Breaking Free (10 page)

Minh couldn’t believe it worked. It was so simple and revolutionary at the same time. She was convincing her parents and herself at that very moment that she couldn’t go on living this way—that she deserved to be free. She rarely arranged any dates or tricks, of course. She saw her parents less and less. When her mom called to ask about the money, Minh just said, “I need it for books.”

She imagined herself ripping off shackles, unleashing herself. Minh felt delirious and terrified all at once. And she had no idea what would happen next.

“
Freedom is a state of existence and a process.
Freedom is physical, emotional, and spiritual…
Freedom is quiet.
Freedom is loud.
Freedom is grief—grief that is so deep that it brings relief, joy, and a sense of the world expanding.
”

~ Minh Dang

A Matter of Life and Death

One day Minh got a call from her parents. They told her that her dad was diagnosed with liver cancer. The doctors did not give him long to live. Minh listened to her dad talking quietly into the phone. He sounded so helpless and small.

This was the same man who had beaten and sexually abused her regularly for the past seventeen years. The same man who forced her to give up her body to total strangers and allowed her to be used and abused by anyone with cash to spare. This was the same man who helped create her and who also destroyed her.

Minh listened to his shaky voice and she knew two things: He was about to die, and she couldn’t wait.

She didn’t want him to die before she was able to stand up to him. She knew she had to confront him and tell him how much she hated him and how much he had wronged her. She just had no idea
how
.

As Minh’s dad got weaker, her mom got more confused and erratic. She called Minh constantly, insisting she was going to divorce Minh’s dad and Minh would have to take care of him from now on. At one point, her mom did leave their home in San Jose, but she gave Minh’s dad the address of where she was going, and he went and brought her back.

Minh could barely breathe. Everything in her screamed to drop out of school and run away. She tried to tell her mom and dad that what they did to her was cruel and unacceptable. They told her she was making it all up and they had never mistreated her. It was as if they were crawling into her brain and trying to reconfigure her memories. Minh wasn’t going back to San Jose anymore and she wasn’t arranging tricks, but she felt like she was still under their control. The more she thought about it, the more it became clear to Minh that her parents were never going to change. Her mother had been throwing Minh into a cage with her poisonous, ravenous father for her whole life. If and when he died, Minh knew she would still be under her mother’s reign unless she did something definitive and final.

Minh started the process of changing everything—her phone number, her e-mail, her street address. She opened her own bank account and bought running sneakers so she could sprint through the hills of Berkeley until she felt breathless. Even though she knew this was the only way to climb out, it was incredibly painful for Minh. She felt like she was pulling out the stitches that held her together. Her parents had made her who she was, and she had no idea who she would be once she was emancipated.

Then, on April 14, 2006, Minh sat down at her desk and wrote each of her parents a long e-mail.

She told them that what they had done to her was brutal and inhumane. Instead of parents, they were her torturers. She was done waiting for them to evolve into decent, loving human beings. She was now independent. She told them she was graduating from Berkeley and would never give them a forwarding address. If they tried to track her down ever again, she would contact the police.

She pressed
send
and felt her whole being quake. Her body, her mind, her heart, and her soul were completely hers for the first time. She felt like a newborn baby—naked, vulnerable, and seeing the world for the first time.

The next day, Minh opened her journal and wrote another note. This time to herself.

April 15, 2006 … FREEDOM DAY.

“I would say I didn’t really have a favorite color until I was free.”

~ Minh Dang

Rock Party

There were no Fourth of July-style firecrackers or parades when Minh declared her independence. It was actually one of the scariest moments of her life. After all, she’d been enslaved for most of her life. Minh now knew who she
wasn’t
—a slave, a sex worker, a victim. But she still had to figure out who she
was
.

She started at the beginning. She’d never had a chance just to be a kid. She’d missed out on making mud pies and throwing temper tantrums. Not once had she hung out at the mall with friends or giggled over some new boy in class. She didn’t know what her favorite song was or how to lie peacefully in her bed at night and close her eyes so she could dream.

Sleep was a huge challenge for Minh. For her whole life, she was used to catching just a few winks of sleep either on the way to or from the brothel. Her bedroom at home was a torture chamber. She longed for memories of someone tucking her in and whispering
sleep tight
. So, one of the first steps in her recovery was learning how to turn off her light and trust that it was safe to sink her head into the pillow.

Easier said than done.

The nightmares were fierce and breathtaking. She often lay there just waiting for the sun to rise so she could go out for a jog.

