Former Prostitute And Hell's Angel Lover Speaks On Freedom & Healing

Today, I sit down with Ronika Merl, who is a survivor, screenwriter, poet, and activist. Ms. Merl opens up about her early life growing up in a Himalayan tribal community, her move to Austria, and how years of abuse and trauma led her into prostitution at just sixteen. What began as a search for love and belonging turned into years of violence and exploitation — but her story doesn’t end there. Today, Ms. Merl shares how she took back her power, rebuilt her identity, and transformed her pain into purpose.

We dive deep into trauma recovery, forgiveness, sexual empowerment, and learning to love again after abuse. Ms. Merl explains how trauma physically rewires the brain and how healing requires patience, compassion, and daily self-work. She shares insights on attachment styles, letting go versus losing, and how we can rewire our thinking through conscious self-talk and healthy relationships.

Ms. Merl also reveals how writing became her lifeline. While pregnant and sleeping on the floor, she received an email saying her first essay had been published — a moment that changed everything. That spark launched her career as an award-winning screenwriter and trauma speaker who now helps others share their stories through film, poetry, and art.

https://www.ronikamerl.com/

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple O' Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today is going to be an interesting episode because we are here with someone who, like me, has lived many, many lives. And, uh, I've only lived, well, I mainly live two currently, but I've lived a couple different ones.

Uh, throughout my life, both, uh, voluntarily and involuntarily, and we'll be focusing today on the involuntary, uh, because life takes us in places we don't expect, or where we want to go, unfortunately, especially when we're children and teenagers, and don't have as much say. And then, uh, from that traumatic mess of a childhood we have, we can end up trying out several different routes in life because we are just trying to figure out something, trying to usually find love, find healing and find normality and our normal is very different from everyone else's normal.

So we're going to be talking about that today, as well as. Some of that healing process, focusing on creativity, and the various mediums through which you can express yourself in a way that is self therapeutic to you, as well as to others. And we'll be focusing on the written work, such as books, and screenplay, and movies and films.

So, I am here with an awesome guest.  Ronika Merl, she has rallied after fighting for her life against food poisoning for the past 24 hours, but she is here, did not cancel last minute, she said I'm just gonna hope that nothing happens during the episode, you know, if you're watching on YouTube and it looks like we paused and then resumed, you know what happened, it goes unspoken what happened.

Yeah, Ms. Merle, it's great to have you here. I've already had a great time just pre recording talking to you and I'm excited to get into some of the dark and personal But then we're gonna definitely end it on with hope, with recovery, and a bunch of good laughs. Yeah  The laughs are important, actually, and, and having survived the worst things in life, such as food poisoning, um, I think, I think I need all the laughs I can get.

I feel a lot skinnier now, though.  I feel like you don't want to be laughing too much after in that, for like a set amount of time after food poisoning, one laugh could lead you to  So it's like, you don't want to laugh and, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to have an accident during the recording of this podcast. 

I hope,  so um, and even if, look, that's actually, that's something we can talk about really, really importantly because sometimes we do, sometimes we do just mess up and sometimes we do have accidents and then you, you pick yourself up and literally clean yourself off and move right on and you just gotta, you gotta power through.

I'll be paying close attention to your eyes because even if you maintain your demeanor. There might be some widening of your eyes, that's like I'm a very good actress. Okay.  True, true. So I've got to be on my, my best game. Um, thank goodness they haven't invented the smell o vision yet. Otherwise, I might Yes, thank God. 

I might not see it, but I, there might be signs.  Oh my God. Yeah. That's, that, podcast with discussion of that.  Which is great. There's always, there's always room for new experiences. I love it. Yeah, yeah. We'll have to record again and next time I'll show up food poisoned and we can make a competition of who was the better, you know,  Sick person.

Days, days of podcasting without an incident, you know. Exactly. Get one of those signs.  Exactly. But yeah, please tell us all about yourself outside of your, uh, food poisoning. Outside of my, uh, medical history. Um,  outside of my medical history, I have quite the history. Um, so the quick rundown is, uh, you mentioned something about having multiple, lived multiple lives.

I think, I think that is something. That was one of the reasons I think we are so well suited, uh, for talking to each other. Um, so I grew up in a, in a tribal community in the Himalayas, uh, which was very rural, very kind of 15th century, no electricity, no running water. Um, we were goat herders who moved around the mountain and lived in clay houses and tents.

