So I’m a lingerie model now, didn’t you know?

So, I’m very proud to admit that I have now completed two full weeks completely drug free. I did have a small bit of weed brownie on Saturday but cocaine is the problem for me so the brownie doesn’t count 😀

One fun thing I did manage to do was to ask my husband Jared to take some pics of me in my lingerie on Friday night. I had some new stuff I was excited to put on plus he bought a camera awhile ago as he wants to get more into photography so it made sense to have a play seeing as we weren’t planning to go out. Well, let’s just say the pics turned out pretty damn good. Here’s a little taste of our first shoot:

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As some of you will know, I used to strip once upon I time and this was honestly the closest I’ve felt to that level of sexual and physical empowerment in awhile. Due to COVID, I’d been feeling pretty meh about myself in general but putting on some lingerie and rolling around and posing in bed for my husband and his camera made me feel like my old sexy self again.

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There are quiet a few other sets in different lingerie and some risqué ones, including a close up of a creampie – the aftermath of the final set once Jared got too hot and bothered to keep taking pics. It was definitely a fun night and we already have plans for other shoots. I’ve got a bunch of inspirational shots from various accounts I follow on Instagram. I think it will be a good thing for us to do together, especially if it keeps ending in creampies.

The other very unexpected result was that a friend of ours, who we’ve been flirting with for awhile, saw the pics in our IG stories and called us and we ended up having FaceTime sex with her. Well, she played with her vibrators and we had sex while she watched. She lives in Melbourne so sadly she couldn’t join us in real life as they’re in full lockdown and our borders are closed. It was fun but also a bit nerve wracking.

The whole FaceTime sex thing was a first for me. I’ve watched Jared and our ex fuck while I was away one weekend but never been the one being watched. And being completely sober – not even any alcohol – probably made me a tiny bit more shy than usual. Don’t worry though, I got in the spirit eventually. The noises she was making definitely helped. Anyway, definitely no complaints here. Sex twice in one day is a very welcome unexpected turn of events.

So, after all the fun of our little photo shoot, my brain is whirring with ideas. Do I start an OnlyFans account so I can share the more extreme stuff that can’t go on IG? Do I just post it on here? I’d have to look into whether WordPress allows adult content. I only ever want it to be a hobby, rather than a major source of income (that would require too much self promotion). It’s more just how to share and somewhat control the content on a platform where a nude female body is welcomed, not censored.

I’m getting ahead of myself as always. Maybe I’ll just get a few more photo shoots under my belt and see how I go?

The world is full of real problems but I just have this

Image credit: eaglespirit on steemit

For those of you who have been following me for awhile now (even though my writing has become much more sporadic of late), you might remember that I’ve struggled with drugs and alcohol for quite a while. I was going to say ‘struggled off and on’ but is it ever really off when it’s always there lurking in the weekend somewhere, waiting to jump out at you as soon as you get to that ‘magic’ number of drinks? Not really.

It’s a problem I share with my husband but I was doing drugs way before I met him. I started drinking and smoking weed at 16 (weed maybe even earlier actually). I did my first line of speed at 18 and cocaine and ecstacy followed quickly after at 18 – 19. It’s been a wild ride since then but I never really considered it a problem (aside from a slight glitch when I was 19/20) until maybe the last 4 or 5 years where it’s become an almost constant thing every weekend.

The last 3 years have definitely brought about a tipping point as I’ve felt it (cocaine) really start to affect my moods and my recovery time sometimes pushes out to a week before I’m really feeling ‘good’ again mentally and that’s usually just in time to do it all again. I’ve had a few blocks here and there where I’ve basically removed myself from everyone I know and managed to stay drug free for a decent chunk of time but it’s very hard to socialise without encountering drugs… at least in the circles I move in. And I have zero fucking willpower as soon as I know it’s around.

Things got much, much worse during our COVID lockdown as there was literally nothing else to do. If I was hungover, it didn’t really matter as I didn’t have any work to do really and, even if there was an email or two, who cared if they waited in my inbox a few days? At one point, we had a 39 hour bender (Friday night – Sunday morning) with another friend of ours literally because we all had nothing else to do and a huge supply of drugs (we re-upped on the Saturday night – YUCK!). The comedown after that was swift and savage and I kept myself away from drugs the following weekend. A whole weekend off, I hear you say. Yeah, I hear that sarcasm, motherfucker, and it’s 100% warranted. I am very aware that I have a problem.

