drugs

No Rest for the Wicked

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

I like to think I’m a good person. I’m the kind of person you can go to when you’re having a bad day. Like a really bad day. Just got dumped? Let’s go out, drinks on me. Having a random panic attack? I’ll hold your hand and help you breathe until it passes. Having a flashback and running down the street, away from invisible threats? I’ll chase you down, grab you, and talk you through it. I’ve talked several people out of suicide without a second thought. I’m the kind of person who’s there when it counts.

I’m not a nice person, though. I’m not agreeable. My bullshit tolerance is zero. If you piss me off I will cut you to pieces and not think twice about it. I love helping people, but when it comes down to day to day life I actually fucking hate them. People suck. They really do. They’re petty. They’re selfish. They’re unforgiving.

What gets me the most is that oftentimes the people I’ve been there for, truly there for, are the ones who abandon me in my hour of need. Like I said, people are selfish. They take and don’t return.

I may be blaming them for my bitterness, but so be it. As I said, I’m not a nice person. I’ve been used too many times to still be naive enough to expect anything back from the people I give to. When you’re working, taking off your clothes and dancing and giving your body, your self, to other people, they certainly don’t give anything in return. Not the people I worked for. They want more, more, more. They want to see how much they can get for as little money as possible.

I didn’t work at the clubs where rappers showed up and made it rain. I worked for a gambling ring of greedy businessmen who stole the girls’ money. That was their game, and they played it often. They hand you your money after a few dances, and as you’re counting it and putting your clothes on they slyly grab your clutch and slink off into the darkness. And by the time you look up to tell them they shorted you $20 (also an often occurrence), they’re long gone. Out the door, in a cab, on the way home.

Talk to management about it? Hahaha. They didn’t give a fuck. And you better work hard to earn back enough to pay the house fee, or you’re out for good.

Wickedness breeds wickedness. Evil breeds evil. Once upon a time I thought I could remain kind and sweet and unfazed by all the evil around me. That’s why I have a lotus flower tattoo. They blossom in dirty swampy water. I wanted to be that beautiful flower in that dirty disgusting world around me. How naive. What a silly little girl I was.

I watched Sin City a little while ago with my boyfriend. It reminded me of New York, just a little. They say if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. It’s true. People will take you for all you’ve got, kick you to the curb, and leave you to pull yourself together and try again, if you’re crazy enough to think you can still survive here. Nobody here is nice. Nobody cares about you. You can’t trust anyone.

Everyone I know is on antidepressants. Nobody I know gets enough sleep. We’re all wicked. We use each other, we hurt each other, we take each other for all we’re worth.

I used to be a nice person. Sometimes I still am. I used to be a good person. I like to think I still am. I am far from innocent. I am not someone you should try to pull something on. I do not tolerate bullshit from people. I will easily walk away and not look back.

We’ve all heard that song. Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked, by Cage the Elephant. I can’t stop listening to it. It rings true with me. There’s no rest for the wicked here. Money doesn’t grow on trees. We all have bills to pay. We all have to eat. We get by any way we can, even if it’s at the expense of others. Sometimes I think it’s especially at the expense of others. In this city you can’t slow down, or you risk getting trampled. There ain’t no rest for the wicked, and if I am wicked, then so be it.

 

Slave

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

Have you ever been a slave to something? You’re obsessed with it. It rules you. It has this hold over you that you just can’t shake.

Slave to fashion. I heard that phrase all the time when I was in sober living in SoHo. The whole idea of being a slave is that something rules you. Fashion. Sex. Drugs. The clubs.

I was a slave to all of them. I was a slave to the lifestyle. A slave to The Life. It ruled over me. It controlled me.

I suppose we’re all slaves to something. If you don’t think you’re a slave to anything then think harder, because you’re lying to yourself.

To sum up this slavery I guess the word addiction fits pretty well. The worst thing about an addiction is that you know it’s bad for you. You know that you should stop and you just can’t bring yourself to. And once you do it still rules over you. You’re still a slave to it. You think about it incessantly. You miss it. You glorify it to yourself and forget all the pain and trouble it caused you.

