• note: I quit that job.

    Clean yourself up baby, everything's gonna be alright
    I promis I'll protect you, with my whole entire life
    This was said by the house mom, I believed she really loved me
    she said that no other place, would come close to being like
    family. Yet the girls didn't trust each other and the whole place
    you really had to watch for "hustle". Sexually abused as a child
    and raped as a teen, no one was there to be a mom
    to ever say "I love you" or hold me and say I'd be okay.
    I don't remember the begining or the end, it wasn't for the
    money, though a lot of people thought it was, and therefore
    looked down on me.... I already felt dirty on the inside
    so I acted on it from the inside out.I'd kept many secrets, eating disorder
    untill my heart started failing and I had to be inpaitent for a month and a half
    I started cutting untill I ran out of room.
    I needed one more secret, just one....

    When I got on the stage, I wasn't me anymore....
    I started exposing the feeling of false truth, that I was already contaminated, ruined
    so for awhile In my head, I became "worthless whore".
    you know, I don't judge the other girls for what they do. They're fine
    if thats the way they want to live, than that is okay. I don't think of
    them as "whores" or "sluts" at all...I only looked
    down on myself, judged myself... took it upon
    myself to strip for the men who were a lot of times
    much older, getting arise out of a 20 year old. They often broke
    the rules, and did things that were plain disgusting
    and abusive... The house mom kept her promis that if they did
    anything grotesque or out of line...
    she'd kick them right out... but then I realised even though
    she made them leave, it couldnt take back what was
    already done to me.


    I was disgusted with myself, for a long time I wanted to quit...
    but the house mom said she loved me, and I believed every part of it.

    She was a woman who I could pretty much tell anything to.
    But you know what? strippers and girls are a dime-a-dozen.
    when I came in and told them I quit, they just said "okay"
    and didn't even try to make me stay.

    On stage... I became a different girl. I was damn good at dancing.
    I could move like fluid and work the pole like a pro. I don't know
    why it became that way, I didn't like sexual things, yet, when you feel like
    you have a second family, ones who at least pretend to care, you just kind of
    lose yourself, when you already feel "ruined"I can never explain it. someone once shared a quote with me;
    "from the outside looking in, you could never understand...from the inside
    looking out, you could never explain"
    How true this was, yes, it was a choice to be stripper, and yes, there is
    no excuse for me to be there, but to really get to the
    core of what I felt, it's so hard to understand. Even for me.
    For some girls, it is just a way of life. That's fine if they're comfortable with themselves..
    but for a girl like me? it was just emotionally unhealthy.

    Until my counselor told me the value of my worth... that she'd always be there...
    I finally got it. That even though many people find it okay, that it wasn't healing
    at all, and that healing comes from trusting someone like her, who listens
    to the pain, hugs me tight when I cry. She's there, and she said she'll always
    be there, when she retires she'll still stay at my side because then she'll
    be allowed to have contact from the outside.

    I cant thank her enough for how she's been there the past year...
    so I suppose I dedicate this to her, for she's always
    helping me find my worth.