by Symbol

I want to preface this by saying I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a guy with a reasonable amount of life experience, who took a few psychology courses in university, and who talks to a lot of people about their problems and their stories. If you have some sort of psychological condition you should absolutely seek professional help, not just look for advice in an online article.

I read somewhere once that children who grow up in households full of domestic violence are often, themselves, prone to being violent as adults. I suppose it varies from person to person, and I’m guessing there has to be a great deal of the nature/nurture argument at play there too (would you have been violent anyway?).

I grew up in a house full of violence; you couldn’t ask for a better poster boy for how untrue the violence begets violence theory is.

Well, At least in my case.

My mother had what you might call a “casual drug problem” to the point where she did so many drugs I’d often be neglected – that was the happiest of scenarios. Her chosen lifestyle meant she had equally bad taste in men, the kind who’d hit her if she did something to upset them, or me if I was in reach. I can count the number of cigarette burn scars that dot my skin like way-point markers, each one a debt I owe to her one boyfriend — let’s call him “Paul.”

Paul was one of the most unintelligent people I’ve ever encountered (and that says a lot); when my mother finally ended things with him the driveling note he sent her was child-like, terribly written and embarrassing enough to make a 4 year old turn their nose up at the spelling and grammar.

I’m sure, somewhere, I have an equal number of tiny scars from BB injuries – shooting at me (or our dog) with his air pistol was one of his favorite pastimes. In retrospect I know now that he was just using her for sex, drugs and money, but I’ll never understand why my mother couldn’t see that too…

All things considered I was a pretty happy-go-lucky child. Shit just seemed to flock to me, like some sort of bad mojo magnet. I had a beautiful black and white tom cat for as long as I can remember. His name was Rasputin, and I loved him as much as I knew how. Unfortunately he lived up to his name sake; I’ll never forget the day my mother came home and told me he was dead. He’d been kicked to death, for fun, by skinheads – and when the owner of the local Chinese restaurant came running out to stop them (he was a family friend) they hospitalized him too.

The next pet we got was a long-haired King Sheppard. The dog had been police trained, but had been thrown out of the police service for being too docile – when they’d give it the attack command he would bark, knock the person down then lay on top of them and clean their face. Not very good for catching criminals, but the bond I had with that animal was out of this world. This dog was so large that I’d ride it around the house – up the stairs, down the stairs; I’d fall asleep straddling his back in front of the TV, and he’d carry me to bed.

We’d named him “Chuck” because he’d been chucked out of the police force –Chuck was incredibly loyal to me. The abuse at Paul’s hands let up once Chuck arrived on the scene, mostly because he’d freak out if the son of a bitch tried to hit me. But when he was really angry he’d just take the dog outside and chain it up in the yard, then he could dispense beatings at his leisure.

I’m pretty sure this would have gone on indefinitely except one day (as socio-paths will do) he went too far. A combination of events made it impossible for him to hide his depravity from the other watchful people in my life. He started the day off with a bang, literally – pushing my mother, backwards, down two flights of stairs. She survived, but 32 years later she still has lasting knee, back and neck injuries. Ironically the only thing that saved her was that she was probably stoned.

Needless to say the sight of seeing your mother thrown down forty-odd stairs is distressing to a six year old, and like any small child would do, I cried. I’m guessing he was in a particularly bad mood that day because his reaction to my crying was particularly excessive, even for him.

My mother had been heating up her hair curlers in the living room; she had the old plug in kind that sat on metal rods and one by one you’d pull them off and put them into your hair. I’d been left sitting on the couch, and when I started to cry he stormed into the room, kicked over the curlers (spilling them all onto the floor) and with a strong hand shoved me off the couch.

I landed, back first, on the exposed heated rods.

Burns of that severity, combined with a mother who is so injured she can’t go to work, are bound to get attention – and for him, it got the worst kind. My grandmother came by the house to find out why my mother hadn’t been at work and to pick me up (by this point she was, thankfully, my primary care giver) the scene she encountered made her go through the roof.

Now my grandmother wasn’t anything like my mother…If anything, she’s the singular role model in my family that made me the person I am today. My grandmother served as an officer of the courts in the UK and was a polar opposite to my mother – she took me from that place and I don’t remember ever going back. The last I heard of that place, he was still living there but he’d had my dog put down (the dog had attacked him when he hurt me). I guess he was lashing out the only way he knew how.

This wasn’t the last abusive man that my mother would bring into our house; I suppose I should be thankful that they were only ever physically violent. When I got old enough I’d antagonize them specifically, redirecting their anger to me instead of at my mum. I’d do this any time I thought she was about to get hit. When you’re 9 or 10 years old “being mouthy” seems to come naturally, and it wasn’t a difficult task to get these full grown “men” to unhinge in my directly instead of hers. This is the start of what would ultimately be the long-term White Knight complex I struggled with for many years. To this day, there is no single easier way to make me angry or violent than to raise your hand against women or children (or animals).

With all that in consideration, I’m one of the gentlest people I know. The aversion I have to violence comes in all forms, much to the lament of a few lovers I’ve had in the past. I’ve dated women who have expressed interest in being choked, strangled or who wanted to engage in “role play” that involved violent scenarios. I’m incredibly not cool with that, it actually makes me physically sick – bringing up all sorts of buried memories that I don’t want to explore (things like the smell of my own flesh burning).

