It’s Not About "Nobody’s Girl." It’s Happened to Almost Every Girl.

Melissa - Age 15

Virginia Giuffre’s book Nobody’s Girl tells a story the world finally paid attention to because of who was involved. Powerful men. Wealthy women. Global elites.

But the most important part of her story has very little to do with Epstein.

It has everything to do with what happened before him.

Virginia writes that her father sexually abused her starting at a very young age. Before trafficking ever entered her life, her body, boundaries, and understanding of love had already been violated. By the time exploitation showed up, she did not recognize it as trafficking.

It felt familiar.

That is how trafficking often works.

And that is where her story and mine intersect.

I am not famous. I am not a headline. I am an average person. And like Virginia, I was sexually abused by family members and friends of family starting around the age of six, possibly earlier. When abuse happens that young, a child does not have language for it. What they learn instead is simple and devastating.

This is what love feels like.

By the time we were adolescents, neither of us understood what was happening to us as trafficking. We were dissociated. Conditioned. Familiar with abuse. Groomed to believe that belonging, purpose, and connection came through harm.

That familiarity was not consent. It was conditioning.

Early Abuse Is the Gateway to Trafficking

Here is the number we cannot ignore.

More than 370 million women and girls alive today were sexually abused as children.

That means hundreds of millions of girls grew up with their boundaries violated before they were old enough to understand what boundaries even were. Their nervous systems learned survival, not safety. Their bodies learned endurance, not choice. Their understanding of love was shaped by abuse.

That number matters because it explains something most people misunderstand about trafficking.

Trafficking rarely begins with force. It begins with conditioning.

When sexual abuse happens in childhood, especially at elementary age or younger, the body adapts in order to survive. Dissociation becomes normal. Silence becomes protection. Abuse becomes familiar and familiarity lowers alarms later in life.

This is why early sexual abuse is one of the strongest predictors of later exploitation.

If a child is believed, protected, and supported early, vulnerability can be interrupted. But most children are not believed. Many are threatened into silence. Others disclose and are met with denial, minimization, or disbelief, especially when the abuser is someone trusted.

That response is not random. It is a psychological defense. Accepting the truth would mean acknowledging betrayal, failure to protect, and unbearable loss.

The child learns a lesson that follows them into adulthood.

This is not safe to talk about.This is just something I endure.

Silence does not heal trauma. It trains the body to tolerate it.

And that tolerance is what traffickers exploit.

Trafficking Is One Outcome, Not the Only One

Trafficking is one of the most visible outcomes of childhood sexual abuse, but it is not the only one.

When abuse is never spoken, it does not disappear. The body remembers. The nervous system adapts and that adaptation shows up across a woman’s life in ways she may never connect back to the original harm.

Unspoken childhood trauma is strongly linked to anxiety, depression, emotional numbness, shame, and difficulty regulating emotions. Many women struggle with trust, intimacy, and boundaries, not because they are broken, but because their earliest experiences of connection were violations.

Trauma also shows up physically. Chronic pain, headaches, digestive issues, fatigue, autoimmune symptoms, and unexplained illness are commonly associated with unresolved childhood abuse. This is known as somatization. The body carries what the voice never could.

Relationally, unprocessed trauma can affect decision-making, stress tolerance, self-worth, and the ability to feel safe. Some women dissociate, others stay hyper-vigilant, some withdraw and others remain in harmful relationships because harm feels familiar.

This is not weakness. It is the cost of surviving something that was never acknowledged.

Trauma that is never spoken does not stay buried. It reshapes emotional health, physical health, relationships, and identity… often quietly, often for decades.

If You Have Never Told Anyone, This Is for You

Research shows that most survivors of childhood sexual abuse do not disclose what happened until adulthood. Many wait decades. Some never tell at all. Delayed disclosure is not a failure. It is the norm.

And when children do try to tell and are met with disbelief or denial, many are forced to recant in order to survive. They take it back. They minimize it. They convince themselves it did not matter.

Not because it was not real, but because the truth was not safe.

So if you are reading this and wondering why something that happened so long ago still affects you, hear this clearly.

Trauma does not expire. Silence only postpones the cost.

If you were abused as a child…If you tried to tell and were not believed…If you never told anyone at all…If you buried it so deeply you almost convinced yourself it did not happen…

It is not too late.

You are not weak, you are not dramatic, you are not betraying anyone by telling the truth.

You do not need to tell everyone and you do not need to share every detail.

But you do need to tell someone safe.

A trusted friend, a counselor, a trauma-informed pastor or professional.

Healing does not require exposure, it requires witness.

And if you are someone who has harmed another, hear this plainly. Silence is not repentance. Minimization is not healing. Get help. Tell someone. Submit yourself to accountability. Change begins where secrecy ends.

Imagine how many lives could have been different if children had been believed the first time they spoke. Imagine how much exploitation could have been interrupted if silence had not been mistaken for strength.

Healing can still begin.Even now.Even decades later.

Because this was never just nobody’s girl.

It was almost every girl; and lot's of boys, too.

With Hope & Love,

Melissa, sexual abuse survivor

Prayer to Jesus

Lord Jesus, I pray for everyone reading this, for you to speak truth to their heart and help them with their healing journey. Send Godly, safe people into their lives to walk alongside and provide support. Thank you, Lord, We pray this in your Holy name.

Amen.

Resources (If This Stirred Something in You)

If this brought up memories, emotions, or questions you have never shared, you are not alone. Support is available.

• A licensed trauma-informed therapist• A trusted pastor or spiritual leader trained in abuse response• The National Sexual Assault Hotline (U.S.): 800-656-HOPE• Local survivor advocacy or counseling services in your area

You deserve care. You deserve truth. And you deserve healing.