Ashante Taylorcox: A Journey of Resilience and Advocacy

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Hosted by Tony Miantour. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, powerful stories. Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears. These real-life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Miantour. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Joining us today is Ashanti Taylor Cox, the visionary founder and executive director of You Are More Than Incorporated as a survivor of family trafficking and a system-involved foster child. She is a trailblazing leader dedicated to empowering survivors of domestic trafficking and exploitation. Through survivor-centered aftercare, she's transforming lives with barrier-free access to mental health services, education, and financial stability. Ashanti has invested in the survivor community through direct service work, curriculum development, and the training of mental health providers throughout New Jersey and nationally. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. So if you would, tell us what it is that you do. Yeah, yeah. So my name is Ashanti. I'm Embrunandashi Heer, and I run You Are More Than YAMT. We are a Black-led, queer-led, and national nonprofit organization serving BIPOC and LGBTQ survivors of trafficking as sex workers. We operate in 26 different states, and we primarily focus on aftercare supports for survivors and sex workers, specifically looking at their mental health, education, and financial stability long-term. We celebrate our fifth birth day on July 1st. So we started at the height of 2020. Everyone was baking bread, and I always love to make that joke. Everyone was baking bread, and I was planning an organization, which has been just like beautiful since its conception and really, really part of my life's work. That's great. So you spend a lot of time on mental health. Can you expand on some of the things that you do on the mental health side on what you do from day to day? Yeah, so about 80% of our clients struggle with their mental health, and gaining access to culturally responsive and trauma-centered therapy services. I am a clinician by trade, as well as being a survivor leader. When I was in grad school, I went to NYU. We did not do a lot of learnings around trauma and its impact on the brain. We would have a class here and there, but you couldn't specialize in it specifically in my master's program. For my entirety of my time there, I wanted to focus on the impacts of trafficking in the commercial sex industry, particularly at that time I was just doing it for women and girls. A lot of the survivors and sex workers we work with may be struggling right now with PTSD, may be struggling right now with anxiety, depression. A lot of them struggle with dissociation and getting access to a therapist who can hold space for the multitude of their identities, as well as their trauma experiences can be really, really difficult because a lot of therapists will be like, I am too scared to touch those types of cases. They just don't want to do them. So with them not doing it, what do you do? So YMT tries to bridge that gap. We have a directory where we train service providers on how to treat survivors and it's been really impactful to see community providers come together across the country to say, okay, it's not so scary for me to do this type of work. It is possible for me to do this type of work with the proper training. And so it's primarily just a lot of mood disorders, a lot of trauma. And then once survivors are able to get to a space where their mental health is not depleting them all the time. Is that possible? It is possible. I am proof of that. There is spaces where they want to go into therapy and talk about their dog. They want to go into therapy and talk about happy things. Now they're getting married or now they've gotten their dream job and how do they maintain that and still needing therapy in that space? Because happy things can be triggering too because you never know when you're going to lose it. If you've gone through your whole life where things have constantly been taken away from you and things always fall apart, it can feel really, really daunting and overwhelming when you finally get what you want. And so we try to find a balance and help clinicians understand that like everything doesn't have to be so scary all the time and it can be very empowering. I think that's interesting that you bring up that happy does not mean that you're always happy. So many people think of trauma or mental illness in very sad situations at times. If they get past the sad, they think everything's okay. Can you expand where some people will have some mental breakdowns because they're getting happy and their life is getting better from what it used to be? Yeah. So I want you to kind of imagine, I love metaphors. Maybe I'll give a good one. I don't know. We'll see. I kind of want you to imagine that, let me think through this metaphor that I want to give. You're a woman of flowers and you're really, really happy that you have this very, very beautiful garden of flowers in front of you, right? You've worked really, really hard to build up that garden of flowers. I do not have a green thumb. Don't have a green thumb at all, which is ironic because I try my best. I don't have a green thumb. And so I work really hard to build a garden in front of me. And sometimes, especially depending on the climate, I live in New Jersey. We get four seasons. And sometimes those seasons don't make sense. We're in the middle of June and it is raining so much. But I'm navigating through trying to build my garden, working really, really hard. And even though it's raining a lot, even though there is setbacks, I'm still persevering, right? That