Lauren Darlington looked every bit the sweet sixteen-year-old with a mouth full of braces when her mum forged her birth certificate so she could work as a prostitute. Seven years later she is real, raw about her demons, blogging to touch others.
“I wasn’t eating well or sleeping and I was using drugs the clients would give me at work to keep me awake,’’ Lauren said of her time as a Sydney escort.
“Mum got half of what I made for ‘driving me around’.’’
Lauren agreed to having sex for money - she wanted to get her mum out of financial trouble. But now, aged 23, she realises she was a vulnerable child and she is still paying the price and trying to make sense of the memories.
Looking back she can see she was being groomed, heavily influenced by adults she trusted. And the world of prostitution was glorified.
‘’Mum’s friend spoke about how easy it was to sleep with guys for money. She saw them as bags and jewellery and new clothes. She had me around male friends older than me and was saying how beautiful I was and encouraged me to be with her friend, an older male.
“Looking back she was grooming me to be a prostitute. She took me shopping, did my makeup, it was like a never-ending sleepover,’’ Lauren said. ‘’I became suspicious when I found business cards for an escort agency. She lied and said she cleaned banks of a night. But earned $600 a night?’’
At the time Lauren and her mum were on Centrelink. Money was tight.
“They did a lot of drugs around me and one day on the way to her drug dealer’s place it came up that she was a prostitute. Mum blurted out she had been one before so could never again and the talk of the money and how ‘easy’ it was. I offered to do it for us. And that’s something I have always said and held guilt around. It was my choice.’’
With a history of self harm and a fragile mindset, being plunged into the seedy adult world was damaging.
“I was hit, degraded, the mind games … I was 16 and looked it and covered in fresh scars. But I turned off. The Valium mum would give me and lack of sleep helped.’’
The scars mark her razor blade slashes. Cutting her forearms and thighs was a way she tried to tell the world she was in serious trouble.
“One day I snapped, fought with mum and was done. I had gone back to live with Dad suddenly but didn’t tell him for a few days what had happened. I was petrified to tell him.’’
Lauren’s dad had no idea what was going on and once she told him they went straight to the police.
“Court was a nightmare. But I was determined to go to every date. I needed to be there to have that closure.’’
Lauren’s mum was sentenced to 18 months’ jail.
Lauren was destroyed.
The day after her 20th birthday she ended up in ICU.
“I was unconscious for a day or two I think, and when I woke up I was hallucinating and groggy for a few days.
“My heart stopped in the hospital, I don’t know what would have happened if my best friend didn’t find me in time. I just didn’t want to feel anymore, I was so tired of getting better then relapsing and I felt so lost.’’
Lauren remembers feeling unsettled and lonely for much of her childhood. There were a few times she would overdose.
“I would drink charcoal to pump my stomach, and mum would take me for food afterwards and have me laughing.
“It sounds so bizarre now but it was normal for us for a while. Looking back it was her trying to deal with it best she could, with distractions, but at the time it felt almost like a reward.’’
It was during her high school years the self harm started. Lauren went to Oak Flats then Bulli High School.
By Year 10 she was “really mentally unwell’’ and in Year 11 she was hospitalised.
“People found out and I dropped out.’’
Looking back, she tries to pinpoint what got her through.
A combination of trial and error and her support network saved her life.
Rebuilding after coming close to losing everything has made Lauren a brave, honest woman who has the ability to see that people can change; that everyone has a past.
She’s forgiven her mum.
“We have what I call a dysfunctional/functional relationship. She has really made her own life again,’’ Lauren explains.
“I know she is sorry.’’
Writing also fills a void. Lauren pens every thought, even ones that make no sense. Her dream is to have her story published, to reach a large audience.
“No matter what their past looks like they can overcome anything,’’ she says.
“I was trapped in my past, couldn’t imagine a future, there was nothing. So now, looking at where I am compared to where I was, I want others to know that there is always a future, a choice, a way.’’
headspace 1800 650 890 www.eheadspace.org.au
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 kidshelpline.com.au
Lifeline 13 11 14 lifeline.org.au
