Born in June, 1988 I am the only child of my mother and I have one sister by my father. At the age of two, my parents divorced and my mother and I moved to my hometown where I had been until May 2008. I grew up around mostly just my step father because my father didn't have visitation rights and my mother was a stewardess. My father, as far as I knew, was a heavy alcoholic who used to abuse my mother so I grew up not having much interest in a relationship with him. When I was young, it as always my mother and I - thick as thieves - she was my best friend. Then, when I was 9, my father came into the picture by sending me letters letting me know that it was MY fault he wasn't around and that my mother was a horrible person. Being so young, I couldn't interpret his comments as anything but the truth and believe that's where my low self esteem began. It wasn't until I was about 13 that my dad and I really began working on our relationship, and little did I know he would become my #1 supporter.
After being a stewardess for 26 years, my mother quit her job when I was 12 to be around more during my growing years. This would turn out to be the worse thing she could have done for me. When my mom quit being a stewardess she slipped into a heavy depression and became a very heavy drinker. When she drank hard liquor, she would turn into a completely different person. She would go from her normal, chipper, loving self to a hateful, argumentative bully and I would be stuck having to endure constant belittling, swearing, physical abuse, etc. until my step father would come to my rescue. Luckily, he never condoned the way she would treat me but when it would be just her and I in the house, I had no one to reach out to and no way to escape it. My mom finally quit drinking hard liquor when I was 15 years old, but during the 3 years she did drink our relationship was damaged forever.
During my first year of high school, I was so eager to have a place full of extracurricular activities that could keep me away from my mom but actually ended up only partaking in one because - although I didn't realize it at the time - my self esteem had been ruined to the point I didn't feel comfortable doing anything that would put others in a position to judge me and put me down, since I had to endure that at home. So, I took on cheerleading but only because my best friend from middle school did it with me. Cheering was fun; it was always exciting rehearsing and practicing and being able to show everyone what you had accomplished so I thought it would be a way for my mom to grow to like and appreciate me more. My first cheer season went by with my mom at less than 5 of our games. It did hurt, but not as much as the hurt she was already putting me through so I acted as though I wasn't affected by it and continued to stay strong by doing good in school and sticking to cheering.
My sophomore year of high school was my best. I had lots of friends, I was popular, I was on the Varsity cheerleading squad, I was on the honor roll, and I was beginning to feel more comfortable asserting my independence versus having to endure my mom's constant abuse. Of course things couldn't begin to look up for me without my mom trying to cut me back down to size, so we began to fight a lot more. Verbal altercations would end in fist fights, and to this day some of my most violent physical altercations (and by now, I have been in MANY) occurred between my mom and I. There was one time where I actually had to call the police because she was choking me and wouldn't loosen her grip, and a different time where I had to walk into school late looking like a tornado hit me because we fought in the parking lot of my school. During this year, I began to question my sexuality as well and began dating our star basketball player, Talicia. Things with her didn't last long and because we hadn't gotten TOO close I wasn't phased by it. However, I lost alot of friends because of her and I dating and I was the talk of the school. I then felt like I no longer "belonged" in the one place I would run to in order to escape my home life. Toward the end of my sophomore year, my mom quit drinking. She was so pleasant to be around but my previous memories cause me not to have one ounce of respect for her and I made sure I showed it. I wasn't appreciative of the way she began showering me with gifts, I wouldn't bring my friends around her, and I didn't obey a rule she set. In addition, whatever she would recommend for me, I would make sure I did the exact opposite.
My junior year of high school was my worst, and I was the most depressed I have ever been NEXT to when I tried to commit suicide in college. As I said, my mom began buying me lots of things to make up for the way she HADN'T been there for me, and one of those things was a car. There were a lot of rules with it, but I was glad to be driving and have my own transportation. Around this time, I had found my first love - Cameron - who was also my best guy friend. We had been friends since freshman year and during the beginning of junior year we made things official. Good times with him were great, but bad times were atrocious and with him was when I experienced my first heartbreak. He met a new girl and they lived happily ever after. I began to lose faith in myself - my grades were slipping, my boyfriend was gone, I couldn't tell which friends were real and which weren't - and because I had no real family I felt I could talk to (other than my step father, but I thought he would tell my mom) I decided to quit cheerleading and break all ties with my school, and go where I felt accepted - my new found URBAN friends. My new group consisted of drug dealers, pot heads, gangsters, etc. and the girls were all fighters. Because my mom and I fought all the time, I felt I could definitely fit right in. I began staying out past my curfew, partying, drinking alcohol, and smoking pot. My mom got so fed up with me, she took my car and grounded me. I was pissed, and saw it as her using the car to control me. So the next day when she went to work I skipped school, called my dad and asked him could I move in, and literally moved all my things to his place before my mom got off work. She called my cell phone about a million times begging me to come home but I wouldn't.