whole idea of resistance and resiliency. So I'm doing great. I'm still nurturing my garden. And then eventually a flower grows. And I'm like, yes, great. I'm so excited. This flower has grown. I built this from the ground up. And then I realized as I'm looking at the flower bed, how hard it took me to get here. Sometimes our trauma brains don't know how to turn off. Going back to this idea of we always talk about light or fright, breeze. We get into this space where it's just like our window of tolerance over time can grow. We are able to accept situations a little bit better. We're able to cross the situations and not feel like it's going to turn into a crisis. When we get into a space of happiness, I think because of our experiences, especially when it comes to trafficking survivors, because of our experiences of experiencing harm for a really, really long time, we get into this space of survivor's guilt. We get into this space of what makes this time different? Like, maybe I'll be happy for five minutes, but maybe it'll go away. Or do I really deserve this happiness if my other peers didn't get it, if my friends never got it, or if I'm the first person in my family breaking generational curses? Like, how come I'm able to do another people around me are not able to do it? So a lot of guilt, I think, comes in with that happiness feeling. A lot of feelings of, well, if I feel too happy, eventually it will be taken away from me. And just like the unknown, the unknown of normalcy. When you go your whole life and for identify as a familiar trafficking survivor, so what that means is that I was trafficked by a family member. So my trafficking started at a very early age, and I grew up in the foster care system. My early developmental experiences as a child has shown me that trauma was going to be a part of my life regardless, and that there was so many things out of my control. So once we finally regained control and were able to make healthy decisions and safe decisions for ourselves and able to walk in a way that is empowering for ourselves, it gives you really, really daunting to sit in the silence. I know that sounds crazy, but to sit in this space of like, oh, there's not chaos around me. It's quiet. I can just be free and frolic and be happy. Wow. Yeah. So you're reflecting back on the past, which has been very daunting for whatever reason that it might be. You've worked through all that. You've grown. You've built yourself up so you're feeling better. It's not affecting you like it used to, but mentally it still comes back every now and then. How do you get past that so you can accept what's happening is good because you've worked for it? Lots of reassurance from people around you, the positive people around you that you surround yourself with. Lots of, I know people always say, you know, lots of gratitude, but sometimes I'm also neurodivergent. So it's very hard for me to recognize like things that are happening in the moment. Like to take stock, I guess that's the word, like to take inventory and to be like, wow, I went from point A to point B. That's crazy. Like sometimes I need to write down being able to reflect for yourself and say, Hey, how far have I come? If you're looking around and you're like, this can't be real. This, this is, this is not going to last. These things are, are not true. I don't deserve any of these things. Reframing that narrative and being like, I do deserve these things. I worked really, really hard to get here, especially for survivors. It's not your responsibility to save the world. It's your responsibility to pour into yourself. What does that look like for you? And so if I'm pouring into myself and recognizing the hard work and how far I've come, that helps you get over that hump of negativity, that helps you get over that hump of like, is more so just like self-reflection of just like, Hey, you did it. And the people around you, being able to pour into you and being like, Hey, you did it. And this is, this is good. We're at this space because you did good. It's okay that you got here. I think doing it that way has been helpful. Now you say you're neurodivergent. So have you been diagnosed as autistic? I'm not officially diagnosed as autistic, but I do have ADHD, late diagnosed ADHD. It's very different to diagnose ADHD in women. And it looks a little bit different in black women as well. It has changed my life, being able to acknowledge that and provide accommodations for myself as an adult. I'm the oldest of eight. And all of my siblings have ADHD and some of them are on the spectrum. I'm the only one who was not diagnosed. I'm like, Hey guys, so now I'm figuring it out as an adult, which has been a fun journey. Okay, let's go down that path just a little bit. How did you see your life change from let's say eight to 15? A lot of masking will go on between that age. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, that can lead to anxiety, depression, and a host of other things. So did that affect you at all between the ages of eight and 15 or in your later years? So for me, because of my trauma, my masking could have just been my trauma the entire time, trying to kind of push that down. Because I wasn't adopted until I was 11 years old. And then just dealing with a lot of my trafficking trauma throughout my teen hood. There was no time for me to acknowledge if there was other things going on with me, because my brain was just trying to get through the day to day. I think that when I moved out on my own, How old was you when you moved out? I moved out on my own when I was 18. And when I went away to college, I have like inklings that something was a little bit different than my peers. But I was just like, well, everyone else in my family has been officially diagnosed than I have