Anyway, I see a therapist every week and, unsurprisingly, this is a very frequent topic of conversation. I feel like the world’s biggest piece of shit every time I come in and have to disappoint her. This week will be good because I was able to be social AND not do any drugs and I feel really good for it. I’m planning the same this week as I have quite a few things on socially but all things that will hopefully be safe from drug temptation.

It’s a hard thing to admit to yourself that you have a drug problem. There was a weekend awhile back where we’d said we were going to go straight home after dinner with some friends so as not to be tempted to go out and we did it. We went home but it felt terrible to have to be in that place in life where you can’t be trusted to go out on a Friday night because you know you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing drugs if someone offers them to you. I cried myself to sleep that night because I felt like I’d ruined my life and my brain. First world problems I know especially with what’s going on in the world at the moment. It’s such a bullshit thing to be upset about… waaaahhhh I can’t go out drinking because I might fuck up and do some cocaine. Ugh, yes, I can hear myself, but still, it sucks.

I often wish I’d never tried drugs. I remember when I used to be able to go out and just drink and have the best time dancing all night. Plus it’s hard when you’re part of a couple that enables one another. It’s very rare that one of us will be the voice of reason and, if they are, it’s often a very reluctant pipe up before they’re quickly convinced to carry on. Not pointing any fingers – I’ve been on both sides; we’re as bad as each other.

As Chris Rock said, “Two crackheads will stay together forever”. It’s something we often joke about amongst ourselves and with others but I’m beginning to think there’s a limit. Especially when your drug of choice starts to wreak such huge amounts of havoc with your lives, your moods, your patience with one another. When you only come alive when you’re high with other people on the weekends leaving nothing for each other for the rest of the week, what’s left really?

A milestone of sorts

So I did it. Back in March/April, I manage to go one month without drugs. On the day after my month-versary, I went straight out and did drugs but, still, a victory is a victory. Let’s not cheapen it by tawdry things like details and facts. I hadn’t gone one month free of anything since July 2015 when we did no drugs or alcohol. Nearly four years without more than a week or two off. When I think of it now, it seems insane.

I tell you what though. It has made a huge difference for me mentally. I feel like a rational fucking human being. I can look at myself and be reasonable. I can see that there’s room for improvement and yet not see it as a total crisis of self. Yes, there are still highs and lows in my mood but nothing like the wild and intense swings I was dealing with before. Thank fuck. And, yes, I’ve done drugs here and there since the one month off but, unless it’s a special occasion like Coachella or seeing friends I haven’t seen in ages, I don’t really enjoy it. Getting high just for the sake of it no longer interests me and, when I do do it, it’s no longer the epic marathon sessions where I don’t get home til daylight – or worse, afternoon – anymore. Which is a fucking relief.

I suppose I’m realising that I was using drugs as a means to escape how unhappy I was. That’s not to say I’m magically cured and fucking over the moon about life but I’m not in that super low place I was earlier in the year. I know what it feels like to be clear headed and to get up and take my dog for a big walk and feel productive so now I think twice before doing drugs and, if I do, I’m constantly aware of the time. I know what I have to lose, how bad the hangovers can be (I had one week before last and it fucking sucked) and I don’t want to be there every fucking weekend like a goddamn idiot.

Since we got back from the US (it’ll be a month on Thursday), I’ve done drugs twice. I’ve stayed in three of four weekends and, even the weekend I did go out, I was home by 3.30am and didn’t feel terrible the next day (trust me, this is a huge improvement for me, this could have gone MUCH worse). I always judge my hangovers by whether I can take Scooby for a walk and I definitely walked him the next day. I wouldn’t say I relished the experience but it happened.