That’s how I feel about The Life. Sometimes I come out onto my balcony at night and stare across the water at Manhattan. I miss it. No matter how bad of a situation it was, I still miss it. I miss that false sense of importance resulting form cocaine and male attention. I still talk to promoters and ask them where they’re promoting that night. I just can’t let it go.

I’m reminded of Britney Spears’ song Slave for You. She looked hot as hell in that video. She was dancing in some grimy room while everyone sweated their asses off and it still looked fucking awesome. Sounds about right. I’m a slave for you, club scene. I will dress in uncomfortable clothing that makes my body look sexy as hell and I will dance until I sweat to death in a club that used to be a warehouse in the meatpacking district just to feel that rush that I get from being there.

I was hopelessly addicted. Even though I left the club scene I will still always be a slave to it in my heart.

What’s My Age Again?

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

I told someone a while back that I’ve outgrown the club scene. I’m not into going out and getting turnt anymore. Their response? “You’re not even old enough to drink yet”.

They had a point. I feel old as fuck. If I had a choice, I would probably stay in and watch Netflix and cuddle with my cat every night. People in New York go out around midnight. That’s when I’m in bed.

Last time I went to a hookah lounge I got sick from the hookah. I’m not used to ingesting chemicals anymore I guess. I had to go outside for some fresh air and sit down. I felt so nauseous. It was awful. I had this flashback to the club scene, and I realized that happened all the time when I was out clubbing. And I didn’t sit there and wallow in misery. I would go outside, puke in the bushes, then come back inside and carry on with my night. Or afternoon. Or morning. And it happened all the time. No big deal. “I just had to step outside to puke, sorry guys”, “No I’m all good, where we headed next?”

I would go for days. When I was raped and held hostage in Texas I broke out, went home, woke up the next day hungover as hell, went to breakfast, puked in the bushes, came inside, finished my food, and went right back out. And then at the next party I told my “crazy party night” story. People congratulated me on getting myself out and gave me the first hit from the bong when they packed it. That’s just how it was. That’s the kind of life I was living.

How do people carry on with that shit into their mid twenties? I don’t understand. Every time I try to go out I get bored. I’ve seen it all before. I’ve done it all before. I have no interest in doing vodka shots at the tables in the club and trying to catch the eye of some rich man who reserved his own table. I don’t like feeling like I’m competing with all the other girls to become the trophy wife of the richest man there. And I definitely have no interest in getting slammered and tripping, or falling, or losing things. I don’t understand the appeal of it.

I seriously feel like a grandma. I’m 20 and have barely any interest in drinking when I’m out, let alone doing any coke or molly that I got from strangers I just met. And I definitely have no interest in seeing what I can mix into a blunt with a bunch of people in the back room at some sketchy apartment party.

Last time I woke up with a hangover I couldn’t for the life of me understand how anything I’d done the night before could be worth this. And I was doing exactly what I’d been doing back in the day. Started out at a hookah lounge. Had a few drinks. Wandered down the block looking for the car. Called an Uber to take us to the car because we couldn’t walk. Went club hopping. Had more drinks. Went back to my apartment. Puked in the bathroom and decided to take a nap on the floor. It didn’t seem as glamorous as it used to. It just seemed like a series of stupid decisions. In the past I would have woken up like “damn last night was fun”. I would have thought it was funny that I decided to take a nap on the bathroom floor. I would have texted someone to confirm that we had actually gone to a club that only had like 5 people in it, looked around, and walked right back out. I would have asked my boyfriend how it had felt to go out with two hot blondes, one of whom was still an escort, and drive from club to club in a Benz.

Instead I just woke up like “I hope I still have coconut water in the fridge. What the fuck man? I’m too old for this shit.”

I think the past year has changed me. I feel like I’m a 30 year old in a 20 year old’s body. My dad asked me yesterday what I’m going to do for my 21st birthday. To be honest I’m not actually sure I’m going to go out and drink at all. If I do it’ll probably be at a nice restaurant and I’ll probably have champagne.