in. And so maybe I'm just a little bit behind for my other peers. I went to music school and I had a teacher. She was very not great. She was not great. But and I do not think that she she was not disability friendly at all. But she was like, I think you have a disability and you need to get that checked out. And I was like, okay. And that was like sophomore year. And again, I'm pushing it out off to the side. I'm not really listening to her. I was just trying to always my mindset when I couldn't do something. I always was like, I'm going to push more. I'm going to push myself to do it even harder. I'm going to prove you wrong. I like that approach. What happened next? When I got into grad school. So this was around 2015. I was like 25, 26. That's when my life was just like, Oh my God, I cannot continue the way that I have been continuing. I can't keep pushing through the burnout was happening really, really quickly. I was not able to turn my brain off the way that I feel like I was able to do it in the past, which really was my trauma manifesting itself and allowing me to dissociate and shut down with all this happening. What happened next? So it just slowly, slowly got worse as I got older around 28. So it's been about like a couple years now, it's been about like five years now around 28 is when I went to my clinician at the time and I said, Hey, I really want to get tested for ADHD because I feel that like I'm not able to function. Can you expand on what was happening to you? One day I'm waking up and I'm being hyper focused. I'm hyper fixated on doing something and I'm able to accomplish it. And then the next day, like I'm not able to, I'm just paralyzed and my executive functioning is just like out the window. One second, I'm able to really understand something and do it properly. And then the next second, I'm taking things very literally. So it became a sense of like rediscovering myself and rediscovering what my accommodations need to be. And now it's ironic because now as a clinician, I work a lot with ADHD years. And I'm just like, you know, you're allowed to accommodate yourself in the past, my brain will be like accommodations, I'm not giving myself any of that. You're just going to have to just figure it out because that's what the world tells you to do. So it's been helpful for me to change that mindset and that trajectory for myself. When you have a lived experience, it helps you to relate to the people that you'll be working with. Sometimes it's hard for them to relate because they're focusing on their issues, not exactly what you're trying to tell them. How do you bridge that gap so that they understand that you know exactly what they're going through? Because you can use your lived experiences to help them better their lives moving forward. So how do you address that? I other therapists who listen to this are going to be like, I don't say, oh my God, I'm not recommending this to newer therapists. And I don't often do this. So I want to caveat this, this statement as saying that like you navigate through this as a clinician, as you deem fit. I do use sub disclosure here and there, depending on if it makes sense within my non-profit organization. Everyone knows that I'm a survivor. And so when they go into therapy services with me, they already know that my survivorship is coming into the room. So they're not asking questions. Now I do not make a therapy session about me because it's not about me. It is about the client who's sitting in front of me. I try to support them by weaving in narratives that like, even if it's about me, I'll say, you know, I've had a client in the past that potentially has experienced such and such. And this is how they have been able to manage it. And so I'm bringing that real life experience into the session without again, making it about me with my ADHD clients. If I'm working with clients that are outside of my non-profit organization, I'll say, you know, let's talk through some accommodations that you gave yourself this week or how you tend to maintain organization. They'll talk to me and they'll be like, oh, I'm just, I'm not doing good. And like, I just suck at this and da da da da. And I'll say, listen, and I'm going to show you, I don't know, is this recorded where people can see the video or is it just audio? Just audio. Okay. For people who are listening, I have a stack. This is a tiny stack. I have a stack of post-it notes. Tony, why do I have a stack of post-it notes? Because every time I have a note that I want to remember from a meeting, I write it on this post-it note. Ask me where these notes go after I write them. Okay, I'll ask, where do they go? Next to me and I never pick them up again. Oh, when I'm working with my clients, a real time experience that I can bring in is like, I'll say, what's the coping skill or accommodation that you are using for yourself for your ADHD that is not working, that you keep trying and is not working and they'll be like, oh, I don't know. I don't do anything. And I'll give them the post-it note example. And they're just like, oh my God, I do stuff like that. Or I do think that this would be a little bit more helpful. I'm so glad you said that because you get it. I just try to be creative in how I approach it so that they understand that like, again, we're not making it about the clinician, the person who's standing across from them, but helping them understand that like, they're not alone. And I think that sometimes our world makes us seem like we're alone. That's why a lot of doctors right now, there is notes to this. I don't know if you've seen this TV show called the pit. Have you watched it is on HBO? I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it yet. It's so good. The man, he was like complaining about how everyone is