It also leads to me having a strong intolerance for “mainstream” pornographic films, the kind that are nothing but degradation and objectification personified. I’m especially put off by “torture porn”, and what most people would call “fetplay”. I have no desire to see someone tied up, choking, bound or otherwise hurt. There’s nothing sexy or tantalizing about that to me. If that’s your bag, well that’s entirely up to you – but I’m really upfront about that, and I think that’s the only respectful way to handle it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I have a strong intolerance (hatred, in fact) towards drugs (including cigarettes) – they’ve been a constant negative aspect in my life; not only leading to my own physical abuse, but the death of Scott, my surrogate older brother: Scott was killed when, during a mountain climbing trip in Western Canada, his group’s guide decided it was okay to get high and then proceeded to lead his group onto a trail that was frozen over – the entire group fell to their deaths, except for the stoned guide who survived.

An ex of mine kept a LiveJournal profile in which she would chronicle, in great detail, the ways in which she’d been sexually exploited and/or tortured. She was addicted to heroin, and would let people use and abuse her in exchange for the drug she so badly craved. I pushed her to the point where she had to make a choice between the drug or me, and she chose the drug.

She was absolutely driven to that lifestyle, but reading her journal (which was a huge mistake) made me physically ill and I was never able to look at her the same way again. I ran into her a couple of years ago and we’re both very different people now (she’s got a kid and is on her second marriage) but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but remember all the “terrible” things she’d solicited, or let, other people to do to her.

The “White Knight” syndrome, like any other psychological classification, is something that some people live with their entire lives without really knowing it. Many people, myself included, mistakenly believe that their upbringing was just “proper” and that they don’t have any issues they need to deal with in this regard. This simply isn’t the case, it’s a damaging cycle and it’s something that, if it goes unchecked, can lead to a life of problems and self-destruction.

If you perpetually find yourself attracted to people you perceive as needing to be “helped,” “fixed” or “saved,” this is a warning sign. Aside from being incredibly insulting to many people, it’s also a sign that you have just as much as problem as the person you perceive having the issues. People don’t need saving, and if they do – they need to learn to ask you for themselves. Projecting your need to “rescue” or “heal” other people is a dangerous path to start down, and once you do it can become a major aspect of your life.

It’s not a reasonable mental state to find yourself in, really… having this deep-seated need to right all the wrongs and injustices towards women across the world – I mean I’ve reigned it back in significantly over the years, but it’s resulted in me ending up in relationships with heroin users and alcoholics, in some vain attempt to “help” them. I guess the most important lessons I’ve learned, at least for me, are:

1. You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped; and it’s insulting to assume otherwise.

2. Never, ever, ask your partner about their exes; unless you can categorically accept whatever they tell you – and deal with it. They’re exes for a reason.

If you, or someone you know, suffer from a similar psychological predisposition, they might find this book helpful (or you might) in trying to figure out what makes them act the way they do: The White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself from Your Need to Rescue Others.

Related Posts
A Guy’s Perspective: Good Friends Are Hard To Come By (Especially After 30)
A Guy’s Perspective: Falling in Love (And Other Deadly Sins)

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Jaeci

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I have fallen in love with my best guy friend. When it started, I didn’t even realize it since I was with my ex-boyfriend. I broke up with the ex five months ago after being with him for over two years because he made me feel bad about myself and guilty for all the things that went wrong in our relationship. He didn’t even take care of me when I started to get drunk on my 21st birthday! Instead, my best friend did, while the ex got drunk and more upset that he didn’t step up. It only took me the weekend to get over him because I fell out of love with him six months before.

Thank you for your time. I love you girls!

A: The short answer: You are going to bring your own sleeping bag or blankets and you are not going to insist on spooning him. It shouldn’t matter that the friends you are going with are a couple –– there are two of you, platonic or romantic, so no one is a third wheel. You’ll have a great time. If something happens, so be it. If not –– c’est la vie.

The long answer: When he apologized for trying to be with you then cutting it short for friendship’s sake, did he say he was sorry because he didn’t want to be with you in the first place/led you on, or did he say he was sorry because he was too concerned about the preservation of your friendship to stay with you? Did he give you any indication of his motivation?

Sometimes, best friends precisely the people you can’t date, even if they seem like exactly who you wish you could. One of my best gals tried dating her bff. They had a magical connection at first because of how intense their relationship had always been, how close they feel, how much they have been through, how he knows her inside and out. The sex was apparently awesome. But, despite everything, she too was friend-zoned. They ultimately parted ways, albeit after much more of a lengthy and heart-wrenching game.

Reality bites, eh.

When someone says, “You’re in my friend zone” for them it generally means, uh, “You’re in my friend zone.” It usually doesn’t mean, “I’m secretly in love with you –– no, really!” Strong feelings of any kind are easy to get lost in. Everything seems more intense when you love someone –– even if you aren’t in love with them. You can definitely mistake platonic love and a surprising, but probably fleeting, physical attraction for “OH MY GOD WEDDING BELLLLSSSS!” Maybe he felt a little spark, you showed you wanted him, it seemed like a great idea until it was totally not a great idea. Also, not everyone associates sex with love and the physical connection you may have had in that month you were together does not necessarily have anything to do with romantic affection.

