Group homes are not the same as children’s homes
It's still unclear to me whether the explicit content from these books inflated my ego to the point where I felt competent in handling each moment that unfolded before me. To this day, I have no regrets about holding space for others in toxic and uncontrollable situations. After all, what can you or I do when things happen right in front of you at such a young age other than adapt and act? Two heads on problem-solving can sometimes be better than one.
The moment you realized you were a human with a broken thinking pattern.
The ability to collect yourself and get the things you enjoy in order
My human trafficking experience during my modeling trip in Greece
As a naive and groom-worthy model starting at 17 years old, with hardly any support from family or friends, you watch the movies. You intensely observe social gatherings and how attention is gifted to various people. Remember, as a model, you are a muse. A molded piece of clay that anyone should be able to pick up and form you into the structure that they choose to manifest. Always the clay, never the molder. It’s my understanding now of course that allows you to become an innocent docile little dove just waiting to be plucked and shot down for the hunting season. That’s much different than being a vessel of art’s transcendence and eternal form.
"You know Michael is going to have you do that in bikinis, right?"
It was one of my first serious trips in the modeling industry and I thought it was going to help boost my career to a new level. Grooming is an interesting concept to me. You never can fully conceptualize it’s happening to you in the moment. At least not the first time.
“Your family couldn’t help take care of you?”
The clinician can never fully prepare you to what your life will be like with a mother that has “bipolar disorder”. They never tell you that the first slap never loses the sting. The first chase and cower around the house is the reason for why you try and pretend to run away. That you will look to eventually appease your abuser. That, even after the abuse is done, you will gravitate by some force, naturally, like breathing air, to similar people and situations, believing somehow the outcome might be different. You hope and you pray. You pray as though you truly have no control either way in the outcome. It is inevitable what is to happen to you. After all, life has only been happening “to” you for so many years.