I used to be such a party girl. My siblings still think I am. My 16 year old sister asked me for blow job tips. My brother asked me what shrooms are like. My other sister called me to tell me she’d put me down as her emergency contact at Planned Parenthood. This is the kind of person I come off as to them. That’s the kind of person I used to be.

So what happened? Did I go hard too fast? Did I get it all out of my system in 2 years? Can you really do it all and then some, and then outgrow it and want to settle down? I always doubted that trophy wives were actually ever capable of settling down and being responsible adults. I thought “once a party girl always a party girl”. I now realize that isn’t true. I went hard for 2 years and then got out. And got my shit together. And am well on my way to being a functional adult with a job and a degree.

I guess in some ways I am still 20. And I guess being young doesn’t necessarily mean I have to party all the time. Some young people aren’t into that shit. Some people are old souls. Maybe that’s all I am. An old soul. I partied young, and now I’m growing up young.

Physically I am 20. Internally I’m 20. I’m just a responsible 20. A mature 20. An old soul.

The Molly Dude (name omitted due to lack of memory)

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

I realized that I’ve posted so much about my life and made this essentially my diary at times (see name). But there’s a second part to this. The former stripper part. And I’ve been ignoring that part.

So here’s a story from my working days. Not totally horrible, but it definitely made me stop and think about what I was doing when I was working.

I worked private events for a gambling ring. I wasn’t at a strip club. It was strip events. So the members were rich guys in suits. And a lot of times they brought their friends or colleagues along for a nice after-work bonding experience or whatever.

The events started early. For the life of me I could never understand why, because people never showed up for the first 2-3 hours. But early in the night one member did. And since it was early he stood around talking to the girls, as most of them do before around 10. We had a nice conversation for a while, and he told me he had a bunch of friends coming and when they got here I should come join them at their table. Of course I was down for that. Why wouldn’t I be?

So around 10, when more people started showing up and I was chatting up other members, someone grabbed me and said some guy in the back was asking for me. So I went back and it was him. It was just him and a couple guys at the table at that point. He wanted me to sit on his lap and talk for a while.

So we talked. He was into more than just dances apparently. He’s was playing the big game. Get a few dances, see if I’m good enough, then move in to solicit more. He had a young girlfriend that he wanted me to come over and party with. I told him sure, with no intention of ever actually doing so. He had a table. He had a bottle. It was his table and he was treating his friends. I assumed he was a high roller. I was going to tell him whatever he wanted to hear if it meant I was getting a nice wad of cash at the end. While he obviously wanted more, he was polite about it. I figured his was a nice, rich gentleman looking for a good time.

He was not. When the bottle girl came by I found out he knew her. Pretty well. She smiled and joked around and told me to be careful with this one. He wanted us to make out. She said that would cost him extra. He insisted she should do it for free because they were so tight. She smiled and walked away, shaking her hips like the confident, hot woman that she was.

It set off my radar. Asking someone to do something for free. Pushing for it. Not a good sign. Not at all.

I reminded him that my time wasn’t free. He said he knew and the money was coming. I was still suspicious.

And then the drugs came out. There was a strict no drugs policy there, but it wasn’t really enforced for the high rollers who weren’t blatantly doing it in front of everyone. So he pulled out the powders.

I’m not sure if there was coke (my go-to at work if it was there, since I have a low alcohol tolerance and was generally expected to have a drink with each client). I know there was molly though. He insisted I do some with him. I politely declined. He insisted. I took a baby hit to appease him. I realized too late that he was giving it to me to try to get me turned on. Because he did a TON and then started going on and on about how turned on he was from the molly. He was super into me and wanted to have me. I told him that’s not allowed here. There are rules. He pulled a HUGE wad of cash out of his pocket and told me it was all mine if I would go down to the bathroom and have sex with him right there right now. I told him I’d need to ask my boss for permission for such a thing.

I searched desperately for my boss to tell him no. I knew a member spending that much money wasn’t going to be kicked out. He still hadn’t paid me. I knew I could keep stringing him along after my boss told him no and make him think I’d go fuck him and his girlfriend another night. But I could not for the life of me find my boss. Nowhere. He was gone.