I was meant to go to a big dress up party this weekend coming but my PLAN is to stay in because I know I’ll be going out the following weekend when we go to Tasmania for a big music and arts festival. So the big test will be whether I can stay in for another weekend in order to not have two weekends out in a row. Prioritise the mental health, you know. It’ll be tough, I’m not going to lie. Staying in is not fun for me. Especially when everyone else is going out. And I LOVE dress up parties. I have these epic pasties just itching to be worn. Ahhhh… must. stop. thinking. about. it.

Why can’t we get high without coming down? Why doesn’t someone create a drug with no hangover? Humans have been getting high for millenia, why do we not have this already?? I suppose I shouldn’t need mind-altering substances to have a good time but -goddammit – they’re fun! And everything in moderation, right?

I don’t think I will ever not do drugs (at least, not in the immediate future) but I definitely feel like I’ve broken that terrible cycle I was in.

Does this make me shallow?

I’ve had this feeling all day like I want to write something but wasn’t really sure what. It wasn’t until I took Scooby out for a night time pee/stroll that bits of this post started coming to me.

My husband and me are going back to counselling. We both feel like we’ve grown disconnected and, if we keep going the way we are, we’ll just grow apart. Obviously, it’s not a great thing to feel like you have to take these steps to save your relationship but I’m happy to be doing it. I’m happy that we’re not just giving up and throwing away nearly 13 years of being together. I’m happy that we’re giving ourselves the chance to fix things.

I’ve also been seeing my own therapist since probably mid-last year. I’d been feeling really low and knew that I needed more help than I could give myself. Although, my husband feels like I haven’t really done enough to try and fix my feelings. He thinks I should be on medication but I don’t think I’m depressed. I think I’m having a crisis of self-esteem that’s being exacerbated by constant drinking and drugs. I want to give myself a chance to find my baseline, to have a significant time off drugs – at least – to be able to know what my mental state is like without the constant vicious comedown cycle. And then, if I don’t feel better, THEN I’ll medicate. Without hesitation, I would. But not now. I need to give myself a chance in the same way that we’re giving us a chance.

Cocaine has always been the problem for me, since I was maybe 19 or 20 (god, that sounds bad when I type it IRL). The main one, anyway. I like other drugs but cocaine is the one I can’t say no to. A few drinks down and the next thought is: coke. It’s a real problem. Not that I do it every day. But every weekend, yes. I’ve had one weekend off since October. One weekend. And stupid me thought that after that one weekend I would feel AMAZING! That the lowness would be cured. Turns out one weekend isn’t enough but still it was a start. I fucked up the following weekend but this weekend I’ve stayed in (so far). Next weekend is my birthday so that’s a write off but I do want to try and give myself some time after my birthday and before we go to Coachella at the end of April.

Anyway, besides the drugs, my main issue is that, for the first time since I was in my teens, I look in the mirror and I don’t like what I see. Maybe part of it is just getting older but I’m noticing changes in my body that I do not like at all. I don’t like how I look in pictures. I don’t like myself, inside and out. But mostly out, because I feel like the outside has changed the inside. For awhile there, I was training regularly and eating better and things were manageable but, since mid last year I kind of gave up on the eating well part, which meant the training was pretty much negated (can’t out-train a bad diet, someone said).

I remember what I used to be like. I used to be confident. I used to love myself – all of myself. When I was stripping, I felt so powerful, so beautiful. I was the most independent I’ve ever been. I didn’t need anyone. Not that it’s necessarily a good thing to not need anyone but I felt good – about myself, about my life.

So late last year, I started doing private strip lessons to try and recapture that feeling. The first class back after New Year, I nearly died when I looked at myself in the mirror. I’ve kept at it though, even though I hate what I see. I felt like maybe, if I kept it up, I’ll somehow get in touch with the confident girl I used to be. Sometimes I feel a flicker of her. I don’t know if it’s just scraps of her left behind (which means she’s never coming back) or if she’s still all there, just trapped deep down under a multitude of negative experiences and self loathing. I worry she’s gone. That I’ve done such irreparable damage that, even if I eat well and get fit, that part of me will still be dead.

If I fix my body, will my mind follow? Am I really so hung up on being attractive to myself and others that, once that fades, I become this shadow of a person that can barely function, that caves in on herself like a hollowed out mountain. If so, god help me when I really start getting old and shit really goes wrong.