Please be careful not to project your feelings onto him. It’s easy to see only what you want to see. To me, it sounds a lot like he cares, and not so much like he wants to be with you. Don’t get crushed by deciding you ought to be together when it isn’t what both people want.

If there’s no click this weekend – and don’t spend the whole camping trip waiting for it, wanting it, expecting it, or asking for it – set your sights elsewhere and put him back in the friend zone he has for so long inhabited. Don’t set yourself up for heartbreak. There are plenty of people out there who would love you to be in their girlfriend zone and he can, hopefully, go back to being the best buddy that he was before.

Xx

Auntie Jaeci

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by Darrah de jour

Rachel Uchitel is famous for being infamous. She starred on Dr. Drew’s riotous reality show Celebrity Rehab, on which she spoke candidly about her destructive tendencies as a love addict with a proclivity toward various pills. In the past, she worked as Director of VIP Operations at Las Vegas’s hottest night club Tao. There, she caroused with the ultra-rich and mega-famous. Among her indiscretions were affairs with two elite married men: golf phenom Tiger Woods and Bones star David Boreanaz.

Before Uchitel’s name rocked headlines and Elin Woods’ marriage, Rachel lost the two most important men in her life. Her fiancé died at the hands of terrorists in the 9/11 attacks, and her father died of a cocaine overdose when Uchitel was just fifteen.

She’s been a media favorite. And by that, we mean, she’s a tabloid celebrity that people love to denigrate. A peek at some of the comment boards below any story about Uchitel reveal the general public’s scapegoating of the “other woman” as a bewitching siren that should carry the cross and absolve the cheating man of all responsibility.

Case in point, while Joy Behar of The View was busy apologizing for calling Uchitel a “hooker” on-air, newspapers around the country were swinging wildly in defense of Woods, with headlines like “Tiger Doesn’t Owe Us An Explanation.” In an exclusive interview, we asked Rachel about surviving that double standard, how her reincarnation as a wife and mother has changed her, and if Dr. Drew really is the rehab king.

Darrah de jour: Congratulations on your daughter, Wyatt. How has motherhood changed you?

Rachel Uchitel: Motherhood has changed everything about me. First and foremost, you find that you become all about somebody else. People talk about unconditional love. It’s the first time I’d really experienced that and really knew what that meant. I put her before me in every circumstance. I’ve never truly felt like that before. I’ve never loved anything as much. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I just feel so lucky. I can’t believe that I waited this long to have a child. Had I known what it was like to have a kid of my own, I absolutely would have tried to have a child earlier in my life. Now, I’m thirty-seven years old and I want so many more! I don’t have all the years ahead of me to just pop out kids when I want. I just love being a mother.

Ddj: How was your pregnancy?

RU: I tried to be really healthy during my pregnancy. I worked out almost every day, doing Pilates and water aerobics. I did Zumba up until my eighth month. A lot of walking. Walking is prevalent here in San Francisco, so I did a lot of that. I didn’t have any weird cravings or overindulgent cravings, so it wasn’t difficult for me to not over-consume.

Ddj: You’re always pretty much in shape. You have a great figure.

RU: I try to. Again, I’m thirty-seven years old and I’ve always lived in a world where I’m competing with girls that are twenty-three in some way, shape or form. Living in Las Vegas when I ran night clubs, I was always the only girl there that wasn’t half-naked. Most girls there are waitresses or dancers or whatever, and as a female you always want to look your best. I felt like I had to stack up against these gorgeous, fit young girls. So I was always conscious of trying to hit the gym as much as I could because I had a decade gap between me and them. And it always kept me trying to be better than I would, because I had them to look up to. The girls in Vegas have a high standard for fitness and looking good.

Ddj: Speaking of that, it was reported in 2010 that you were going to pose for Playboy. Is that still in the works?

RU: No. I was in talks with Playboy to do a shoot with them. I’m not in talks to work with them anymore. I was honored that we were even in talks. A lot of people have different things to say about Playboy, and the girls that are in Playboy, but listen — as a girl that’s being offered to be in Playboy, it’s definitely an honor. Whatever anybody else says about the person and the choice that they make about doing it, I felt very honored. At one point we did have a signed contract and I did back out, actually, last minute.

Ddj: I noticed online that you applied for a detective license. I joke with my friends that women are more intuitive and conscientious at detective work than the CIA. Are you still pursuing that or are you trying your hand at another career choice?

RU: I’m in a tough predicament. I’m right in the middle of it as you and I are speaking. In the last week, I’ve been having a kind of crisis about this. I love to work. I have a strong work ethic. I’ve had a lot of amazing jobs that people may or may not know about me. I used to be a television producer for Bloomberg News for many years. Loved my job, I was really good at it, loved the news and I’m a hard worker. I love to be challenged in that way. Now that I’m five-months into being a mother, I do want to go to work in some way. I want to have a hobby, and a steady income coming in, so I can contribute to the household. It’s very difficult for me to get a normal job because my name proceeds me still. I have no desire to go work in a night club anymore. I’d love to go back into what I was doing, which was news. Local news. I’m not interested in entertainment news, quite honestly. My favorite shows are on HLN: Jane Velez-Mitchell or Nancy Grace. I’d love to be a producer; I mean, I’m not talking about on-air. I love writing for that, I love researching stories. You need somebody that believes in you and gives you a chance, and overlooks stuff that they may or may not know about you.