So I went back and told him so. So he went in search of my boss. He was also unsuccessful. So he gave up. He didn’t want any trouble and definitely didn’t want to get me fired. So he handed me like $60 and I went on my way. I’d been on his lap for 45 minutes at the least. It’s 20 a song. You can push that number around a bit if you’re just sitting on his lap talking, but I mean like getting 10 for two songs for that. Sixty bucks doesn’t cover the time I spent with him. But what could I do?

I decided not to tell my boss at work that night. It was over, I didn’t want any trouble, I just wanted my money. In an industry like that the messenger, the working girl, will definitely get shot. So I went about my night and had to deal with him trying to wave me over and staring intensely at me every time I gave someone else a dance. I was so relieved when he left.

But of course when I texted my boss the next day he was unapologetic. He told me to find security if I couldn’t find him. I was not aware we had security. I’m pretty sure we didn’t.

So I got harassed, denied money for my time, was bullied into snorting a drug I detest, and just generally treated like a hooker instead of the dancer for an upscale event that I’d been telling myself I was.

That was lesson one in the harsh reality of a job where you are selling your body. When you are selling your body you are literally selling your own body to anyone willing to pay for it. And to many people that means your body is for sale in any way they wish to purchase it.

Not A Good Enough Stripper

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

I’ve tried reading memoirs written by other people who got out, and they all seem to have done so much more than me. They worked in shittier places and dealt with worse clients for much longer than I did. I worked one night a week for a few months. I was never very good at what I did. There were other girls who really got down. I struggled not to stumble in my stilettos after a few drinks. I didn’t spend a ton of time getting ready like other girls did. I just threw on a dress and lacy underwear, made sure my legs were shaved, and blow dried my hair. Other girls would show up with huge tote bags filled with accessories. They would put shiny shit on their legs to make them look nice. They would cover their whole bodies with lotion for the grabby clients. They would sit there in the bathroom curling their hair and going ape shit with their eye shadow before work started.

Sometimes I feel like a fake.

I was never a hard core stripper. You could tell who the pros were at work. And the clients could too. They were the ones making at least a grand a night. I made 5 hundred tops. I remember the bartender told me once that I should get out while I was still a person. It should have been nice to hear that I was still a person. That I hadn’t gotten lost in the life. But it didn’t. I felt like I stood out in a bad way. Like people didn’t take me seriously as a stripper or something. Like I hadn’t met the requirements to be a real one.

I may not have been the best stripper. I didn’t dance the best. I didn’t make the most money. I wasn’t an aspiring model. I don’t have huge tits. My boss hated my guts.

But I guess I was good enough. My boss let me stay (they had high standards for who they let work there). I made money. I started hanging out with the owner and his crew after work. I knew the DJ. I was tight with the bartender. And the bottle girl. And the bathroom attendant (very important if you plan to do coke in the stalls with people).

Maybe I am a fake. I didn’t get sucked into the life. I didn’t cease to be a person. My entire life was never defined by the work I was doing.

I know people like that. It’s sad. It’s hard to be around. They start acting like it’s literally just going to work. They do a lot of drugs. They know a lot of sketchy people. They get really into yoga. They get all spiritual. They adopt names at work like Starr. Everything about them becomes sex. Hair extensions, trendy dye jobs, heavy smoky eye shadow, fake lashes, heels that reach ridiculous heights, boob jobs. Everything.

They’re the real strippers. They also never get out. They marry a rich old man for his money and are genuinely happy with that. Or they die from an overdose.

They don’t write books. The ones who got out did. The ones who had the most notable experiences did.

I’m probably not alone. There are probably plenty of girls out there who danced for a shorter amount of time and never felt like they truly assimilated into the life.

And I guess that’s ok. I don’t need to define myself by something I did for a few months. I don’t need to write a book. I don’t need to meet some standard of a “real stripper” that I made up and am holding myself to. I can validate my experiences as a stripper. I know that I was one and despite not ever feeling like a true stripper, I am allowed to be scarred by it and to have self esteem and psychological issues as a result of it.

Labels are based off stereotypes. I’m not a stereotypical stripper. I should actually probably be glad that I’m not. I did plenty of fucked up shit and got deep enough into the life to have a few stories and to know a few people, and that should be enough.