I actually entertained the notion of a boob job not so long ago. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, I’ve just always really liked my boobs. But I felt so shitty about myself, I thought making that kind of external change might somehow make me feel better. Madness, right? Even I was like, “Natalie, this is a new low. Even for you lately.” Again, nothing against boob jobs, more of an observation of the downward spiral of my own self appreciation.

I don’t know how to fix me. I suppose all I can do is it try and take care of myself – mentally and physically – and see what happens. That’s all we can ever do, right?

My therapist’s shoes (but that’s not what it’s really about)

I’m fascinated by my therapist’s shoes. She’s very tall and has a seemingly endless array of flat shoes. She tells me one day that she doesn’t think she knows how to wear heels and I laugh (while wearing giant platform wedges). Not know how to wear heels? But I suppose she’s never had to. Never felt the need to. Or not lately, anyway.

Every week I go to see her with my tail between my legs. I make promises to myself and every week I have to confess my failures. It’s like confession except I’m not Catholic and she’s not a priest. A priestess for the mind maybe. Am I getting better? If not, it’s not her fault. I’m the one that breaks the promises to myself. I’m the one that has no self control. She never judges me. I can see that she sees that I hate myself for my failures. She knows I know what it’s doing to me.

I’m being very vague here. ‘It’ in my case is drugs and alcohol, cocaine mainly. I had promised myself that I would try and have a month drug-free – just one single month, to begin with, at least. It’s only the 15th and I’ve already failed three times. Each time I go to see her, I bend myself in every possible position to try and wriggle out of what I know I need to do. Scorched earth policy. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Yes, yes, I know. But for someone like me that means not putting myself in positions where I’ll drink to excess, not seeing my friends, not leaving the house basically.

I have come to the realisation that this is the only solution. I have made every possible attempt to go out and abstain but I can’t. Some situations are more dangerous than others. I can do a dinner, no worries (depending on who it’s with), but other events, I know I can’t. I have no will power. I bend my own rubber arm.

My husband tries to support me. He tries to take the blame, to say he’ll do better next time. He’ll be the strong one – for both of us, but I don’t want to be anyone’s responsibility. If he wants to stop, he can do it for himself and whatever his reasons are. My reason is that I don’t want to feel suicidal for the five days post-failure. It used to be three days but who’s counting? And five days is just long enough that the next weekend is looming and you to start to feel like you deserve some more fun again. That you need to feel good, some-fucking-how. That that’s the only thing that will make you feel good because everything else is absolute fucking shit (although that’s what got you there in the first place). Ah, the vicious cycle.

I’ve looked at NA. I don’t like the religion-aspect. I know I just need to stay away from these situations until I know what it feels like to spend a few weeks without getting high. So I can realise how good it can feel to not always be on that going up-coming down merry-go-round. Maybe then things will be different and I will feel better about – well, everything.

Nothing feels good when I’m coming down. Nothing excites me. I hate everything and damn near everyone. I don’t want to do anything. Go anywhere. I make a conscious decsion to eat the worst possible food because who fucking cares? The smallest upset is the end of the world (or I wish it would be). My brain literally doesn’t have the chemicals to counteract any kind of sadness (and lord knows there’s enough of that in my brain nowadays). So I’m left swimming in it. Drowning in it. The thoughts I think… I know they’re not ‘real’ but they’re very real for those few days until I start to feel better.

Just in time to fuck it up all over again.

Hello, strangers. I have returned.

I have been remiss in my writing duties. We have had weekend after weekend out on the town, coming home at ridiculous hours and suffering the consequences for days afterwards. Sometimes I feel like I’m in constant recovery mode, trying to salvage what I can of what’s left after the weekend’s carnage.

Well, not this weekend! This weekend I’m staying in. I know I should be able to go out and not go out but right now I’m not taking any chances. This little piggy is staying home, getting caught up on her uni work and giving her brain chemistry a break. I am actually looking forward to it a HUGE amount. Although I’m sure that will change as soon as someone messages me on the weekend. I have a huge rubber arm but I must remain strong. I can’t deal with another huge weekend. It’s got to ease up (at least until my hen’s night on 3 September).

