That's more and more the case. It can be a boyfriend filming a girlfriend. It can be in the case of this one man, um an ex-boyfriend creating fake date rape websites of him and putting them out there so that men were coming to his house and trying to assault him, and the more he screamed, the more they thought it's part of the game, and so just truly horrible things.

Speaker 2: 31:29

And what I'm really excited about, though, is I've been working closely with a woman named Breeze Louie who started a company called Electo AI, and our goal is to support individuals to prevent this abuse by using AI facial recognition, but also to embed community and engagement so that there is a sense of connection and community and healing, because it's really hard, and this really struck me, as almost all of these individuals are so isolated and have such a different type of complex trauma, because, you know, in the case of my experience, what happened to me happened. It didn't happen again and it just buried, and that's not good, but for them, every time they fight back more and more images. In Breeze's case, there's over 800 URLs, and we still can't get them all down because some of these platforms and there's big ones and there's small ones are just unwilling, and that really means we have to educate society, not just tech companies, like it's not tech. Tech doesn't do bad things, it's humans, in fact. You know, that's what I think of as electo is like using tech to solve bad human behavior and to really shift the landscape. But data suggests from the Revenge Porn Helpline they just had their annual report women are experiencing eight times more of their images being abused than men who report. And at the same time, though, sex extortion is becoming like an increasingly big problem, and it's predominantly young men and boys who are being lured into sharing intimate images of themselves, thinking they're interacting with someone of an intimate interest, when in fact, it's an organized criminal network, and I think that that's what I'm trying to help people understand is a lot of this image abuse, especially with the deepfake abuse.

Speaker 2: 33:36

There's an ecosystem. You can't do it without the app. You can't do it without the search ecosystem. You can't do it without the app, you can't do it without the search engine. You can't do it without the website. You can't do it unless there's demand. I mean you could, but that's a large part of what's going on, and so there's this whole ecosystem that has to be dismantled.

Speaker 2: 33:52

But at the root of it all, we have to shift culture so that there's not this idea that, oh, it's just a photo, or it's just an image and it doesn't cause real harm, because it definitely leads to real life harms, be they actual sexual assaults, like this man, I'm telling you. He had to move across the country to escape and he took his case to the Supreme Court and still lost. So it's really like society that this, I think, tipping point, because the sexual violence it's not new, and it's not new that it disproportionately impacts women and girls. It's just that now it's so much easier to do and to share.

Speaker 2: 34:39

And you know, again, as a mom like I, I want to be in this for her and for others, because I don't want this to happen and I also don't think people understand that more and more women and girls are opting out of online life and opportunities to avoid that and that really that's not a good. My daughter, actually I asked her you want to be online? She's 10. I was like please say no, please say no, um, but I want to have an empowered discussion. She's like no, mommy, that's where really bad things happen.

Speaker 2: 35:11

She's smart, she's very smart but I was like but I don't want you to opt out, like I just you know. But I'm actually fine with opting out right now. But as she gets older, you know well, there's going to be opportunities and things that happen and she, I want her to feel comfortable, but she's right.

Speaker 1: 35:30

Well, thank you and let me know how I can support the organization and how Fortify Wellness can support.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Yeah, Thank you.

Speaker 1: 35:39

I'm excited to empower people to live their best lives, you know, and I think that everyone has the opportunity, like should have the opportunity to have the basic foundation to in order to do that. I think that, oh, definitely.

Speaker 2: 35:54

And I think the one thing that resonated the most to me today is like really using your body for information, and I'm thinking maybe a lot of your listeners are women, and so one thing I learned is that women typically carry their pain and their trauma in their hips, and so that is something to really think about in terms of like morning exercises and stretching exercises. You know there's a lot, I'm sure you can point them to, but even just three to five minutes of that in the morning, I've noticed makes a massive difference in how my body responds to things the rest of the day.

Speaker 1: 36:35

I agree and we and we promote that because I really believe you need multiple resources. You need therapy, you need coaching, you need fitness, you need meditation and you need journaling. You have to be able to process and multiple vehicles kind of help make light work. Oh yeah, Thank you for coming on today. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 36:55

It's so good to meet you too.

Speaker 3: 36:57

And so.

Speaker 2: 36:57

I look forward to sharing this with folks. So good to meet you too, and so I look forward to to sharing this with with folks and getting to know you better.

Speaker 1: 37:03

Yes, thank you so much for joining us. This was.

Speaker 2: 37:05

Bye.