Ddj: You starred on Season 4 of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. He reportedly paid you a personal visit to convince you to join the cast. What made you decide to allow cameras in on your recovery experience?

RU: That’s actually not true. I requested that. I didn’t believe in the Celebrity Rehab brand. I thought it was just a TV show. I said no for a good two weeks about being on the show. Finally, I said, ‘Listen if Dr. Drew and John Irwin [Executive Producer of Celebrity Rehab] will come meet me for a few minutes, then I’ll make a decision based on that.’ They both came. It was very odd. The second I sat down and looked at Dr. Drew I was in tears and I knew he could help me. I wanted someone to hear me and understand me. I immediately felt that with him. He had me at that meeting. I wanted to be in his presence and have him heal me, so to speak. I was so lonely and miserable.

Ddj: Dr. Drew seems to take on the role of doctor, father figure and friend to his patients on the show. What do you think makes Dr. Drew so effective in relating with his patients?

RU: I think that underneath everything he’s a little bit of a co-dependent. It’s such a great quality that he has. When he looks at you, he looks at you. He sees you and he hears you. That’s such an amazing quality for someone that’s so well known and so busy and someone that everyone wants a piece of. So when that type of person looks at you and hears you and wants to help you, that is a very attractive quality. He’s a genuine guy. I’ve seen people give him a hard time. [They say] you’re just a TV doctor, you’re not a real doctor. They’ve never been in his presence and they’ve never been treated by him. After the show, he treated me for almost half a year later until I moved away — that’s the only reason it stopped. He would come and meet me for an hour to two hours once a week, on his own time, without getting paid. Recently, I had a friend whose mother was struggling with food addiction. He took the time to write a long email about the different hospitals that would take inpatient treatment, how serious it was, and long story short, her mother went to one of these places and was there for two months.

Ddj: One part of Celebrity Rehab that is controversial is that Dr. Drew brings in people that are active in their addictions and he gets them on film. Do you think that the reality show aspect of Celebrity Rehab is a conflict of interest to the sanctity of the recovery process?

RU: No. Let me explain something to you. Whatever it takes an addict to get help is what it takes…My addiction wasn’t life threatening. It wasn’t like I was doing meth on the street corner, and was about to die. So, forget me for a second. But, some of the cast members on shows like this are serious heroin addicts, meth addicts, alcoholics, whatever their choice may be. Yes, they’re being paid, yes they’re hoping their career will be resurrected, but you can’t help but deal with your problems when you’re there. Yes, there’s cameras in your face, yes there are cameras in every corner of the room, yes, I think some people tend to overreact or act out in front of the camera… but at the end of the day, there’s no denying the help that you get when you’re there. I can attest to the seven people that were there with me, that the moment we left, we were all in amazing places. Those people who had suffered for so long — at that moment, were, what I would call healed. They were off drugs for thirty days, they were happy to be with friends, they were clean, they were sober, they had all of the tools they needed.

There’s a backlash because of a couple people who have died that have been on the show. It only brings to light those people and their addictions because they’d been on the show. They’re addicts! It’s not Dr. Drew’s responsibility to take the drug out of their hand once they leave treatment. I don’t understand why people say that they’re being exploited. The chance they got by being on Celebrity Rehab was a chance to save their life. They chose to take that chance.

Ddj: You’ve been involved in two high profile relationships with married men. Without asking you to recount any personal details, I wonder if you feel that our society places the burden on the “other woman” more so than the cheating man in those types of relationships?

[Writer’s Note: Rachel Uchitel would not comment on any questions related to Tiger Woods. She admitted that she had a relationship with David Boreanaz when he was married and has had relationships with married men. None of her answers reflect her experience with Woods.]

RU: My opinion on that is… Listen, it’s a very touchy subject for people. Adultery and cheating. It’s no fun to be the other woman, that’s for sure. And I’m not even talking about in celebrity status, I’m talking about in everyday life. It happens a lot in everyday life with everyday people. You don’t have to be on the cover of a newspaper to be in some scandal. It’s tough because I feel like the man does not take any responsibility. Let’s remember, for the most part, the man is the one making it OK in some way. I don’t know about other people’s situation, but in my situation with David. He was very clear to make it OK and to say that he did not have a relationship with his wife. And I chose to believe that. Now, I’m a smart girl. I didn’t necessarily believe that that was the truth and I also didn’t want to push it and ask any questions because I was happy in the situation I was in with him. I spent a lot of time with him, traveled with him. If he wasn’t somebody that was in the newspaper, I would have assumed that I was in a monogamous relationship with him because I don’t know how he would have time to go home and be with someone else. So I let it go. I believed what he was saying. And that’s a very stupid, very ignorant thing for me to have done. But I didn’t want to know the alternative.

Ddj: Denial is a really powerful thing. Were you in love with him?

