“I didn’t need to get clean and sober, though most of the times do. “I needed people to re-raise me as an adult and a rehab wasn’t going to do that,” Deanna said. Refuge for Women offers women leaving the sex industry through trafficking or exploitation an individualized plan in a therapeutic atmosphere that provides healing classes, faith-based discipleship opportunities, recovery meetings and job training. “But nobody is there to walk you through, okay, ‘Well, how do I make a new life? What else do I do?’”Ī year after leaving the industry, she came to Refuge for Women in Lexington, Ky., to heal from trauma and develop life skills. “A lot of people will say, ‘Get out of the industry. Although she knew and accepted that Jesus died for her, she had no idea how to break free from her past and start a new life. She stopped performing, went back to school for holistic health and started attending church. Her mentor helped her walk through the recovery process. I had no idea because I was just trying to make a living.”ĭeanna took the first step in her journey to sobriety and wholeness when she told one person about everything. “Even when the addiction isn’t bad, just what I’ve seen it do to relationships and marriages and just how humiliated people feel and the shame and torture that it brings. “This man took his life because his addiction was so bad,” she said. For the first time, Deanna started to realize how her career affected others. Afterwards, he returned home and committed suicide because he couldn’t reconcile the fact that Deanna was a real person, not an object he had watched perform. One of her fans drove across the country to meet her. She worked in the industry about 10 years before realizing she had to change. “I had somebody walk off set because he’s like, ‘I can’t continue to do this to her.’”īut this was her job and the only way she knew to survive. “It was so bad that when the camera wasn’t on my face, I would cry in my pillow,” she said. She and other women in the industry were frequently in and out of emergency rooms, constantly tested for sexually transmitted diseases and often addicted to drugs and alcohol to cope with the physical and emotional pain. What started with wearing a skimpy outfit and getting a little bit of attention, led to a career in the sex industry.Īt first she was met with limos, mansions and famous people, but she soon realized the glamor only masked a painful reality. While there, she was invited to participate in a modeling competition with the grand prize a layout in Playboy. You do things that you think is normal for an eight-year-old to do.”ĭeanna started working at Hooters at 17. You talk about things that you think everybody’s talking about. “You just assume everybody’s been introduced to this. “It’s really interesting because when you’re a child, you don’t think it’s doing anything to you,” she said. She and her sister imitated the scenes they’d seen on television, thinking this was normal child’s play. Deanna thought her body was the only way to find acceptance. Her mom introduced her to sexually explicit films when she was five. I want to be honest about the good, the bad, the ugly, so that people could see full on this is what God has brought me from.” Even if God doesn’t remove every single situation or circumstance when it comes to the consequences of that lifestyle, our life can still be unrecognizable. “I have a life that is unrecognizable today,” Deanna said. Now, she shares her story to show God’s power, freedom, forgiveness and grace. While still in the industry, she met Jesus and continued her journey to freedom and healing at Refuge for Women in Lexington, Ky. Addicted to drugs and a victim of violence, she pursued a career in the porn industry. A victim of childhood abuse, traumatized by her mom’s repeated suicide attempts and generational addictions to drugs and alcohol, Deanna sought survival and the promise of a better future through prostitution. For more than 25 years, Deanna lived her life without hope.
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