I don’t need to have been a great stripper. All that’s going to come from thinking like that is me going back to it. I’ll try to prove myself, to myself. I’ll try to be better. To get down more. To give better lap dances. To be fucking my boss. To get the good clients. To have a real stripper name that I consistently go by because I have regulars who will be asking for me.

I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to be anything or anyone except myself. I don’t need to prove myself.

Battered Wife Syndrome

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

I’m sitting here on my balcony, smoking my first cigarette of the day, and wondering where it all went wrong. I knew from the very beginning that it would end badly. I mean, I fell for him because he forgot my name and started calling me Slut instead.

I distinctly remember being in the hallway outside his apartment after he’d said something particularly douchebag-y. I had this epiphany that he was going to break my heart. And I consciously decided I didn’t care. That I wanted to just enjoy it while it lasted. He was my first boyfriend after all. The first person that ever actually truly gave a shit about me.

I needed him.

At first it was wonderful. I went home for Easter and the night before he bought me a bouquet of roses and a bottle of pink champagne. When I broke up with him in the summer he showed up where I worked, waited for me to get off, gave me two dozen roses and an apology he’d used google translate to write in French for me. And he kissed me in the rain.

It was magic.

But he started to isolate me from my friends. From everyone. It was just me and him every night in his bedroom watching movies and having amazing sex. I didn’t mind it. I justified it. I knew the cycle of abuse and I was worried about what was happening, but again I didn’t care. I loved him. Hell, I still love him.

The partying got out of control. He took me to clubs I’d never been to before. We started doing more drugs. We went to underground places only important people frequent. I stopped wearing all black. I took off the chains and the spikes. I stopped wearing thick eyeliner. I started to become a person I wasn’t. Not that I’d been the person I wanted to be for the past year anyway.

He was a good Dom. He took care of me. He kept me safe.

But the fights got worse. He would yell and call me names and tell me I was a bad sub. That I was domming from the bottom. We broke up. And made up. And broke up. And made up.

And something happened. Something bad. I don’t remember much of it because I’d broken up with him and a promoter friend took me out to get drunk. Things got crazy. Out of control. Bad.

And the next day he called my dad and told him I was an escort. That I was living in a drug den. And the promoter called my dad and told him my boyfriend was a sociopath. That I was in danger.

I went home. I checked myself into an inpatient facility. I ditched my friends. But I stayed with him. He used my spare key to get into my apartment when my so-called friends weren’t home and got all my stuff out. He sent me the clothes I needed while I was inpatient. We spoke on the phone every day. He waited for me. He visited me during family week. I was smitten. I was delusional.

My parents told me he seemed sketchy. The therapists told me he was bad for me. When I got out and went to transitional living they told me he wasn’t treating me well. That I was better off without him.

I told them to go fuck themselves. They didn’t understand. We were Bonnie and Clyde. It was us against the world. We were both fucked up people but we were in this together.

School got hard. Recovery got hard. His mom had a manic episode and went to a psych ward. He started taking medication. He had a bad reaction to it. He became suicidal.

My new friends hated him. I didn’t have many, and I wasn’t very close to them. I was still spending all my time with him.

I moved to Astoria to be with him. He essentially moved in with me. We smothered each other. The fights got worse.

He called me names. Dirty Hooker. Broken. Prostitute. Hopeless. Go suck a dick for money. I’m nothing without him. He put a knife next to me during a fight and told me to do everyone a favor and just kill myself.

If we fought in his car he would leave me on the side of the road in sketchy parts of town. He started calling my dad when we fought. Telling him lies. I slapped him for not doing the dishes. I was threatening him. I was stalking him. I needed help. My dad told me he was unstable. That he was holding me back from my own recovery. That I should leave him.

The fights got worse. He started getting physical. He picked the lock of my door and shoved me into the closet because he left his iPad in my apartment and I wouldn’t let him in. He called the police and said I was holding his things hostage. He started a fight with me during class.