RU: I thought I was. And I thought he was with me… I do think that sometimes [an affair] will rip your marriage apart and sometimes it strengthens your resolve and who you want to be with and what you want to do… The girl comes out as a home wrecker and a slut and a whore, and that was definitely not my relationship with him.

Ddj: There’s a general forgiveness with regard to the man. I’m not trying to pin boys against girls, but it’s like, “Maybe she seduced him, he was overcome…”

RU: The woman is always the temptress, the seductress, the person that lures the man into this awful thing and the man is helpless and weak in the knees and can be forgiven. That’s the way that I see it and read it when it’s written about anyone. The other woman is made out to be this cartoon character of the most threatening, seductive woman you can imagine who would steal your husband or your boyfriend away. And that’s sometimes not the case. Sometimes the husband just isn’t getting what he needs. Regardless of if it’s at home or not. Sometimes it’s an issue within the man himself and he finds it in other ways, shapes or forms and unfortunately sometimes that’s by cheating on his wife. It doesn’t really matter half the time what the woman looks like; it’s the connection and the chemistry and quite honestly it’s how she makes him feel that for some reason, he’s not feeling like that.

Ddj: I’m not sure if you’ve read the book Love Junkie by Rachel Resnick. It chronicles the tumultuous relationships had between the narrator and her sex-addicted partners. As a love addict, prior to treatment, were you attracted to sex addicts?

RU: Yes and no. I don’t really look at it that way. A sex addict to me is very different from a love addict. A sex addict has no connection with the person they’re having sex with, and for a love addict, it’s all about that emotional connection. And leaning on that person. For me, it’s two totally separate issues. I have been with people that were also love addicts. The people that I’ve been with are mostly addicted to that connection, that you’re codependent on each other.

Ddj: Sometimes a love addict is attracted to an aloof, unavailable person and they’re trying to extract emotion out of them. And the sex addict needs that person to be dependent on them and shuts them out. But, that wasn’t your experience?

RU: No. My definition of a love addict is that I mistook intensity for intimacy. So all this up and down and craziness and crazy things happening, that to me was mistaken for love. Another love addict also being crazy up and down with me and professing our love to each other and ignoring red flags and saying ‘This is the best person I’ve ever been with!’ Somebody that’s obsessed with the notion of being in love and you kind of forget who you’re in a relationship with. It doesn’t even matter. You’re just going on this whirlwind love fest. You could replace that person with anybody. Doesn’t matter who. Just as long as there’s somebody filling the seat.

Ddj: How have your relationships changed since getting treatment for love addiction?

RU: I attribute being on Celebrity Rehab for meeting my husband. Matt is somebody I would never have chosen to be with before. I always looked for people who had red flags that he doesn’t have. He’s a man with totally different qualities than anyone I’ve been with before and a different demeanor. Those are the reasons why we’re in a happy, productive marriage. Dr. Drew used to say I had a ‘bad picker’. He says, he adjusted my picker, so I could pick the right one. He also said not to date anybody for six months after rehab and to be careful who I jump into a relationship with and beware of the red flags and go slow. The first thing that I dropped was a type. I stopped saying, ‘This is who I want to be with, this is who I’m looking for.’ I let it happen with who it happened with. Matt is ten years younger than me. I’ve never dated somebody younger. But, I gave him a chance, and I’m very lucky I did.

Ddj: How did you meet your husband, Matt Hahn?

RU: We met on Facebook. He saw an episode of Celebrity Rehab and thought I was funny and I was friends of a friend of his. He sent me an email saying I made him laugh and he thought I seemed like a genuine person and he’d love to take me out for coffee.

Ddj: You must get letters like that a lot. What set his apart?

RU: I’m not sure. Normally I don’t go on Facebook. I looked at his pictures and most of them were him with his sister and his brothers — as opposed to the typical douche bags popping bottles of champagne over half-naked girls. Those were the guys I was used to going out with! Not that there’s anything wrong with those guys, but that’s who I’d ended up with before. Matt looked like a nice, normal guy. We started talking, and that was that.

Ddj: I’m so sorry about your fiancé losing his life on 9/11. What was the number one thing that worked as a salve in your grieving process?

RU: You can never get over something like that. It was such a horrific thing. Time definitely heals. Every year was a different level of healing. Ten years ago my healing was a lot different than two years ago. I thought that I was done and was over it and had closure many years ago, but I didn’t. When I went on the show with Dr. Drew, he came to New York with me and we put a letter into the water and I did something physically to have closure. On our anniversary, I went to Ground Zero and said my goodbye and that was it for me. It was a culmination of many things over the years and learning from the experience and my behavior and the loss. I had to stop living in the what-if. May 4th would pass and I would say ‘This is the date I was supposed to marry Andy.’ I was missing out on my own present by not being in the moment. That was the biggest lesson that I learned over time. Bottom line is it’s over — he’s not coming back. I had to stop dwelling in the pain surrounding that and grow from it.

Ddj: You gave an interview to Page Six, where you said, “My mother was never around; I was raised by housekeepers. I’ve basically been alone my entire life. I was put in the right settings, but I never had someone teaching me.” Do you feel like you’ve finally gained independence and wholeness as a woman?

RU: I’ve always been independent, I can say that. But I always felt alone. I can be in a room full of people and feel alone. It’s something that I suffer from. Because I didn’t grow up with a family. My whole goal in life was to have my own family, and now I have that. I have my own daughter, I have a husband. I do work on trying to remind myself that I can let people in.