a Google doctor. That's so frustrating. Like, you can't just come into the ER and tell me how to do my job. But the power of TikTok and the power of social media of creating that universality for clients to come in and say, Hey, I know that I'm not officially diagnosed with this thing, but I feel like I'm finally being seen. My whole life, people have told me that I'm not neurodivergent and the things that I'm doing really fall in the spectrum. And so I want to get tested. I want to open up that pathway so that I can better support myself so that I can stop going through life feeling like I'm not normal or that something is wrong with me because nothing is wrong with you. Your brain is just different. Your brain just has a little special razzle dazzle that makes you see the world a little bit differently. And that's okay. I think by them having me as a clinician helps them see that like they're not alone and that they have someone else in the room who understands it. And it's less about pushing back. Because yes, they're going to be like, this is about me. It is always about them when they're coming into my sessions. Less push back, but more so, I feel supported in this phase. I feel like you see me. I use the phrase that you're not alone in this world in my intro. That's the whole purpose of my podcast is to let others know that they are not alone in this world. So you're busy working with your charity. So what's an average day if there is one? What does it look like for you? If someone was to shadow you, what would they see if they was to follow you around all day? It's gotten better since you told me. Because now I have a team. It's 10 of us on a typical average day. I come in as the executive director. I am coming in. I'm doing a lot of admin tasks. I take lots of meetings. If there's not a day that I'm not in a meeting, it's a beautiful day because that means it's going to be a calm day. But I take lots of meetings. I make sure that I'm coordinating to ensure that my staff are feeling supported and they got everything that they need. We operate virtually. So we're all in different states. I am always on Zoom. Zoom in, Zoom in, me go way back. Coordinating a lot of meetings. And then in the evening, I typically see clients. I'm typically supporting my staff who are like running communities on halls or we're supervising our survivor advisory council or I'm attending funder calls. I am always trying to make money for our small nonprofit. So most states, it can look chaotic. And then other days, it can look really, really calm. I think since I have built up a team, it's gotten better. I don't have to wear all the hats. I don't have to be the accountant and be the HR manager and be the executive director and be the service provider all at once. Now I have a team who are able to do that, which can be very, very supportive. And then on the weekends, I don't stop working. And so I see some private practice clients on the side. That's great. How many people are on your team now? And my team in my nonprofit is 10 people. Our team is we have one ally out of the 10. And then the rest is they either identify as a sex worker or trafficking survivor. And YMT is unique because we are a percent 5% of non-profit organizations throughout the anti-trafficking movement are survivor led. And then for YMT, we are the only black led and queer led nonprofit organization that exists in the community today. And I thought that that would change over the last five years, but it still stands true, which is our services are needed now more than ever, especially the current climate that we're in and our clients being turned away from services. Yeah, I think it's really good that you're doing what you're doing. Because if you weren't doing it, there could be so many people out there possibly wandering the streets, not knowing what to do. So you're helping a lot of people. And I'm kind of like you. I'm really surprised there aren't more out there doing what you do. I think people are scared, I think. And more so than scared, I think that folks don't have the capacity. And I get it specifically for YMT, like we focus on after crisis support. So I used to work in the anti trafficking movement 10 years ago. I have been doing this for about the last and 11 years. I took a break for a while. I didn't come back into the movement until 2020. A big thing that wasn't being focused on was long term care. Everyone will be like, oh, I'm doing crisis support. I am making sure that survivors have food in their bellies and clothes on their back and housing, which is great. We still need those services, please. Everyone who's continuing to do those services, please continue to do them. But then I was meeting survivors who, like me, we're getting older. We don't fit the typical demographic of being 24 years old and younger. And so what services are out there for us? What services look like when my crisis looks a little bit different? No, I'm not potentially leaving a trafficker in my 30s because my life might be a little bit more stable. But going back to that happiness theme that we talked about in the beginning of the podcast, I am now triggered by the fact that I have safe housing. I am now triggered by the fact that I'm about to start this new job and it has nothing to do with my survivorship. I am now feeling overwhelmed because I have been working in this movement for a really long time and people continue to harm me in the movement as a survivor leader because all they want to do is use me for my voice of survivorship, but not actually pay me. So what do I do and where do I go and what types of support services are out there that go beyond crisis support? What types of support services will lean into developing my leadership? We have our economic empowerment program