I suffered in a vacuum of my own secrecy.

In episode 26, Melissa shares about her experience as a drug addict and dominatrix, and how writing about her darkest truths allowed her to become honest with and accepting of herself. She also discusses the themes and learnings covered in her newest book, Abandon Me.

This episode is also available via iTunes and Stitcher.

Background:

Melissa Febos is the author of Whip Smart – a critically acclaimed memoir about her experience as a straight-A college student while also a heroin addict and working as a professional dominatrix. Melissa’s newest memoir, releasing Feb 28th, is an essay collection called Abandon Me; in it she captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection. In addition to becoming an award-winning writer (with appearances on NPR’s Fresh Air, CNN, Anderson Cooper Live,) she is also a creative writing professor and serves on the Board of Directors for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

Show notes:

Why she became a dominatrix

  • The answer she used at the time: she was tired of being a barista. “was a well-paying acting gig.” Also considered herself a hack anthropologist.
  • Longer answer has to do with long-held interests in power dynamics, her own sexuality, and her relationship to men and money.

    I wrote the book trying to answer this question for myself.

How this experience influenced her views on feminism, power, etc.

  • Women over time have felt an inherent conflict in being a feminist.
  • So much of what we have been socialized to think of as “female” (how we look, act, relate to men, etc.) is an indoctrination of patriarchy.
  • Melissa was raised in a feminist household. Grew up thinking in order to be a feminist had to give up traditional forms of femininity.
  • Being a dominatrix seemed like a loop hole – could dress-up and engage in feminine things but still be in charge.

    Probably the most radical and feminist thing I could do was just accept everything that I was and everything that I wanted.

Sharing her secrets with loved ones, then with the world

I was fiercely secretive… I felt so disempowered, I couldn’t bare to have anyone see me like this.

  • Gave her mom and everyone a tailored version of the dominatrix job – what she thought they could most easily digest. Didn’t share many aspects with anyone.
  • Didn’t tell anyone about her addiction until she got clean. Was able to tell herself she wasn’t a “real” addict because she didn’t have other people giving their perspective
  • Gave her mom the full details via the book.

Her new book: Abandon Me

  • Weaves together two stories: one about an intense long-distance relationship she was in for two years, the other about her “fathering” (both the father who raised her and her biological father.)
  • Both stories involve feelings of abandonment, longing.
  • Overall theme: how the emotional conditions we feel in our childhood inform our romantic relationships we cultivate as adults.

I have always been drawn to intense life experiences and understood from a very young age that I was different in this respect from my peers.

On using writing for therapeutic self-reflection and teaching others to do the same

The process of writing about your traumas is therapeutic.. it has healed me.

  • Critics can sometimes look down on this practice, but she feels that writing can be both a form of therapy and a work of art.
  • When you teach fiction, the truth is most students will not go on to publish books, which can feel discouraging. But she doesn’t feel this way when teaching non-fiction because she knows there’s a value to everyone in telling their own story.

  • My classes are as much classes in personal growth as they are classes in writing craft.

Final advice for listeners

  • Be Brave. Brave inside of yourself.

So much of my life have been about avoiding the things inside myself that scared me. Nothing has given me more freedom than asking in an honest way ‘what is the truth?’