Many people contact Fight the New Drug to share their personal stories about how porn has affected their life or the life of a loved one. We consider these personal accounts very valuable because, while the science and research is powerful within its own right, personal accounts from real people seem to really hit home about the damage that pornography does to real lives. Recent news reports circulated about a teacher at a preschool who had been fired because she was also performing in porn to financially support herself. Some time after the news buzz died down, she reached out to us and wanted to set the record straight. This is her true story of how the search for validation drove her to porn, and why she eventually left the industry and found love elsewhere.

My grandmother raised me growing up. I remember all my life searching for this love, this void, I was just so desperate for it to be filled.

I was jealous of my friends at school who had more “traditional” looking families at home. I was embarrassed to say that I lived with my grandmother, despite all the love she had thrown my way. It felt like nothing at the time.

I grew up feeling rejected by my parents. I grew up feeling unwanted, and I made myself believe that I was a worthless being. My life didn’t matter to me at that time.

When I entered high school, I had made all these great, nice friends, but it still wasn’t enough for me to feel loved. Around this time, I was surrounded by mainly females, but I thought if I had a male’s attention then it would finally feel like enough—my relationship needs would finally be fulfilled.

Really believing I was unloved and unwanted

I tried getting boys to notice me with my looks since I was too painfully shy to actually speak with any of them. I still couldn’t get their attention.

I believed in my heart that maybe it was because I was ugly, on the inside and on the outside. That’s why no boy wouldn’t take a second look at me, I thought. I was heart-broken when senior prom came around and no boy would ask me to go with them. Maybe if I was just sexier, then boys would notice me, and I could finally be loved, I thought. I was so naïve at the time.

After high school, my grandmother had become very ill and I took care of her full time, while also taking a few college courses. I started volunteering with kids during this period and I really enjoyed it, so I decided that becoming a teacher would be the career path I would follow. Not too long after that, my grandmother had passed away, and I was devastated.

Related: Just Because Porn Performers Do Porn, Doesn’t Mean They Like It Or Asked For It

I wasn’t ready for the intense grief I would experience, or the roller-coaster of emotions that would last for years after. I lost her, and I lost her love. I convinced myself that I would never get to experience love again, because Grandma was the only person who had, and who would, ever love me. I totally believed that I was unlovable.

I started working right away after my grandmother’s death, and I struggled to make it through school as well. I began teaching part-time at an afterschool program, and then I started substituting at a preschool. I didn’t have enough college units to work full-time in a school setting, and I told myself that this was the best I could do. In the back of my mind I was always hoping a man would come in and save me from the messy life I created and had to endure.

Related: My Name Is “Pretty”: Real Confessions Of An Ex-Webcam Girl

I dated around a lot, but I never met a guy who wanted my heart. I never met a man who wanted to commit to me. Instead, I attracted men who only wanted my body. From here, I continued to tell myself that no man would ever truly love me. No person would ever love me. I thought using my body would at least be the closest experience to finding real love. I made that idea enough for me.

Money pushed me to stripping, and then porn

After about a year of dealing with the stress of two jobs, school, and still barely hanging in there to make ends meet, I decided I had had enough.

I needed to make more money, but I didn’t know how. I loved children and teaching them, but it wasn’t paying the bills. I decided that I would have to change my major in college, and then probably start stripping on the side to make a decent income. I don’t know how stripping entered my mind exactly, but I had real issues with it and just thought it was another way to make a good living. I felt like I had been treated like a loveless object in my dating life. I was used to that feeling. So, the idea of stripping didn’t really bother me.

Related: “You’re Gonna Be A Star”: The Day I Was Drugged And Raped On A Porn Set

Not too long after that, I had come into contact with one of my old high school friends and I told her my story. She listened, and to my surprise, she also had a secret to share with me. She had filmed an adult video and was now looking to get into the adult industry. We talked about this for hours over the phone. At the end of our conversation, I was convinced. I was going to become a porn star. I thought porn would be easier than stripping and I would get to make even more money.

Related: What It Really Costs (And Pays) To Be A Porn Performer Today

I went into the porn industry when I was 21 years old. I was just another number to them. I was just another girl who went into the industry, stayed for only a year, and then left. I was easily forgotten and easily replaced. I was an average girl, with average looks, who made average videos. There was nothing very memorable about me. When I went into the industry, I was told that I wouldn’t make it very far because I was so “average,” and nothing stood out very much with me.

Well, except that I was a preschool teacher looking for a new career in adult entertainment.