We went to couples therapy. We set ground rules for fair fighting. He wouldn’t follow them. He accused me of turning the therapist against him. He threw a box of tissues during one of our sessions. He claimed I smiled when he did it. That I wanted to drive him crazy. That I was driving him to do everything he was doing to me. The therapist took my side. We stopped couples therapy.

He started going to therapy. I went with him to sessions so we could talk about our problems. We set ground rules for fair fighting again. He broke them again. The physical fighting got worse. It went from him backing me into corners and yelling in my face, from refusing to leave when I kicked him out of my apartment, to actually hurting me.

He pinned me against walls. He choked me. He tossed me on the bed and held me down and told me everything that was wrong with me. He left bruises. I stayed.

It got worse. I refused to cede to his wishes. To give in his will. To admit that it was all me. That I drove him to it. That it was my fault. He said he was sorry for hurting me, but I drove him to it and he needed an apology too. Occasionally he got one, but only when he threatened to leave.

Then it got horrible. He threw a pen at me. It left a cut on my face and gave me a black eye. Nobody asked about the black eye. Everyone in class knew what had been going on. He promised to never hurt me again. He’d promised before. And again I believed him.

Before it healed we had another fight. He punched me. He threw my phone off my balcony. His mom called him and told him something was fucking wrong with him. She cried. She begged me not to go back to him. She told me I deserve better than that bastard.

I tried to. He wouldn’t take me back. He told me his therapist had said if it was going to work we’d need intense couples therapy. He said I deserve better than he can give me and he’s setting me free. I didn’t want to be free. I wanted my old boyfriend back. The one from the beginning. The one who brought me flowers. The one who visited me at work just to say he loved me. The one who drove me to appointments and picked me up.

I forgot the bad times. That he picked me up from work on quaaludes. That he would get mad and break things when I wouldn’t do his homework for him. That he constantly criticized me. My hair, my makeup, my friends, my approach to life. That nothing I ever did was good enough for him. That from the very beginning he was controlling and abusive.

He said he wanted to be friends. I wanted to be together and just take it slow. To give us time to get our own shit together and start anew. To give us a chance to create a new dynamic. He drove me home from school. He stayed over. He said he wanted to be friends with benefits. I told myself it was the same thing as taking a break. It wasn’t. He just missed the sex. I don’t mean to brag, but when I was getting paid for it I got pretty good at it.

We got in a fight at school. He tried to get campus security involved. He told them I was stalking him. They took us inside. They decided he was being verbally abusive and kicked him out. The took me away from him and shielded me when he tried to come back. They said I should call the cops. The took my student ID and called the victim center. One security guard works with the police. He said it didn’t look like a good situation.

My now ex called my dad. He said I was suicidal. That I’d told him I couldn’t go on without him. I wasn’t. It was readily apparent. I’ve been through enough shit. If I’d wanted to kill myself I would have done it long ago. I’m not stupid enough to think my life is over because of a breakup. I’m only twenty. I have another sixty to eighty years for things to get better. It can only go up from here.

My parents told me he’s unstable. He’s manipulative. He’s controlling. He’s dangerous. I’m forbidden to be with him. I’m going home after finals end. I’m going to therapy to work through this.

But the sad truth is that I still love him. I still want him in my life. Even as a friend. And I’m still holding onto that tiny bit of hope that over time we can make it work and still be together. I know it won’t happen though. It’s for the best.

I hope we can be friends though. Because friends help each other, and I’d appreciate his help. Friends support each other. I need support. I miss the little things too. Watching our favorite shows together. Going out to brunch. Friends do that. I hope we can still do that. Maybe the pressure of trying to make it work, of trying to force the magic to come back, is what did us in. Maybe as friends we can just be casual and carefree. I hope. I’ll hope for a while. Deep down inside I know I deserve better. I just don’t want to let him go.