Ddj: Do you stay in touch with Janice Dickinson, Leif Garrett or any of the other stars you were in rehab with?

RU: I was just in LA and Jeremy London and Leif came over. I don’t talk to Eric Roberts that much, but I talk to his wife. His son, who he was reunited with on the show, I’m a big fan of his work. I go to Keaton’s concerts a lot when Keaton comes to town. After I had my baby, I called Janice to let her know and to bury the hatchet because we had some problems on the show.

Ddj: You entered into Celebrity Rehab with an addiction to pharmaceuticals. Is that still something you struggle with?

RU: I was on anti-depressants then, and I was taking a lot of Ambien and Klonopin and Xanax and I haven’t taken one pill since I left Celebrity Rehab.

Darrah is a freelance journalist and consultant, with a focus on sensuality, environmentalism, and fearless women in the media. She appears as a “Woman on the Street” on The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet and has contributed to The Conversation website. Her lifestyle writing and celebrity interviews have appeared in Marie Claire, Esquire and W, among others. She contributes author and filmmaker interviews to The Rumpus, Hollywood Today. Her dating confessions have appeared in GirlieGirl Army and xoJane. Darrah’s “Red, White and Femme” columns for SuicideGirls takes a fresh look at females in America – investigating issues like gender, bisexuality, sex work, motherhood and more. Darrah lives in LA with her doggie Oscar Wilde. Her passions include youth mentorship, horses, painting and singing. Subscribe to her blog at Darrahdejour.com/, and friend her on Facebook.

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by SG’s Team Agony feat. Lexie

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I can’t seem to make the leap from friend-zone to boyfriend-zone. Everyone I ask advise from says “just be yourself.” I be myself and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. Is it that girls just don’t want me?

A: Oh, boy. The dreaded friend-zone! First off, sure being yourself can work, but only to a certain degree. It can be a terribly slippery slope to make that climb from just friends to something more. Get the wrong footing off the bat and you’re a goner for sure.

You have to remember one important fact, not everyone is going to be in to you the way you are into them. Some people you’re just destined to be friends with. If I could give you a few pointers on trying to stay out of that zone, they’d be this.

Don’t be too nice/accommodating/helpful. If there’s one thing that screams friendship to me it’s having someone all too eager to lend a hand. This applies mainly at the start of building something, once you’ve moved into almost boyfriend-zone, crank up the helpful/sweet notch. Just make sure it’s not too soon or she’ll rely on you for little things and see you as that guy friend that’s so helpful. Be a little aloof/hard to reach. The more you step back the more she’ll want you.

Treat her well but know when not to push it. Take her out to a nice dinner, movie, concert, but afterwards send her on her way. Even though you want to take her to your place and bend her over that futon, don’t push it. Remember the whole hard to reach aspect? Play it up.

Don’t be whiney or complain. Nothing says unattractive like a whiney person. Especially if you throw in desperate and needy, you’ll automatically get thrown into the no boyfriend-zone.

Have something in common with her – I know this seems like a given, but I think it’s really overlooked. I get it, you want that hot bartender at your local bar, but if you just want to talk about Skyrim and the new Batman movie when clearly her eyes are glazing over, it might not work. When someone talks to me about things I have no real interest in, I tend to get instantly turned off.

Hopefully some of these pointers will get you in the right direction. Be yourself, and apply these and it might get you somewhere.

Lexie

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by Laurie Penny a.k.a. @PennyRed

In the forty-eight hours since I landed in the United States, flying into storm-torn Brooklyn just days after a bunch of cars floated down Wall Street, nobody has mentioned the election to me once. You know, the presidential election, the one that’s happening in – what is it, three days? Right now, New Yorkers have more important things on their minds.

Access to food, fuel and electricity, for a start. People who do have these things are opening up their homes to friends and strangers who don’t. Across the city, volunteers are packing cars and heading to the disaster zones of Red Hook and the Rockaway, as well as to Staten Island, the borough worst hit when Hurricane Sandy battered through to flatten homes and devastate lives.

Like I said, nobody’s talking about the election. The island I always privately think of as Starship Manhattan spent days cut off from the rest of New York state, all of the lights out for days under 34th street, basements choked with brackish water, old people stranded in their homes. There’s an actual crisis taking place: houses have been destroyed, lives lost. The eighteen-month media circus that passes for representative politics in this country seems worlds away from the women in Staten Island weeping in front of the remains of their family homes on the nightly news.

With it being practically impossible for anyone without a car and a full tank of fuel to cross the city, I’ve just come back from volunteering down the street at the Williamsburg Church emergency blood drive. Right now New York is in a blood crisis. When the hospitals were evacuated during the storm, there was no time to collect the blood left in storage banks when the power went out, and by the time they got everyone to safety, that blood had rotted. Now they need new blood desperately.

When me and my friend Veronica Varlow went down to the Church to open our veins for the cause, I was told that my tangy British blood was not acceptable because I might be riddled with mad cow disease (this from people who haven’t even read my Twitter feed). They did, however, need volunteers to help shepherd those donors who were waiting patiently in line for up to three hours to hand over pints of superior all-American hemoglobin. So, I pinned on a badge and spent a few hours buzzing around filling out forms for people, cleaning tables and chairs, handing out snacks and tea and generally making myself useful. Even doing something so small to help the people helping to rebuild the city felt powerful.