A preschool teacher trying to make it in the porn industry

I was always very awkward on porn sets. I was inexperienced when it came to men, and then being filmed on camera in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know made every scene quite uncomfortable for me. I left my job at the afterschool program right after I went into porn, but I had a more difficult time leaving the substitute preschool teaching job. That school really didn’t want me to leave and I had a hard time just walking out, so I stayed.

Someone in the industry had heard about this and told me I needed to make this story public. If I made this public, that I’m a teacher and a porn star, then I would blow-up in the media. I would get so much work in porn and I would become a top performer. I would be famous and make so much money.

Watch: Former Performer Rachel Marie Oberlin Talk About Life After Leaving Porn

I knew in my heart that this was a bad idea, because I would be hurting the name of a very good school. The people I worked with were always so kind and welcoming to me. I didn’t want to hurt them, but I had already dropped out of college, I was already trapped in my new career, and I felt I lived a meaningless existence. So, I went public with my story. I felt horrible.

I had several interviews lined up on the radio, for magazines, and for television. Being publicly fired at a preschool because I was doing porn became a hot news story.

I canceled every one of those upcoming interviews.

Related: Ex-Porn Performer/Radio Host Lisa Ann Talks Extreme Abuse Of New Performers

I felt so awful and guilty in my heart, that I couldn’t keep going with the story. My publicity died down really quickly. I became very suicidal and I started drinking more during this time. I began to feel imprisoned in porn. I felt like I couldn’t do anything else with my life even if I wanted to. I felt more unloved than when I had entered the industry. Dating became impossible for me. My biggest dream as a little girl was having a family, but I began to see this as a hopeless goal.

Feeling like my dreams were out of reach

When I told a few other performers my dream to just have a family, they would laugh at me. My ideal future would be impossible to achieve. My desire to finally be loved was out of the question.

Related: Why I Went From Small Town Sweetheart To Popular Porn Performer

After one year of being in the industry, I had hit rock bottom. I felt lonely and incredibly depressed. I decided that it was finally time to leave. I had attempted to leave twice before, but I knew that this time was different. I had made the decision that I was going to have a good life. I was going to live my dreams, have a bright future, and that I would love myself. I would forgive myself, and I would find the inner healing I needed that was rooted in my painful childhood of feeling abandoned.

One morning, I woke up and was triggered with this thought, that I could live the life that I wanted to live.

Believing in myself and loving myself was all I needed to get free.

Truly, I had been loved all along

I had the support and help from my friends because they loved me. I had been loved all along, but I could just never see it before. I landed a great job right after I left the industry, and my past in porn has never affected me getting employed. That was my biggest fear inside of my own mind, that I would never be able to find employment after the industry, and I would end up homeless on the streets. I ended up going back to school and working on myself.

I grew, I found healing, and I’ve even gotten to inspire a few others. I found the love I so desperately desired within myself.

Related: “The More Real The Pain, The More Views I Got”: Confessions From An Extreme BDSM Porn Performer

I had gone into porn with deep emotional wounds. The wounds only grew bigger while I was in the industry. I was made to feel like an object during my time there. I was also made to feel like I wasn’t good enough. I cried almost every night I was in the industry. I wish I could say I am exaggerating, but I was in so much pain that I sobbed because I felt so hopeless. I didn’t know what else to do.

I am so grateful for all the loving-kindness I have received since leaving the adult industry. Life hasn’t been perfect and certain people do act as though I am a tainted individual. However, the love I have received outweighs all of that. I found real love, healing, and I am living the life of my dreams. I never thought, as a broken little girl, I would achieve very much in this world. I am so happy to think that my story could encourage even one other person out there.

Related: 5 Male Ex-Porn Performers Share Their Brutal Experiences Doing Porn

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

You are loved. You are beautiful. You are cherished.

–Melinda

Real exploitation of real people

We are so glad that Melinda found the love she was looking for within herself.

Pornography hurts real people, and statistically, hurt people are often drawn to doing pornography. It doesn’t just harm the consumer, it absolutely can hurt the performers, too. It seems basic to say out loud, but at the end of the day, porn performers are real human beings with hopes, dreams, fears, and families. As the industry grows, so do many cases of exploitation. If only the world saw these performers as human beings, how different things would be.

Related: “I Thought I Was Keeping Marriages Together”: True Stories From A Former Porn Performer

As we can see in Melinda’s story, people turn to porn out of financial desperation or coercion, and are kept in the lifestyle because they have nowhere else to go. In support of the women and men around the world who have suffered the abuse shown in pornography, we can stand together against it and fight for real love instead.