Trophy Wife – My Destiny

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

I remember this one time I was hanging out with my one of my dealers, and we were both smoking some of her newest ganja. I was baked and divulged some of my recent concerns, hoping for some sort of comfort or help. I don’t remember exactly what I said. No shit, right? Who remembers what they said or did when they were fucked up. It generally doesn’t make sense even when you do remember it. Which I guess applies to this as well…

I think I was worrying about my future. I’ve always worried about my future. I was especially worried about my future when I was stripping, escorting, and doing a fuck ton of drugs every week. At that time I was convinced I was doomed to end up a crack whore on the streets of New York. I guess that’s a common symptom of PTSD; believing that you are not going to live much longer for some inexplicable reason despite having no evidence to support this belief. That’s probably what I divulged to her.

My grades were slipping. I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college. I had no idea how to find a real job. I didn’t think I had any real talents that I could use in a career. She was a dealer and was rolling in cash that way. She was majoring in computer science or some shit. She spent her spare time getting baked and experimenting with coding different things. She worked on the side coding for some guy and helping him build some wireless something or another. She had talent. She had a future. And she was actively working towards achieving this.

I was convinced I was doomed to end up a crack whore, but it wasn’t a fate I wanted. I wanted to accomplish something. I wanted to get out. I wanted a future. I just couldn’t see one.

I’m sure I bitched about this for much longer than necessary. I’m sure I pissed off my dealer just a little bit with my bad vibes. I’m sure she just wanted to get baked and chill. The reasons don’t really matter. I was upset and going on and on about my fears for my future.

She suddenly cut me off and told me “You’re going to be fine. You’re pretty. You’re going to meet a rich man and marry him, and probably actually fall in love with him.”

It totally caught me off guard. That was what she thought was my destiny. I was pretty, and I was going to be a trophy wife. My idea of a trophy wife was so different than hers. I grew up around a lot of trophy wives. My stepmom is arguably a trophy wife. In my imagination they have huge fake tits, they’re bottle blondes, they get their nails done and go to the spa. The trophy wives in my imagination were popular in high school. They’re pretty and stupid and have all these pretty girlfriends that they go shopping with.

They’re fake.

I’m not fake. Am I? I’m not pretty like them. Am I? I’m not a bottle blonde. But  I’m a natural blonde. I wasn’t popular in high school. But I made up for it in college. I don’t go shopping with all my girlfriends. But I went online shopping for lingerie, paid for by my sugar daddy.

Maybe I was headed down a path towards becoming a trophy wife. I met one when I was inpatient. Her story is pretty similar to mine. She’s just prettier. And more fake. She wasn’t while she was inpatient, she was safe there. She has PTSD. She was a stripper and an escort. Just like me. But she married an old man, had his children, and had him pay for her fake tits. She was a bottle blonde. She acted like a grown up sorority girl. I’m not like her. I’m not a trophy wife.

It’s actually funny looking back on that moment. I knew I wasn’t going to be a trophy wife. That conversation happened a year and a half ago. Now I’m sober. I’m in a fuck ton of therapy. I’m going to class. I know what I want to do with my life, and I’m actively working towards achieving it.

Maybe I’m still pretty. Maybe I still come off as an airhead sometimes. Maybe I still wear expensive clothes I didn’t pay for and tend to show a little too much skin. But I’m not still stripping. I’m not still escorting. My boyfriend is still an undergrad. I’m living in a studio in Queens. I have 30 dollars in my bank account. I eat ramen for dinner. Basically, I’m a pretty normal college student.

My destiny is not to be a trophy wife. My destiny is to be a kick-ass shrink because I’ve been through shit and when other people are going through shit I get it.

The Club Scene

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

the_club_scene

I found this picture on Tumblr and it hit me really hard. I feel like I’ve been in both situations here. I’ve never had sex with a male in a club bathroom, and I’ve never passed out in a club bathroom. I have had sex in a club bathroom, though, and I have had sex with a male in a bathroom. I have also been that girl passed out on the floor in several situations. Neither of these are pretty. Neither of these are something I’m proud of. I don’t look back on these moments fondly.

The club scene seems so glamorous. High heels. Short skirts. Champagne. Flashing lights. Dancing. Music. Celebrities. Exclusivity. You feel on top of the world.

