Ashante Taylorcox: A Journey of Resilience and Advocacy

Welcome to Why Not Me Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide?
Hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.
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on wavering 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 Mantour.
Welcome to Why Not May Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
Joining us today is a Chante 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. Ashante 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, 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 de Chante, I'm a
Pranantoshi Hurt and I run.
You are more than ying tea.
We are a black led, Queer led a national nonprofit
organization serving BIPODC and LGBTQ survivors at trafficking and sex
workers and we operate in twenty six 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 birthday and Jill live first.
So we started at the height of twenty twenty. 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 TATO.
Yeah, so about eighty percent 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 surprier leader. But 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. You know, we would have like
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 studying it for women and girls, and
a lot of the survivors and sex workers who work
with maybe struggling right now with PTSD, maybe 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 HYMT 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 coming
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 food disorders, a lot of a lot, 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 stream 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.
Meeking through this metaphor that I want to give, it's
like a garden 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 step backs, 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 flowerbed,
how hard it to need to get here. Sometimes our
trauma brains don't know how to turn off going back
to this idea of we always talk about like flight
or right freeze. 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 survivors skill,
we get into the 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 I'll come I'm able
to do in other people around me are not able
to do it. So a lot of guilts, 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 four 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 regain 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 qualet.
I can just be free and proolic 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. MM,
you've worked through all that, You've grown, You've built yourself up,
so you're feeling better. It's not affecting you. I get
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 just surround yourself with, lots
of I know people always say, you know, lots of gratitude.
But sometimes I'm also neurodivergence, so it's very hard for
me to recognize like things that are happening in the moment,
like to take stop. I guess that's the word. I
got 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 you and you're like this can't
be real. This, 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 is 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 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 a neurodivergent, So have you been
diagnosed as autistic?
I'm not officially diagnosed autistic, but I do have ADHD.
Late diagnosed ADHD. It very different to diagnose ADHD and 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 steuctrum.
I'm the only one who was not diagnosed, so 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 fifteen. 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 an anxiety, depression, and
a host of other things. So did that affect you
at all between the ages of eight and fifteen or
in your later years?
M 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 eleven 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 eighteen,
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 haven't, 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, and I do not think that
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 a school, so this was around twenty fifteen.
I was like twenty five twenty six. 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 associate and shut down.
With all this happening.
What happened next, So it just slowly slowly got worse
as I got older. Around twenty eight, so it's been
about like a couple of years now, it's been about
like five years now. Around twenty eight 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 when rediscovering what my
accommodations need to be. And now it's ironic because now
as a clinician, I work a lot with adhdears and
I'm just like, you know, you're allowed to accommodate yourself.
In the past, my brain would 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 Sante.
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 commission as you deem fit. I do use subdisclosure
here and there, depending on if it makes sense. Within
my nonprofit organization. Everyone knows that I'm a survivor, and
so when they go into therapy services for me, they
already know that my survivorship is coming into the room.
So Leah ask me questions. Now, I do not make
the 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 nonprofit organization, I'll say, you know,
let's talk through some accommodations that you gave yourself this week,
or are how you tend to maintain organization.
They'll talk to me and they'll be like, oh, Chanta.
I'm just I'm not doing good and like I just
suck at this and da 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 audience 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 the stack of post it notes?
Because every time I have a note that I want
to remember from a meeting, I read you on this
post it note.
Ask me where these notes go after I write the up?
Okay, I'll ask where do they go?
Next to me? And I never picked them up? Again?
Oh well, we're not working with my clients.
A real time experience that I can bring in is
like I'll say, what's the coping skill our a commodation
that you are using for yourself for your ADHD that
is not working that you keep trying and it's not working.
And they'll be like, oh, charnay, 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 unhelpful. 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 sitting across from them,
but helping them understand that like they're not alone. And
I think that sometimes our world makes it 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 as 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 seen my whole life. People have told me that
I'm not neuro diversion, 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 rattle 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.
Let's push back.
But more so I feel supported in this space. 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 so let others know that they are not
alone in this world.
Mm hmmm mm hmm.
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 tell me, because now I
have a team.
It's tena on a typical average day, I come in
as the executive director. I am coming in. I'm doing
a lot of aadmin task. I take lots of meeting.
If there's not a day, then 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 and 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 thunder calls. I am
always trying to make money for our small nonprofit. So
most days 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 plans on the side.
That's great. How many people are on your team now?
And my team in my nonprofit is ten people.
Our team is we have one ally out of the
ten and then the rest is they eive identify as
a sex worker, are trafficking survivor And YMT is unique
because we are five percent of nonprofit organizations throughout the
anti trafficking movement, our Survivor LAD and then for YMT,
we are the only black lead and queer lead 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 ying Tea, like we focus on after crisis support.
So I used to work in the anti trafficking movement
ten years ago. I have been doing this for about
the last and eleven years. I took a break for
a while. I didn't come back into the movement until
twenty twenty. A big thing that wasn't being focused on
was long term. There. Everyone would be like, oh, I'm
doing crisis support. I am making sure that survivors have
food in their bellies and tooths on their back and housing,
which is great. We still need those services. Please everyone
who's 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 this typical demographic of being
twenty four 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 thirties because my life
might be a little bit more stable.
But going back to that happiness.
Being 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
meaning to develop my leadership? We have our Economic Compowerment
program directly invest in survivor les 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 camera shop, let's invest in it.
You want to open a consulting agency that like, does
this cool thing with tech. We have slaw 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 breath 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.
Why and T does that intentionally? So I think that
organizations just at this moment in time don't have the capacity.
And because of our current climate, whyint serves by packing
lgbt Q 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. And 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 short you, and then they don't
have the resources.
So I'm glad that we exist. I wish we didn't
because I wish that trafficking was eradicated in my lifetime,
but you know that's not possible. I'm thirty three, and
the exploitation and trafficking of people in my community, specifically
the black community, has happened since ling Pery, So I
don't know when it will ever be eradicated. But I
do know that in my lifetime running yet that I'm
supporting and walking along survivors and sex workers in a
way that is building them up for next generations 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 life,
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, and 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.
Ohnie, 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.
Thing, 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
do 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 awareness, and so we can't by 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 the survivors 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 hill. 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 culturest therapy might look a
little bit different than 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 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. Tell me 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 like to learn more about our work
and the support that we have, if you are an
individual that need support services, or you want to be
a donor and support the work that we do, you
can visit us at www dot yamt dot org and
you'll find all the information.
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 notm dot world. One last thing, spread
the word about why Not me our conversations, our inspiring
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