Um, so very secluded and very far away. Um, then I moved to Austria with my mother. Um,  She's Austrian. And then I lived a very, very privileged and very kind of comfortable and very kind of nice upbringing. We had a beautiful vineyard. We had, you know, nice houses and horses and all sorts of luxury things.

Um, and then when I was 16, I fell in with a very kind of  bad crowd. Um, and I was taken, not taken away. I was, I was brought off. Um, and I was in prostitution for four years. Um,  Thereafter, I moved to Ireland and had children and had a very corporate kind of life. I worked at Microsoft. I worked at lots of different companies and had a very kind of normal job in a suburban life. 

And then the pandemic hit and then I knew that I, I, I'd always known that I wanted to be a writer. I always known that I, that I wanted to be in film, that I wanted to be a creative. So I took the jump, um, on my 30th birthday to, to pursue the kind of creative career.  So that's my current life. So I've had, I've had quite the, it's been, it's been quite long, um, this journey.

Um, so  it's interesting when you say having lived multiple lives, but it's not always by choice. Um, I think the life that I'm currently living, the one where I get to make art for a living, where I get to write stories, where I get to talk to people such as yourself, where I love for it. Or, you know, do, do the work that I do.

That's the only life I've lived so far. That was really actually my choice. Um, so it, it does take several tries for you to get to a point where you can actually say, Oh, this is what I want. This is, this is the authentic me, um, without any baggage and without any kind of influence of, of wanting to swing wildly in the different direction of what you've just come from. 

Um,  So, healing yourself to a point where you can decide which kind of life you actually want to live,  I think can be very difficult, but is the most rewarding kind of journey.  Yeah, and one thing too is sometimes we think we want to live a certain life and then we start living it and it's not what we thought it was or  who we thought we were, which is so important.

And it's interesting, I was thinking about you mentioned going from a life of very a  dated life, you know, no electricity and all that to vineyards and I think it's interesting how people go one of two ways most commonly and I know for me I'm on the side of that kind of constantly worrying that when you get a life that was better than the one you have of losing that but there are people who get that power hungry who I'm going to take everything I want more and  but for me personally I know I was on I've always been on the side of You know, like I recently went on a cruise for podcasting which for again, there's a podcaster's cruise.

It is real blows my mind and um It was something that I never imagined going on and it's not something that  It was never an issue of could I afford or not? I just you know, I was never that was not a part of my childhood And I I remember I was on the cruise ship in this fancy restaurant and I was like, you know This could all go away at any time.

That's that's my mindset, you know to really appreciate You We have not don't live too much in the future of loss, you know, definitely taking the present but all that to say when you transition were you kind of that mindset as well like I don't ever want to lose this, I don't want to go back, or were you like, this is my new life, and I'm gonna party it up and enjoy it.

I think, I think the fear of loss is something that everybody who has ever, who has ever lost something in a traumatic way has to contend with. I think, and, but if you let that fear of loss kind of drive you. Your decision making process that can become very like you were saying that can become very toxic very quickly Um, of course, I am terrified of loss.

I am continuously terrified of loss. Uh, that's something I'm still working on That's something I'm still working through and that that goes into all aspects of life that goes into relationships that goes into the loss of your home the loss of your job the loss of your income the loss of your family the loss of your loved Ones like it doesn't  doesn't end this kind of You That that niggling kind of fear that sits in the back of your head, um, that tells you that you're going to lose everything and you're never going to be able to rebuild. 

So being able to work with that voice and kind of calming that voice down. That's a process. Like, that's a very difficult process that I think a lot of us who have gone through  really, really bad things, um,  have to contend with. And, and what I found, what I found most helpful in when that voice gets loud and when, when it tells you, you know, oh my god, what's, what are you even doing it for?

You're gonna lose it all anyway.  Yeah, you will. You will. Of course you will. You're human.  Death happens, life happens, and everything in between happens. You're going to lose these things. You can't, you do not hold on to things.  And the more we get to, the more often we get to relearn that lesson,  the better.

Like the more, the more we get to realize that it's okay for us. To let go. Letting go and losing are two different things. They are, they're, they're two entirely separate things. They lead to the same, same result of you not clinging to that thing anymore. Whatever that thing is, whether that's a relationship, a home, a job, whatever.

Whatever it is, a car, whatever it is, you're clinging, you're holding on and you're clinging to it and you're, you're trying to hold on and you're sinking your claws into it and you love it so much you don't ever want to lose it.  That's very stressful. That can be a source of, that can be a source of a lot of anxiety, that can be a source of a lot of pressure and a lot of pain. 