On the upside, I’m super excited that we have another weekend away booked at Pretty Beach House. You know that awesome place we stayed at back in February (here and here) where I spent the whole weekend nude and sunbathing? It was amazing. Sadly, it’s winter now so I don’t know that it will be the same experience but we’ve picked a different room, which has a big copper bath tub and an outdoor fireplace, so, with the right amount of heating, I can imagine there will still be near constant nudity, maybe just not so much sunbathing. Oh well. I intend on drinking all the red wine and living in total indolence.

I’m hoping having this weekend in followed by next weekend away will kickstart me back into ‘responsible adult’ mode (ha – like I have that setting!). Get back into the habit of writing on here. Start walking into work again. Being more proactive with my uni work. Hell, maybe even writing some more erotic fiction (I still have that not-quite-consensual idea banging around in my head – maybe I’ll find time to work on it on our weekend away). You know, all the stuff I was just doing before. *sigh* I need to get my shit together (again). I have way too much stuff on my plate to be party central right now.

Oh, in other news, we’ve decided we may actually have time to start dating again so – hurrah – this blog might actually go back to being what it was about in the very beginning: our polyamorous journey. We’ll see. Even though we’ve spoken about it, neither of us has really spent any serious time online actually looking but at least the option is there when the time feels right.

I own you by destroying you

I went to the Sydney Writers Festival two months ago where I attended a talk by Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life. Her book is currently sitting on my dining table waiting to be read but, based on the audience reaction at the conference, it’s a book that’s struck a chord with a lot of people. When talking about one of her characters, she said something I had to scribble down in my little notebook – something about “owning the body by destroying it.” I haven’t read the book so I’m only going on what I remember her speaking about but somehow it’s stuck in my mind since then.

There’s something wonderfully nihilistic about saying, ‘Screw you, body, you’re mine now but I don’t need you. I’m going to grind you into the ground with all this cutting/drugs/alcohol/insert your vice of choice’. Maybe that’s what my thing is. I’d always thought I drank and did drugs just for fun of it but is that ever really all that it’s about? Do we do it because there’s some part of ourselves we can’t stand and want to silence and/or obliterate?

In A Little Life, the main character has been through some kind of major trauma. I think it’s something sexual from their childhood and now they cut, maybe there’s some drug addiction involved (again I haven’t read the book so I only picked up bits and pieces here and there throughout the talk and it was a few months ago now). It made me think that when someone invades your space, it can take a long time to feel like your body is your own again. You hate the sight of it and you want to put distance between yourself and the damaged sack of meat that went through that ordeal. It wasn’t me, you say. It was just this body, this thing that I live in. This thing that now belongs to the person (or people) who wronged you. It’s as if you can see their fingerprints all over your skin, smudged into places they had no to right to be.

And so you begin the long process of reclaiming yourself, which everyone deals with in different ways. Maybe I’m still in self-destruct mode sometimes. Maybe I’m trying to own my body by destroying it just a little bit at a time each weekend. And if that’s the case, then this weekend’s going to be a doozy because we’re going to a three day music festival where there’ll be plenty of opportunity to self destruct. My goal is just not to black out, which seems like a reasonable goal but doesn’t always pan out for me.

Fuck. This. Feeling.

I have not missed this feeling. Not one bit. As you might have guessed, Sunday was large but I’m not angry at myself, well not really. Mostly because I’d given myself permission to take drugs with the proviso that I keep my wits about me (as much as possible). And I did, even though I did MDMA and cocaine but I drank lots of water and not so much alcohol so I think that’s what helped me achieve my goal of no blackouts (yay!). But the comedown – oh the comedown. It’s this that I haven’t missed.

So my sober period begins again. My brain’s a mess. My moods and emotions are all over the place. My neck hurts and I. Feel. So. Angry when anything goes even the slightest bit wrong. And I resent any and everything that’s keeping me away from (a) lying on the couch and feeling sorry for myself (b) getting my uni work done. Thank god it’s a short week and tomorrow is my last day before the weekend starts again. I have SO MUCH to do and I’m not sure if I’m super stressed because of my drug-induced chemical imbalance or simply because I actually have a shitload of stuff to do. Various credit application forms for Jared’s bars, a uni assignment to get started plus various other study related tasks and pre-committed social stuff (one I tried to bail out of but then felt guilty about when the person messaged me all excited). I’m pretty sure the stress is mostly due to my drug consumption but you can’t be 100% sure (some of it could easily be legitimate).

