Trigger Warning: Depression. Anxiety. Eating Disorders. Self Harm. Probably some other things in there because life.

This is probably one of the most difficult things I’ve shared publicly. Despite my line of work being so “personal” or intimate, I’ve always tried to maintain a separation of my personal life vs. my sex work life. That separation hasn’t been easy and I’m sure it has likely created a distance between my colleagues and I. I know for sure it’s created a distance between my friends and I.

After over a year of my mental anguish building up, sharing my story is important. It’s impacted me. It’s impacted my mental and physical health. It’s impacted my income. It’s impacted those around me.

This is not about the attention. It’s not about needing or wanting sympathy.

It’s about sharing my struggles so that others out there know they aren’t the only ones. It’s about creating a healthier space for myself and other sex workers who are struggling. It’s about self healing.

So. I guess here it goes.

Since moving to Las Vegas, I have self harmed more times than I have in the past 10 years of my life… and in new ways. If I’m being truly honest with myself… it’s been only the last year that it’s gotten so bad. It got worse after moving into the current house where my partner and I live.

I’ve skipped going to my day job when I can afford to do so, because I’m in a constant state of exhaustion. I’ve developed eating disorders of both over eating and just flat out not eating. I’ve forced myself to throw up. I’ve inflicted pain on myself. I’ve inflicted pain on others. I’ve lied to myself, my friends, my partner, my colleagues. I’ve canceled shoots. I’ve emptied my bank account buying things that will never actually make me feel better. I’ve isolated myself from friends. I’ve cheated on my partner. I’ve pushed people away. I’ve kept myself awake over-thinking every detail of every conversation. I’ve been manipulative and self serving. I’ve hit an all time personal record level of anxiety. I’ve contemplated suicide more times than I can count. I’ve kept conversations very surface level to avoid admitting to anyone the problems I’m having. I’ve let myself put up with toxic behavior that I’d normally cut people out of my life over.

I’ve had days, weeks, and months where the only thing keeping me from acting on suicidal thoughts was my cats and my parents. Somedays, the only thing that gets me through the day is the distractions of my vanilla coworkers, shooting with other models, reading to escape reality, or writing. When I’ve wanted nothing more than to lay in bed all day sleeping, crying, and/or petting cats, I’ve forced myself to get up and do whatever it is that I have to do.

Most of the depression and anxiety I’ve been experiencing haven’t had reason or cause. Sometimes, I feel like I can pinpoint what it is.

Moving to Vegas has been both a blessing and a curse. I moved here knowing my partner and only a couple models. No solid friendships. No real support network when I just needed to hang out with people that aren’t my partner. It was (and sometimes still is) extremely lonely. I felt really isolated, as I’m one of those people who needs that physical time together for a friendship. I’ve tried to maintain friendships from a distance, but it’s hard for me. I’ve built some friendships here. I’ve had friends from pretty much all over the country come to visit. But it’s still been extremely hard. My partner travels pretty regularly for their job and so it’s meant days and sometimes weeks spent home alone. I’ve had to develop coping mechanisms to deal with the loneliness when I’m too scared to reach out to local friends. I am extremely glad to not be in Florida any longer. It’s not that I can’t see myself going back, but I don’t really wish to live there again. But I truly miss the friends I have there, probably more than they know… Because I’m fucking awful about being a good friend and I haven’t really been back to visit.

For a while after moving here, I wasn’t working a day job… I had hoped to make it doing just sex work. But I found it so isolating and so damaging to my mental health to feel that lonely, day in and day out, that I just couldn’t do it. So I started working a vanilla job in my field again, only to end up at a company where the woman I shared an office with was a bitter, old white woman who had nothing nice to say. Her racist comments got to me. Her constant judgement over everything got to me. Her inability to say anything nice about anything got to me. I was coming home from work every day so miserable and angry that I had no motivation to do anything. After I found a better company, it helped a lot, but things still weren’t great for my mental health.

The distance from my family has been really hard. I used to think I was close to my parents, but when I met my partner I realized I wasn’t as close as I thought. My brother had his son taken away by CPS after he was arrested for heroin. I’ll never forget the sound of his voice when he called me to tell me. It broke my heart. Regardless of how close I am to my family, the physical distance is hard. I can’t just drive over to visit them. I can’t just call them just because… because in retirement, my parents are somehow more busy than ever. Then, when my brother was rushed to the ER on Father’s Day and everything that followed there with him potentially needing a serious surgery… I felt so awful that I wasn’t there.

When my partner’s mom passed away last year, I knew that things in my relationship were going to get hard. I braced myself for it. It wasn’t the first time I’d dealt with a partner losing their mom. I remembered the mental hell I felt in the weeks and months that followed. The drinking. The arguments over “spilled milk”. The valid arguments that would be intensified by the emotional pain each of us had for different reasons. The inevitability of having to act as an emotional crutch. But, this time was a bit different. Not only has my partner used me as an emotional crutch, I used them for the same. It wouldn’t have been so bad if my mental state wasn’t absolute shit. We were (and sometimes still are) the blind leading the blind. The aftermath of her passing and the impact it’s had on my partner have hit me even worse than the last time I had to deal with something like this. I guess it’s different when you live with someone. He’s not to blame, but he’s not entirely blameless either. The drinking and the arguments that followed have resulted have almost broken us up on multiple occasions. I’ve self harmed after arguments. I’ve slept over at friends’ places to avoid him. If the travel wasn’t enough stress on me and our relationship, the arguments definitely were.

We’ve hosted friends at our house, sometimes for extended periods of time, to help them get back on their feet and/or heal emotionally. Sometimes it drains me and sometimes it invigorates me. Sometimes it’s a needed distraction to be able to help someone else. Sometimes it’s hard for me to help someone else when I can’t even help myself.

I really want to say that I’m seeing a light at the end of a tunnel. I want to believe that so fucking badly. I want to believe that I’ll be happy, that things will get better, that the world will magically improve, that my student loan debt will magically disappear, that the environmental changes happening around the globe will be solved, that drug addictions will no longer be treated like a criminal case, that racism will disappear, that fatphobia will become a thing of the past… and so many other things.

But honestly… it’s fucking hard to believe in any of those things. It’s hard to smile some days. It’s hard to not emotionally dump on people.

Some days are getting easier. I’m trying so hard to make more days easier. I’m trying have routines that I know I can keep. It’s hard. But damnit, I’m fucking trying.

TLDR: Sex workers are not fucking Cybermen. We’re human beings and things may seem like sunshine and unicorns and happiness, but it’s because we’ve trained ourselves to put on a smile and work our asses off even when it’s emotionally killing us. Be kind to sex workers. Be kind to humans. Be kind to animals.