At the same time, Minh was incredibly hopeful. She made sure she went to therapy regularly, and she joined a bunch of support groups for survivors of trafficking and abuse. Slowly, she began to tell her story. There were so many details she’d blocked out or had sworn never to name. Sometimes it felt impossible to figure out what, who, when, and, of course,
why
she was abused and sold. A fellow survivor gave Minh a big three-ring binder and told her to label the tabs in chronological order. On each page she wrote down whatever memories she could dig up. A huge part of recovery, she learned, was getting clear on what had happened and when. This way she could stop keeping it all a secret, really own how horrific it was, and, hopefully, move forward into her new reality.

It was excruciating to report to that binder all the images that she just wanted to obliterate. Many times, she wanted to drop out of therapy and shut the door to the whole world. She was starting to see that she didn’t deserve what was done to her. Yet, she could never take back her past, and that made her so upset that it rattled her insides.

So Minh continued to show up to therapy and share her writing. When she did, she felt an incredible release. She screamed and sobbed about her scars, on her skin and in her thoughts. She raged about the fact that she never had a true mommy or daddy. One day in group therapy, Minh realized she didn’t know what her favorite color was. “When you’re a slave, you don’t get to have anything!” she yelled. There were lots of sympathetic nods and tears. Everyone there knew what it was like to start from the beginning.

Minh also went on a lot of survivor retreats where she pitched tents in the wilderness and climbed mountain peaks. She’d always loved the outdoors, and there was no better feeling to her than hiking until her cheeks were flushed and gulping in the sharp, clean air. There was one secret that kept clogging up her brain on these retreats, though. Every time she went backpacking along a new trail, she felt the urge to collect rocks. She saw their layers of sediment, the jagged edges and glittering minerals, and she just wanted to tuck a few in her pocket.

Then she’d hear an angry voice scolding her.
What the *#$@ are these doing here?
Minh walked faster, trying to march over the voice, but it continued.
You’re worthless! You’re dirty!
She stamped her feet.
You made your father choose you over me!

Minh told her survivor friends about her long gone, but not forgotten, rock collection. Their response? A rock party! Everyone invited was told to find a rock that Minh would love. Minh was stunned that people could hear her and care about her this much. One friend told her, “You can collect rocks now if you want and it’s not because you can’t talk to people because clearly you have plenty of people to talk to. But I hope you talk to them because that was a beautiful survival tool and also just a beautiful thing you did—seeing the beauty in those rocks.”

Minh’s rock collection grew. She spent more and more time outdoors—hiking, joining a soccer league, and getting serious about running. She loved the feel of her pulse pounding in her ears and the flood of adrenaline that filled her whole body. She finally felt alive. She finally started appreciating her body—her muscles and bones, her stamina and grace.

She forced herself to look all around, to find new colors, new rocks, new skies that she’d never seen before she was free. It was as if all the elements were speaking to her—whispering secrets on how to live in this brand-new world. Even the clouds could teach her something.

“Running with the Rain

I took a moment to feel the rain on my body and I felt a full-body sigh pass through me.

This is what life is about: feeling in my body and being in the present moment.

I thought to myself, ‘Well, I guess you’re running in the rain today.’

And then, from somewhere else inside of myself, I said, ‘No. Run WITH the rain.’

I wasn’t exactly sure what I meant by this until I got home and Googled ‘Why does it rain?’

It rains because water from oceans and rivers evaporates when it’s warm, and then when it’s cold, water condenses, forms clouds, and eventually gravity pulls droplets of water down and we have rain.

So…why does it rain? Because water does what it’s meant to do.

And then it clicked for me…

Run WITH the rain. Do what you are meant to do. Do what nature intended. For me, and I believe for each of us, nature intended that we

LIVE,
LOVE,
and BE FREE
”

~ Minh Dang

“My life is gonna be about changing the world.”

~ Minh Dang

I Have Something to Say

Minh sprinted through the streets of Berkeley, rain or shine. Even when she came back from a run drenched and muddy, she felt triumphant and so grateful for the legs that had carried her here.

One of the things Minh kept coming back to was how college had helped transform her life. She felt empowered studying social movements and seeing how individuals could make real change in society. It also helped that she had amazing professors who appreciated her work and really listened to her ideas.

By the time Minh graduated and emancipated from her parents, she knew she wanted to continue her education. She felt a strong connection between education and political action, and she loved how she was being valued at school for her mind, her heart, and her intentions, not her body.