I’ve decided that I won’t be getting high again until I go away to Splendour in the Grass, a big music festival at the end of July. But part of me isn’t even sure I want to get high then if this is how I’ll feel after. And you know what? I’ll actually feel worse because that’ll be three days of drug taking so the comedown will be at least 3 times worse. God. Maybe I’m finally getting over drugs. All I can remember is how good I felt in the lead up to this and now I just feel terrible. And not because I took drugs (meaning I don’t feel guilty about it) but simply because this is the result of drug taking. I’d actually forgotten how terrible it can be. Maybe I just need to read this whenever I’m tempted to indulge.

Hey, remember that corner I wasn’t sure if I’d turned? Maybe I have after all. 🙂

One month anniversary

Today makes about one month since I last got high or blackout drunk. I’m extremely proud of myself and am feeling so much better for it. My moods are mostly under control (or at least, they’re not a product of the vicious cycle of being high and coming down over and over again). I feel like I’ve finally convinced myself that I don’t need to consume excessive amounts of drugs and alcohol in order to have fun.

Today is also the day of the staff party for Jared’s bars and, while I don’t really want to get high, I’m not totally ruling it out. My goal is to bring some sense of control back to my life, not to bans drugs and alcohol entirely. 

These are my rules:

• Every weekend is unacceptable
• Once a month or every few months is ok
• Blackouts are never ok
• Drugs on a ‘school’ night are not ok.

This weekend is a long weekend so I have Monday off to pull myself together if I do decide to have a little fun. We’ll see how that goes. Jared has already said he feels like getting high so there’s that to add to the mix. It’s not that I don’t too – I definitely do – I just want to make sure I don’t go as crazy as I usually do. I want to remember the night. I don’t want big stretches of black where I have literally no idea what I did. It’s scary and unnecessary. I can still have fun without getting to this stage, as I have proved over the past four weeks.

A few days ago, I decided that I wouldn’t go to the staff party at all. Aside from the temptation to drink and do drugs, there are going to be sooo many people there. It’s not the usual one bar staff party but a combination of all three bars getting together at once. Big groups like this make me very nervous and uncomfortable, a bad combination for me when it comes to being around drugs and alcohol as I tend to do more to make myself feel less anxious. Then I remembered that my therapist said I need to put myself in these situations. If I just avoid all social activity where I might get tempted then I’m not really solving anything, just isolating myself and avoiding it. So I should go and test myself and try to stick to my plan of not writing myself off entirely. Wish me luck, I have to go call an uber now else I’ll be late.

Not hungover

Last Monday, I was walking into work in the autumn sunshine without the slightest hint of a hangover when a little voice whispered to me, “The next time you want to get high, remember this feeling. The feeling that you can take on anything and nothing is too hard. That the world is beautiful and you have a place in it because you’re valuable and useful and worthy.”

And you know what? It kind of worked last night. I was out at this awesome dance party and everyone was getting high. I wanted to as well but I also didn’t, remembering how good I felt earlier in the week and all. I went to the bathroom to split an MDMA cap with a friend and, as I looked at the little brown crystals, I thought, ‘I don’t want to ruin this night by getting high and blacking out.’ So I gave 90% of the cap to my friend and only ate a tiny bit, which didn’t do anything. Which was exactly what I wanted.

Now, of course, a better outcome would’ve been to never have done any of the MDMA at all but baby steps, my friends, baby steps. The main thing here is that I didn’t get fucked up. I didn’t black out. I remember the whole night and I got home at a semi-reasonable hour and am not hungover today (even though I definitely had a few drinks). A bit tired, yes, but not hungover. And so I will have a nap, have some food and then go out into the world and get stuff done (namely going to the art biennale on Cockatoo Island) and feel good about myself.

I would say I’ve turned a corner but I think it’s too early to call it.