Blood: when disasters happen, I’m always struck by the readiness with which people queue up to restock the banks of blood, platelets, and plasma. In the days after September 11, 2001, the donation centers had to start turning people away, and indeed, here at the Williamsburg Church we’re doing the same thing; with the donation line already thirty people deep, we’re running around with sign-up sheets where eager donors can leave their name and number in case we need more blood tomorrow.

There’s something so tender about that impulse. Sure, it says, we could raise money or go and help pump water out of basements in the Lower East Side, but wouldn’t it be simpler just to give you this part of my own body that was pumping in my heart five minutes ago? I’m pretty sure that if the New York blood centre were to put the call out tomorrow asking people to donate a pound of flesh cut from the chest closest to the heart because someone stranded on Staten Island needs it, there’d be plenty of volunteers, and not all of them would be kinky Shakespeare fetishists.

When there’s a crisis on, people want to help. Running around with the snack basket I was reminded of the floods of volunteers who gave their time, money and expertise to the Occupy camps last year. Practical anarchism. Everyone so keen to do whatever they could to help. Not just the kids from all over the country who kicked in their lives to sleep in the cold and be arrested multiple times in the name of a better future, but the shop owners who shipped out their spare produce. The trained nurses who turned up to administer basic medical care to those who had none. The parents who donated freshly-baked pies and soups to the kitchens. The librarians and academics who created an enormous library that, almost a year ago, I watched the NYPD rip apart and hurl into dumpster trucks, just because it was messing up their nice clean corporate dead-zone.

It’s no accident that the original Occupy Wall Street organizers were among the first to set up and co-ordinate volunteering efforts across New York. The group, which has drifted in recent months, immediately set about organizing teams and transportation to the worst-hit areas. The Zuccotti Park protest camp which was evicted last November and the enormous post-Sandy volunteer effort going on this week are different expressions of the same thing: overwhelming human response to crisis.

Crisis is what people in the United States have been living with for at least four years. Active emergency, turning people out of their homes and into the cold, destroying lives. It’s not crass to compare a climate disaster to a juddering crisis of capitalism, because the two are connected, not least because those most responsible are also those most likely to be snugly tucked away in gated compounds shrugging their shoulders when the storm hits. Like the crash, Hurricane Sandy hit the poorest hardest, smashing through Staten Island and Rockaway while the lights stayed on on the Upper East Side.

Nobody expected it to be quite this bad. Last year’s Hurricane Irene was bearable for most. But what I’m seeing here, at least in Brooklyn where I’ve been stuck for two days, is a city coming out of a six-month paralysis: finally, there’s a concrete task that people can put their hands to.

Sarah Jaffe’s brilliant piece at Jacobin draws attention to Rebecca Solnit’s work on the communities that arise in disaster zones:

“There’s a particular opportunity for mutual aid in the void in the aftermath of disaster, particularly in a neoliberal state whose safety net has been shredded, where the state simply isn’t there and people step up to take care of each other (not “themselves” as our libertarian friends would have it, and not the rich handing out charity as Mitt Romney wants you to believe, but communities in solidarity). The idea of mutual aid was at the foundation of Occupy as much as the much-debated horizontalism and the opposition to the banks.”

Volunteerism, of course, can be regressive as well as radical. I am reminded of those “broom armies” in London in the middle of the August riots last year; the sea of white, middle-class faces holding up brooms they’d brought to unfamiliar areas of the city, the sweet intention to mop up after a disaster tempered by the idea that the kids from deprived areas who came out to fight the police could just be swept away like so much filth. Like any desperate human impulse, volunteerism can easily be co-opted, twisted into something violent, calcifying.

Greece, where I spent part of my summer documenting the human effects of economic collapse, isn’t the only developed country where people have been living in crisis for so long they are starting to numb down and accept it. As Imara Jones pointed out in The Guardian today, 50 million Americans, the same number as those in the states hardest-hit by Hurricane Sandy, are living in acute poverty, and nobody in the presidential race has deigned to talk to or about them, despite the fact that they also have votes.

How do we respond to crisis when crisis has become status quo? That’s the question facing the entire developed world this year, and neither of the men jostling to lead the nominally free world appear to have any sort of answer. The Occupy Sandy operation is not an answer either, not even the shadow-play of an answer, but it is deeply radical and compassionate. That means someone’s probably going to try to shut it down reasonably soon, especially if it continues to provide food and assistance to the needy after the floodwaters have receded. A community response to immediate external crisis can be spun as good PR for an administration, but a community response to structural, internal crisis is just embarrassing. In every case though, the most dangerous thing you can do in any crisis – the absolute worst thing you can possibly do – is sit at home and accept it.

