Well, I seem to have found myself in the strange position of generating a front page news item as soon as I arrived in Hathian.

Talk about making an entrance!  Thank you to the Girl Behind the Lens for that and thank you to various members of HPD for their help in getting me registered, despite me having no papers or proof of identity, and for listening to my story (even if there is not much that can be done to help).

For those who have not read the story, I am originally from Russia (and no, I don't like Putin and his oligarchs and KGB associates either - that's part of why I left) but I moved to Italy to study Art History and make a better life than for myself.  Being kidnapped there didn't help with that and being drugged up and trafficked here was not the best experience of my life.

Following my rescue and the realisation that I was no longer in Italy, I have been trying to get back on my feet, but building a new life in a place like this is hard at the best of times, but struggling with a new country, a different language and the PTSD makes it well nigh impossible.  When I was rescued I still couldn't remember much of what happened, but now I sometimes wake up screaming as some awful detail forces its way back.  And I have done one or two things that I am not proud of, but I need to find a way to eat and keep warm.

People here have been mostly been kinder than I could hope for (and certainly kinder than they would be where I come from), but sometimes I feel like they are watching me and imagining me just the way I was described in the article.  I am trying to tell myself it is just paranoia, but I come from a place where what can seem like paranoia to others is really just a basic survival instinct.