directly invest in survivor-led small businesses. What type of program will sit here and say, hey, you don't have to be a survivor speaker if you don't want to because that's not your only job in life. So when you get something like that, what's your response? How do you handle it? You want to open a candle shop? Let's invest in it. You want to open a consulting agency that like does this cool thing with tech. We have small businesses that do very interesting things. Let's invest in it. You want to do something that looks different than what the community believes you can do because you survived all this trauma because they feel like there's never spaces for survivors to lead. There's never spaces for survivors to go beyond being victimized, but there is a wealth and breadth of abundance that the survivor community offers. We just have to invest in it. I think that's great and that's what your organization does, right? Y&T does that intentionally. I think that organizations just at this moment in time don't have the capacity and because of our current climate, Y&T serves by parking LGBTQ individuals specifically. I'll have organizations say to me, well, we won't get in trouble because we'll just refer people to you. We won't lose our funding because we'll just refer people to you. It's like, cool, I'm glad that we exist, but what if we didn't exist? Who would you refer people to? Where would they go? They would be turned away or they would be like, we just don't have the supports to do that so we're not going to support you and then they don't have the resources. I'm glad that we exist. I wish we didn't because I wish that trafficking was eradicated in my lifetime, but that's not possible. I'm 33 and the exploitation and trafficking of people in my community specifically, the Black community has happened since slavery. I don't know when it will ever be eradicated, but I do know that in my lifetime, running Y&T, that I'm supporting and walking along survivors and sex workers in a way that is building them up for next generation so that the cycle doesn't repeat in their lifetime. If they decide to have families that their children are not going through trafficking because they have different opportunities for their lives and they have different opportunities to explore and grow and learn about what is healthy and what is not healthy and learn what exploitation looks like and what it doesn't look like, I know that in my lifetime that will happen because we exist. I'm glad that you look at it that way. I think it's a great positive outlook and I hope that you're correct that it does go away. So in closing, what would you like to tell the listeners that you think is very important that they hear about what you're trying to do? Only that's hard, just one thing or multiple things. It can be one thing, it can be multiple things, whatever you think is important, whatever comes to mind. And you are very passionate about helping trafficking survivors and supporting that type of work. Invest in survivor-led nonprofits because we are small but mighty and we are doing work on the ground in a different way that I think survivors need at this time. We can't do the work without folks investing in us, whether that be through their time, whether that be through their monetary donations, whether that be them showing up for events, you investing in us can be very, very impactful. I would be remiss if I said that, you know, we can do this work like everyone is always talking about how these issues have to be separate in terms of how we approach trafficking in our communities. But there's a lot of intersectionality. I am a Black queer woman. I cannot delete my Blackness or my queerness. And so we can't buy trafficking, we can't change trafficking, we can't change the movement if we don't acknowledge the intersectionalities of our experiences and the work that needs to be done to hold space for those intersectionalities. We also can't hold space and do this work effectively if we don't invest in survivors that don't fit the typical mold of what you think a survivor should look like. And that includes the conversation of including sex workers. We can't do this work if we do not acknowledge sex workers and support them because they are fighting for rights that trafficking survivors need as well. And sex work is work and I will stand on that heel. Mental health is really, really important. Go to therapy. And therapy is not scary. Therapy is not scary. It is really, really powerful. It can really, really help you. And for different communities and cultures, therapy might look a little bit different to you than sitting in a room across from somebody on a couch talking to you. It can be very, very ancestral. It can be very, very healing. It could be the community that you build in front of you. It could be peer to peer support, but investing in your community and looking towards your community for long-term support, that's okay too. I don't know. So many things Tony, I could keep going. Yeah, that's great. So how do people find you? That way they can get more information and follow you on what you're doing. Yeah. So if you'd like to learn more about our work and the support that we have, if you're an individual that needs support services or you want to be a donor and support the work that we do, you can visit us at www.yamt.org and you'll find all the information. Yeah. Well, this has been great. Great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and tell us all about what you do. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone who has a story to share, tell them to contact us at why not me dot world. One last thing, spread the word about why not me. Our conversations are inspiring guests. The show, you are not alone in this world. Yeah.