And then taking a step back and letting that thing go. Not the anticipation of loss like you were saying to live in that. Oh my god, I'm going to lose it one day So I'm going to anticipate that loss and I'm going to pre hurt myself And have free anxiety about the loss that will occur  and much more, uh, kind of a sense of okay  I'm going to breathe into this loss.

I'm going to understand that this is going to happen. It might happen tomorrow. It might happen whenever. Um, it, it's not going to be something I can influence. It's not going to be something I can change.  So I'm going to find acceptance.  And if I have to go through all the stages of grief, I'd be angry and be depressed and go through my bargaining and go through my everything  for me to come to acceptance about everything that I, that I, that I love. 

Then all of a sudden that love  can be can be a much more kind of  true  and an honest type of love Because  it's not sinking your claws into it holding on kind of love It's I love you for I love you. I love my car. I love my home I love my whatever  for the present moment that we're in  Not because I'm trying to hold on.

Now, I give great advice.  I am real This is the worst thing Like, this is my worst flaw. This is the one thing I'm still struggling with the most, is not being able to let go of things, and holding on to things too tightly.  So, I'm just trying to convince myself of this right now.  No, I was going to say, you're just like me.

Yeah, the things that I, the things that I have been able to let go and the things that I did, kind of, were able to work through and were able to find peace with, I found the process of grieving them.  Even sometimes when I, when I still had the things, the process of just allowing myself to grieve them and then come to acceptance,  that was always the process that helped me the most. 

You reminded me of something I heard about a year or a year and a half ago in a podcast I was listening to and it was something that just really blew my mind. It's amazing how Shifting the way you talk to yourself or phrase things can really impact you I've had a couple experts on the show going over the placebo effect the mind and body connection and all this stuff some some Scientists some doctors and it's really amazing how we can You Rewire our brains like it's really really amazing and someone said the I believe it I want to say it was Diane Manuel of the the 2 percent solution or 2 percent better podcast.

Don't Quote me on that but I  believe it was him who said it or he quoted it Which was instead of saying lose weight We're letting go or we're releasing that weight because he said when you lose something you want it back, right? You want to find it you want to get it back and he goes so we need to shift the whole culture around We need to lose weight to you.

We need to let go of that weight. We need to release it And so I just bring that up For anyone who hasn't heard that and if you're struggling and you find yourself, you know Working out and doing the work and letting go that way and then you're going back and getting it Uh, maybe it's the you might need to shift the way you're talking to yourself and I know it sounds crazy You're like how could just changing that phrasing do it?

But the the subconscious is it really blows my mind how How powerful it can be and so when you're talking about losing versus letting go I I instantly thought of That conversation I had heard about weight loss, and I was also thinking about, you know, relationships, especially toxic relationships. And you know, guys will say, well, I don't want to lose her, man.

But he's, in the context of, he's talking about letting her go to, to heal, or vice versa. The woman is saying, hey, I need, I don't want to lose him. I love him, but I, you know, I need to let him go so that I can love myself or whatever it may be. And um,  losing, it has such a negative context, uh, but that's why I think letting go is a more positive context because you can be losing something for the benefit of yourself or others and that's a positive, but the word losing still makes it sound so bad.

It implies, it implies that, and it also kind of implies that  you're  for the loss, you know, If you know what I mean?  That you're a loser. That you've, that you've lost the game. That you didn't win something. That you weren't strong enough to hold on. No. No. Life is not like that. We, when, I, I, there's, there's two things that you hit on there that I really find so fascinating, so interesting.

One is mind over matter. Like one is the, the, the kind of, that, that your mindset controls so much of what you physically aligned here in your life, and the second thing is to kind of go back into into the the that  toxic relationship or any relationship really  When you're trying desperately to hold on to someone like holding on to things a little bit different a little bit easier so If you desperately want to hold on to that awesome car that you bought, um, but you're struggling to make the loan payments, you can work harder, you can get a different job, you can take up an extra shift, like, there's a lot of things you can do to keep your car, right? 

There's not a lot of things you can do to keep your boyfriend or girlfriend when they're just not in love with you anymore.  You can't really take extra shifts up to earn more love, like, that's not how, that's not how human relationships work. Work, do you know what I mean? So we Very often in relationships.

We really kind of that letting go can be that much harder because there's no Work you can do there's no task you can do. There's no there's nothing that can make you more quote unquote Deserving of that of their love or affection, which that's that's what it is toxic in and of itself to think that you're only deserving of someone's love and affection by virtue of how hard you work or what you do.

