My name is “Brandy.” I worry about the safety of myself and my family, so I am using a fake name and my face is not visible in pictures.
I was born in west Denver. I am 39 years old and the youngest of six children. My mom was an RN and my father was a heroin addict. I remember there being a lot of alcohol, drugs, and gang activity in my childhood. My dad left when I was young and my mother remarried. My mother became depressed and turned to alcohol and marijuana soon after my step-father died from a gunshot wound and my brother died after being hit by a drunk driver. She stopped being an RN and became a bartender. I often remember the whole bar coming to our home after closing. My mother tried to be a good mom. She taught us not to steal and to respect our elders. Unfortunately, I don’t think there were good resources for her back then and her mental health issues were not addressed properly. |
I don’t have a lot of fond memories of my childhood. We always had a house full of people. “I remember as a little girl, men coming into my room and carrying me out.” I was young, maybe four years old. In school, I liked gym and art, otherwise I did not like school.
I think teachers just passed me along the grades to just get me through school. I still have no idea how I got a diploma. I am surprised I can read today. I feel like I slipped through the cracks on everything. I didn’t know any better. I just thought that the way I lived was just how things were for everyone. It was when I saw parents who were supportive, girls who had their hair combed every day, had good grades because moms made them do their homework, that is when I realized that not everyone lived the way I did. I don’t think my mom needed social services to take us from her, but that she needed help. Resources, tutors, and therapy for us and mom would have been a good thing. “I don’t think my mom was a bad mom. I think she was just lost herself.” |
When I was fifteen my mom had a car accident and slipped into a coma. I don’t know what experience she had in the coma but her faith became strong and she changed her life. My mom did end up clean and sober. At that time, I thought I was so grown up, no one could tell me what to do and I was out of control. My family started to change by using less alcohol and drugs. My mom was trying to make a structured and stable home life. On the other hand, I was going to bars, drinking, involved in gang life, and learning to shoot a gun. I was depressed, lost, and scared. I had no idea what each day was going to bring.
“I was having a lot of sex because that is what I thought love was. I didn’t like it, but I thought he did, so he would love me.” I would visit my kids and give my mom all kinds of money. I felt like this made their life better than when I was little. My kids wanted for nothing, the bills were paid, and I visited them every day. I felt like I was doing everything right. A friend introduced me to crack cocaine when I was drunk one day. After having it once, it was all I could think about. “That was a wrap. That stuff made me love it.” I kept escorting and then buying crack. I was getting really strung out. I stopped seeing my kids. My car broke down and I couldn’t make my escort appointments. Life just unraveled. I started associating with prostitutes from Colfax. I asked one of the ladies why they are on Colfax when they could make more money escorting. She said, “Never say never.” The crack finally had me so wrapped up that I was no longer fit for escorting. At 21, I hit Colfax.
I lost my kids. I lost my home. I lost everything. I just wanted to get high and drink. I was on Colfax day and night. I had a combination of guilt, shame, and a little bit of power. The power came from me making these men happy and they were paying me for that. I was so numb and drunk, I did not feel that I was doing anything wrong. The men who use prostitutes sometimes are just lonely and are needing company. They have no one in their lives. Others just saw the women as objects. “I have been beaten, raped, and left for dead many times.” My heart goes out to the women still out there. I don’t care how dressed up you are, or how many times you get your nails done, or what kind of car you roll in, how glamorous your day is, and how glamorous your apartment is because you are an escort, or you are on Colfax, or you do drugs or you don’t, it’s an ugly world. All the women I have ever met have had a broken heart. They ain’t happy, they just look happy. They put on this face. But deep down inside, however we got there, most of the time it was not because we decided we wanted to be a prostitute when we grow up.
I know now that what I was doing is not because that is who I am. That is not who I am. That is who I became. |
I moved to Utah, met a man, and had two daughters. I followed him back to Denver, then to California, then came back to Denver. He was mentally abusive and I started drinking again. I needed to leave him. One of my best friends introduced me to escorting. I liked how fast the money was coming in and I would able to take care of my kids. I was 19. I worked for an agency that was “licensed.” Officially, the rules were no sex and no drugs, but if it happened we did not get fired. We had to pay a fee to the service but the rest of the money was ours. I left him and got my own place.
I was uncomfortable being an escort because most of the sex I had before involved drinking and being at bars, basically not-sober sex. I started drinking more because I needed something to numb myself from what I was doing. Eventually a friend introduced me to cocaine. I was always told “don’t do it, sell it.” I liked the way it made me feel. To me, it balanced out my alcohol. I felt more in control, sexier, and it increased the numbness. I felt independent. After I hit a couple of thousand dollars for the day, I would go to the club. I did this every day. Sometimes I would not sleep because of the cocaine. The life breaks a woman down, in her heart, knowing that this is what she has to do to survive.
I have been on and off drugs, alcohol, and the streets for 18 years. I finally came to a point of knowing I want a different life. I worked on getting into a program. It took several months but I was finally accepted. When I got the call, “I was high and drunk, and I just started bawling. I started dumping out all my alcohol and breaking my crack pipes down the toilet. And I went to sleep.” I have been in a program for six months now. I am working on housing and trying to get into a floral school. I know that for the rest of my life, I will have to be a part of some group, i.e. Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous. I will always have to have a support system to not fall backwards. I was heartbroken out there. I was not a happy hooker. I was lost. |