Thread by @strayhen

Imma share something I never wrote in a blog post. Years ago I worked a hotel desk in the Ozarks, barely in city limits near some woods. On slow mornings if go collect sheets & some days I'd clean the front rooms by the pool if housekeeping was late. Several times I cleaned up

after 'parties'. There were 2 rooms I'll never forget, different times. One looked like a cocaine sack had exploded everywhere and the tub was full of hair. The room looked like a brawl happened, not like anyone slept. Another room was once so bloody that it looked like

someone had been killed in the bed. Pretty sure the hotel owners knew what was going on and looked the other way. Ppl don't really talk about trafficking in the Ozarks but a lot of ppl go missing. Both these incidents happened within Branson city limits.

About that time I discovered blogging. I named my very first public blog after a restaurant in Harrison, Arkansas because I thought it was funny. Work got so slow that I blogged on the work computer. I had no idea the owners could find my activity and see everything I wrote.

I autist, not good at reading ppl, but it started getting a little tense at work and suddenly they were hiring new ppl. I spent a week training someone in, then one day as I was alone at the desk I felt everything in my body starting to shut down. I never felt so sick in my life.

I made it to end of shift but something felt so wrong that I knew I couldn't come back, left my key in an envelope with a note, g it in my car and was horrified to see I had no gas, home was about 2o miles away. At the nearest has station I thought I was going to black out but

I got the tank filled and on the road. By the time I got home my nervous system was in crisis, just curled up in a ball focusing on breathing. I'd been thru autoimmune flares before but felt too sick to go anywhere, couldn't think. Over the next month my life deteriorated, had to

stop driving for 4 months, couldn't watch TV or read because my eyes and brain didn't work together, couldn't punch in a phone number, lost being able to do math, nasty sick headache for weeks. Couple of drs shrugged & said maybe bells palsy but droop never came on for 2 months.

Went thru months of all kinds of nerve fail, lost smell and taste, light was so bright I had to wear sunglasses everywhere, stopped all radio and music because sound hurt, grew very clumsy & needed help with everything. You know I was poisoned, right.

Drs never did figure that out with normal testing. Spent the next couple years with all symptoms of shingles without actual shingles. Couldn't make tears, swam in eye drops for 4 years. Nerve pain in my head and face were so bad that was was thrilled when dentist numbed me, meds

couldn't touch it. Over a number of years I'm finally getting most of my brain back, still can't smell a lot of things, ears never stop hurting. Believe it or not, that hotel was not my first experience with the underbelly of society, but was certainly the most impactful.

If you don't think you've ever met a human trafficker of any kind, I'm here to tell you they are everywhere all around you. That was one job, I've seen more on others. We walk among them, they walk among us. The most important thing you can do is love ppl. Care about what they

can't share on their bad days. Give a crap. Just be sweet. You don't have to judge or lecture or fix or rescue. Just be kind. Just looking at someone in their eyes and smiling sometimes means more to ppl than you can imagine. They hang on, & you help with loving that they exist.

Then when you go home, be grateful if you are safe and feel safe, pray for those who aren't safe. Pray for comfort and healing for this world. Pray that the anguished find peace. Pray for yourselves, for you days and nights to be easier to be patient and sweet. That's how we win.

Pray for the soldiers and peacekeepers who go into the dark places and find the lost sheep. Pray for the shepherds bringing the sheep back home from the wolves. Pray gratitude for what's already been done. Pray we all come thru this together with better hearts.
❤

I just wanna add that after everything I've lived thru, including being ejected from a violently flipping vehicle at 19 and a vaccine injury fro a flu shot 3 years after the poisoning, covid never scared me. Fear of the unknown, dread of impending doom has killed more ppl in the

last few years than regular life incidents. The whole fear porn rollout has been so full of shit and ppl are still believing news. Walk away from that, live your lives, live your ppl, create neat stuff, enjoy doing something. Take food to neighbors & say hi. 💖🌮🌻🏄‍♂️🌱🐕☀️

Apologies for typos, all my tech fights me every minute for months because I don't shut up. I been a bad monkey. 🐒

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