Back to blood. Funny thing about blood: until the 1970s, America used to buy it. Blood donation, as the United States quickly discovered, is not something you want to inject with a market incentive when you have to juggle things like infection risks and supply shortages. All that changed when Richard Titmus’ book The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy was published in 1971, explaining why the values of public service beat the private market every time when it comes to social care. The private market in American blood was regulated until it became something like the British voluntary model – people coming in to open their veins for a biscuit and a cup of coffee, just because somebody else needs their blood more than they do. Quite a lot of my job at Billyburg church today was handing out packets of Oreos to younguns waiting in line to do just that – I still have no damn idea who donated those biscuits – and telling the people massing at the door that no, we have all the blood we need for today, thank you, come back tomorrow.

“There is in the free gift of blood to unnamed strangers no contract of custom, no legal bond, no functional determinism, no situations of discriminatory power, domination, constraint or compulsion, no sense of shame or guilt,” wrote Titmus. “In not asking for or expecting any payment of money, these donors signified their belief in the willingness of other men to act altruistically in the future.” There is still enough blood beating in the cynical hearts of New Yorkers to pound out an immediate, compassionate response to crisis. Today that gives me hope.

Occupy Sandy Relief information here can be found at interoccupy.net/occupysandy/ – a website put together by the good folks at OWS, which contains all you need to know about what you can do to help. Click here for the NYC Blood Drive list of donation centers and opening times.

Laurie Penny is a journalist, feminist, and political activist from London. She is a regular writer for the New Statesman and the Guardian, and has also contributed to the Independent, Red Pepper, and the Evening Standard. She is the author of Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2011) and Discordia (2012). She has presented Channel 4’s Dispatches and been on the panel of the BBC’s Any Questions. Her blog, “Penny Red“, was shortlisted for the Orwell prize in 2010.

by Laurelin

There are moments in life when nothing has changed, yet all of a sudden everything is perfect. As I walk down the street from my house – the same street I walk every day with my head down – I suddenly look up and notice the leaves have changed colors and the sky is perfect. The wind blows and a single leaf falls into my outstretched hand, Tori Amos’s “Gold Dust” is playing on my iPhone, and I feel silly for being upset about such simple things when there is so much beauty in the world (“and then you’ll understand, we held gold dust in our hands…”). There are some songs you just remember, the songs you equate with moments, the songs that from that time forward will always remind you of autumn.

Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted” came through my ear buds on the way home from the bar one night two years ago on Boylston Street. I had met someone, our eyes connecting from across the bar, and after flickering away and back again a few times we wound up chatting; At the end of the night I had a new phone number in my phone and a smile on my face. She sang, “All I can say is it was enchanting to meet you, this night is sparkling, don’t you let it go, I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home.” And I was so hopeful, proudly wearing my newly blushing cheeks.

Ellie Goulding’s “Guns and Horses” reminds me of a year old summer fling, a boy who I would have done anything for after we broke up, even though I knew he and I never should have worked in the first place. He got a new girlfriend not long after our relationship ended, and I was devastated. His new girlfriend eventually broke up with him and it was his turn to be sad, and that’s probably why he and I started sleeping together again. I clung to those drunken nights with him, and always on the way home alone the next morning Ellie sang, “But I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could be it all for you, if I could erase the pain maybe you’d feel the same, I’d do it all for you, I would.” I wished so badly that he would choose me. He never did.

Oceanlab’s “Satellite,” while an upbeat electronic song, still makes me impossibly sad. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting to find different results. After being left not once, not twice, but three times by this abusive punk rock loser, I finally pulled what was left of my own self from the wreckage and managed to walk away with some shreds of my own personality and dignity left to cultivate and finally nurse back to full health. Each time I hear that beat and “You’re half a world away, but in my mind I whisper every single word you say,” I can’t help but cringe and remember the eight years when every day was spent feeling so hopeless and alone I could have just ceased to exist.

Taylor Swift’s “I Almost Do” has been on repeat as of late, and in my current state of mind I find myself reaching for the phone, wanting to reach out to someone and then remembering that I shouldn’t waste my time on people who don’t care. I delete his number and I feel foolish for wasting my time, silly for believing the things that came out of his mouth when I was as disposable as a Styrofoam coffee cup, only useful until you’ve sucked the last drop from the depths. It starts after I lock up the bar at 3 AM and I’m walking home alone as the city sleeps. “I bet this time of night you’re still up, I bet you’re tired from a long hard week, I bet you’re sitting in your chair by the window looking out at the city and I bet sometimes you wonder about me. And I just want to tell you it takes everything in me not to call you… every time I don’t, I almost do..”

I almost do. But I don’t, and I quicken my pace and I tuck the leaf that fell into my palm in the pocket of my black leather jacket. The wind picks up and I turn my head back towards the ground.

[..]

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Fabrizia

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I just found that my boyfriend is in fact a werewolf. However, I’ve got an issue with, err, zoophilia. And tomorrow will be full moon, and we have already planned a romantic dinner with candles and some French wine. I don´t want to hurt his feelings, but figure it might be best to back out. What do you think?

A: Sigh. Werewolves can be soooo inconsiderate. I mean, really, planning a romantic dinner during a full moon? What was he thinking? The bigger question you might want to ask is, were you the actual dinner? Perhaps you can cancel this time, then coordinate your future dates around his “time of the month” and have your own girls night out when he is in full wolf-mode. Personally, I would stick to dating humans. They are less hairy, smelly, and most important…they actually exist!

Fabrizia
xoxo

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com