But that’s the vodka and the cocaine. When it comes down to it, this is a pretty accurate representation of any given club. Bad decisions. Regrets. Mystery bruises. Hangovers. Losing things. Regrettable sexual decisions. Pushing boundaries. Spending money you don’t have. Shitty drugs that aren’t what you were told they were. Ripping expensive dresses. Breaking your heels. Walking home barefoot at 7 am from the apartment of someone you don’t know in a part of town you’ve never been before. And definitely not remembering how you even met this person, let alone ended up in this apartment.

Beneath all the glamour is a group of fucked up people trying to distract themselves from their problems. Nobody is happy. Nobody is content. Nobody is real.

It’s so much easier to drink away your problems and dedicate your life to partying and sleeping than to deal with things.Don’t start. It’s hard to stop once you get sucked in.

That is all.

Misrepresentation

Posted on by icouldtellyoubutiwouldhavetokillyou

A lot of people act like they’re happy, like everything is fine when it’s the exact opposite. I’m not alone there. I find myself realizing how much I used to do it, though.

When I first met my boyfriend he thought I was broke. Flat broke. Not a cent to my name. I told him that I’d been stripping and using the money to buy food. That my friends were spending it all on drugs and I was living off dollar pizza. Despite the fact that he isn’t exactly rich himself, he kept buying me food and offering to pay for things. I thought he was just being a gentleman. He thought he was keeping me from starving to death. He didn’t even tell me this until two days ago, when he was talking about how much he wants to go back to my mom’s “mansion” and go swimming with my dogs in her pool again.

I was misrepresenting myself. My mom thought everything was completely fine and had absolutely no idea that anything was going on. That my days were spent having snowball fights in central park and spending nights in watching movies and eating popcorn in friends’ dorm rooms. She was blown away when I told her that I’d been assaulted several times, had sex for money, and was living in a drug den in Alphabet City.

My friends thought I was happy going to the clubs all the time. Some friends didn’t know I was stripping or escorting at all. They assumed I was just out at the clubs all night. Technically I was. I was at strip clubs all night. They thought my parents gave me all the money in the world and I was being selfish by not buying all the drinks and all the drugs when we went out. They thought my parents were a part of my life, that I talked to them at all and accepted money from them. I didn’t.

People assumed things. And I let them. I acted the way everyone expected me to. I got used to misrepresenting myself to people. I got used to being the person they wanted to me. I ended up losing myself. I no longer had any idea who I was and what I liked and what I wanted.

I remember so clearly the day I was admitted to rehab. I was sitting in my dad’s backyard with my back against the wall, hiding from my brother because he wanted me to go swimming with him. The initial screening was via phone, and all I did was answer questions about my drug use and trauma, as well as basic questions about potential mood disorders. They were all very easy and straightforward. I was numb to the world, nothing fazed me, including describing my assaults and examples of how my drug use was out of hand. The very last question she asked me was extremely difficult, though. She asked me what I liked to do. I had no idea. I thought for a long time, and finally provided some examples of things I had liked to do in high school. Things I’d enjoyed doing years ago, before I moved to New York. Currently I didn’t like doing anything. I just did things.

I misrepresented myself to people to the extent that I did things they thought I liked. Things I thought the character I was playing would like. I was a club rat, so I went to the clubs and stayed out all night and walked home mid-morning as the sun burned my eyes and exacerbated the hangover starting to come on. I was a stripper, so I went to work, got drunk on tequila, snorted coke with the clients, and danced all night without thinking twice about what I was doing because I was hot and I could dance and guys loved me so I was going to shake my ass until I was rolling in money. I was an escort, so I was sexy and in charge and nobody could touch me unless they were willing to pay me what I was worth and I decided I was willing to take them on as a client.

I wasn’t me though. I was Candy, short for Candice. I was a shell of a person. I had no idea who I was. I still don’t. I shut myself out to the world. I stopped thinking about anything I was doing. I became a person entirely different from myself. And I lost myself. I spent 45 days pushing past the barriers and the facades to find the person buried deep beneath the shell.

I’m still trying to find myself. I’m trying to develop myself. I lost who I once was, and I became a different person. But I’m exploring my interests and finding who I am and what I like and what I want. I may still be portraying a facade to my classmates, but to my boyfriend and my family and the people I live with, I am me.