During my senior year I realized the grass isn't always greener on the other side because moving in with my dad meant less rules but back to the drama my mom had walked away from in alcohol. Only, my dad was a much heavier drinker and would drink until he blacked out... After cursing me out! I made sure I was hardly ever home and one day my mom asked me again to move back home and I accepted. I really tried to work through things with her, but really to no avail because by the time I went off to college I was ready to rebel against her wishes and rules in any way I could. I attended a Big Ten university that I won't name and ran into some of the most dangerous and scary moments of my life.
My first semester of college I lost my virginity to Mike who I fell in love with senior year. I was head over heels for him and as far as I knew he felt the same about me but as soon as I had sex with him he disappeared. This again upset me so I turned to partying to get my mind off him. My best friends in college were my partners in crime, and one of them had gotten to know the football team during the summer because she was an athlete and introduced me to everyone. I felt like these guys were my friends and that I fit right in, so whenever they would party I would party. Because they had groupies who did their homework, partying constantly wasn't a problem and I figured I could juggle both but soon was overcome by the alcohol. I got to a point where I would literally be drunk for days straight, I would go to class drunk, I would drink in the morning, I would drink before bed... I literally couldn't function without alcohol. Crazy thing is, you would think after watching my parents go through alcoholism I would know better but for some reason it didn't happen that way. I was in denial about having a problem and saw it as me partying like college students do. So when I came out with a 1.46 GPA, zero friends, a terrible reputation, and after losing my job I decided college wasn't for me. Instead of realizing the alcohol had changed me, I thought I was just a bad person and became really depressed.
I moved back home, but that didn't last for long because my mom and I constantly fought so I found a job and moved back into my apartment on the U of M campus since I didn't want to break my lease and my scholarships had already paid for it. I fell back into partying because of my surroundings. My lease ended, and I moved back home again. Again, it didn't last long and I got kicked out and moved in with a friend I was then working with. She was heavily into cocaine and ecstacy, so it wasn't before long that I was constantly without money because of drugs, missing work because of drugs, and slowly but surely losing everything I had. She ended up getting evicted from her place because literally every dime we had went to drugs, so I moved back to my mom's. We were Everything was going well, and I had even found a new boyfriend - Adam. In a nutshell, he was my dream guy and I thought we would be together forever... Until I found out about his girlfriend of 2 years who wasn't out of the picture like he told me she was. This brought me down and I became extremely bitter and couldn't get along with anyone. Not my mom, not my co-workers, no one. So I got kicked out because one day I called my mom a "cunt" and I was back to my dad's. After a few months at my dad's, my mom begged me to move home again (she always misses me AFTER mistreating me, and I always fall for it because... Well... She's "my mom.").
I stayed with her for a couple months and one night went out with some friends. I got entirely too drunk and literally my whole life played before me like a movie, and I decided it was time to accept the fact that I had been defeated and quit playing such a vicious game. My friend Jason and I left the party we were at, I ditched him (at 4AM in below zero weather), threw my phone in the snow, and decided I would walk. I had no destination in mind, but I knew I wanted to get away... From everything... Soon Jason found me, forced me into the car, called my mom, and brought me home. I decided I would overdose on pills so I could leave but without pain but my mom caught me and her and I fought, I set her couch on fire, and she called the police who picked me up. I was a total bitch to the police and when I got downtown, to my surprise I was being placed in a holding cell but in the wing for people with psychiatric issues. This was the first time I looked at myself and realized how much of a wreck I had become. I was released the next day but was then admitted for 3 weeks to the psych ward of a hospital where I had to undergo intense mental rehab. I will say it helped me A LOT!
After being released, I returned to my job but was ready to move on with life... Get my own place, a car, go back to school, etc. Around the same time I was contacted by a recruiter for a adult management agency in South Florida who had seen my photos and was interested in working with me. In all honesty, a flashy life has always appealed to me and the money sounded good so I quit my job and flew to Florida the next morning...
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