Reclaiming My Power: Trauma, Faith & All Things Worn

Seller

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If you’d told me a few years ago that I would end up on All Things Worn, I would have laughed in your face.

I was the definition of “girl next door.” Quiet. Reserved. Deeply uncomfortable with my body, my sexuality, and honestly… myself.

I joined ATW for one reason only: money. Life was difficult, and I needed a way to earn extra income. I expected awkward conversations, strange requests, and maybe a little embarrassment along the way. What I didn’t expect was how profoundly the experience would affect me.

Somewhere between the listings, the conversations, the creativity, and the confidence-building, something shifted. Slowly, I started seeing myself differently.

Not through the lens of shame. Not through trauma. Not through the rigid expectations I had carried for years.

But as a woman who could actually enjoy herself. Express herself. Take up space.

Being a seller is often misunderstood. People assume it’s simply about posting pictures or selling products. But for me, it became something much deeper than that. It became an experience of reclaiming ownership over parts of myself I had spent years disconnecting from.

It also challenged one of my deepest fears: men.

After childhood trauma, trust did not come naturally to me. I carried a deep belief that closeness would eventually lead to harm. But through this platform, through careful boundaries and genuine connections, I began to realise something important:

Not everybody wants to hurt you.

That doesn’t mean the internet is magically safe, and it certainly doesn’t mean every interaction is positive. But it did remind me that healthy connection, mutual respect, humour, kindness, and even care can exist in unexpected places.

And yet, despite all of this growth, there was still one thing I couldn’t fully reconcile: my faith.

I had walked away from a church environment that made me feel ashamed of who I was, but I had not walked away from God. My faith still mattered deeply to me. I still believed in goodness, purpose, compassion, and grace.

But I constantly questioned whether someone like me could still belong there.

Could I believe in God and exist in a space like this? Would God be disappointed in me? Was I becoming someone “bad”? Was healing myself somehow the same thing as failing spiritually?

The guilt sat heavily on me for a long time. I considered walking away from the platform more than once because I genuinely believed I might be doing something wrong.

Then I met someone through the site who completely changed my perspective. What began as a simple custom order slowly became a friendship. We talked about ordinary things - dogs, potato waffles, life - and over time we built a genuine connection beyond the transactional side of the platform.

Months later, he shared something with me that I will probably carry forever.

Before we met, he had been in an incredibly dark place mentally. He told me that our connection, our conversations, and the care we had shown each other had genuinely helped keep him alive.

I remember sitting there stunned.

Because in all my fear about whether I was “good enough” or whether God could still love me while doing this work, I had completely overlooked something important:

Human connection matters.

Kindness matters. Being seen matters. Making somebody feel less alone matters.

And perhaps God can exist there too.

That moment shifted something deeply inside me. Not because it suddenly answered every difficult question I have about faith, sexuality, trauma, or sex work - it didn’t. But it helped me stop viewing myself as inherently shameful.

For so long, I had believed that reclaiming my body, my confidence, my sexuality, or even my joy somehow made me less worthy of love or spirituality.

Now I’m beginning to believe the opposite.

That healing can happen in unexpected places. That connection can save lives. And that perhaps God is far kinder, more compassionate, and far less interested in shame than I was taught to believe.

ATW hasn’t “fixed” me. Healing is far more complicated than that. But it has played a surprising role in helping me rediscover confidence, connection, autonomy, and joy.

I came here trying to survive. I didn’t expect to find parts of myself waiting here too.

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