Right. Right. Yeah. Has to fulfill. Of course, you're not, you know, everybody is lovable for their own right. Um, so, so letting someone go  when  you want to hold on  is intensely difficult, especially for people who have been traumatized, especially for people who have been neglected, who have been abused, because we feel like when finally, Oh my God, finally someone's here who loves us.

This can, this has never happened before. This will never happen again. You're the only person in the world who has ever loved me. You're the only person in the world who could ever love me. Don't ever leave me because you're the only person. That's the kind of. spinning, that's the kind of spinning sentence that just runs around in our head and that's how we ourselves can become very toxic partners.

People who have gone through trauma can be very, very toxic partners because we're just so terrified of, of losing that person or losing that  tiny little glimmer of hope. So we cling on and we hold on, or we become completely the opposite of, of not being able to connect at all. Um, becoming, becoming avoidant and, and being afraid of commitment, being afraid of partnership, being afraid of connection.

So it's very difficult being with a person who has gone through trauma.  So then to understand that about yourself to know, okay, my brain is wired differently from most other people, because. through whatever happened to me, um, my actual physical.  Neurons are firing differently from what a normal brain should do.

Okay, so that's the first step. You understand yourself and then we connect back into what you were saying, um, about your mind and your mindset being so much in control over the outcome.  We have to understand That when we have gone through horrendous things, especially when those things happened in early childhood or during our formative years, so in your late teens, early twenties, and especially if those things were prolonged.

So if you were subject to, to many, many years of abuse, many, many years of, of, you know, horrible things or many, many different incidents. Um,  so what we find very often with complex PTSD  is that The trigger points can be random, so we don't really know what's going to trigger us because there are so many different trigger points inside our brains because the prolonged trauma that we were subjected to  just created that many, right?

And we don't know where they're sitting, they're hiding, like tiny little rabbits hiding in their, in their rabbit holes, and we don't know, we don't know where they're gonna come from.  So that's the first thing we have to understand. We have to understand that  we're not different because oh, we're so special and we've gone through so much trauma No, we're different because our actual physical brains  are wired in a different way  and Nobody can explain to you.

You can't even explain to yourself  how that wiring works because you don't know  So  when we understand the really really nitty gritty Physical aspects of our brains being different then all of a sudden We can come into understanding that, okay,  now I'm going to have to work with this hardware that I've got. 

For better or for worse, I wish I didn't have it, but this is what I got, right? How I'm going, how am I going to rewrite these pathways? How am I going to redesign these synopses? How am I going to create a neural network in there? Because this is plastic matter. We can change it around. We are not locked into whatever is going on in here.

Mm-hmm . We can change this around. Okay.  How are we gonna do that?  We're gonna do that with  talking nicely to ourselves.  Looking ourselves in the mirror.  Having relationships that are healthy.  Letting go of things.  Um, redesigning, actively redesigning the pathways. Every time we feel ourselves going down like a familiar pathway of, of  talking horribly about yourself or, or  going  down a toxic uh, kind of relationship pathway we take a breath and we stop ourselves and we understand the reason that we're doing this  is because our brains are wired incorrectly. 

And it's hard work, it's physical work,  it's like building a new road and that takes a lot of work. We're gonna dig up the trench, we're gonna pour the concrete in and build up the, I don't know how you build a road, I've never built a road in my life, but you know what I mean. So  it's hard work, right? And unfortunately,  it's very unfair  and it makes me so angry that we have to do all this extra work. 

But we have to do all this extra work if we want to be healthy people, and we all deserve to be healthy people at some point, um,  that's what we have to do.  Well, to summarize what you said very, very simply in a great quote I've heard, it's hurt people hurt people, you know, and you talk about and it's not intentional.

In fact, I actually listened to a podcast the other day. It was pretty interesting. They had an expert on talking about the different types of attachment issues that result from a traumatic childhood, the anxious attachment, the disorganized attachment. And I'm actually trying to get that guest to be on my show to talk about it.

So, but like you said, because of that, people can tend to form this, I need to hold on even if something is hurting them because  I'll put it like this. Let's say you've never had plants in your house, and you've always wanted a plant in your house. And then you end up getting a cactus, but you try to hug it and it stabs you.

But you're gonna hold on to it because it's the only plant you have. I know that's a bad analogy. I am, I'm an author, but right now I'm podcasting, you know, so I didn't, not an author on demand. But I was gonna say, one thing I want to mention and clarify, you talked about how you can't Pick up an extra shift in, you know, at the, the love foundation, you know, get more of your wage there.

What I want to say for everyone listening, you know, we're not saying if you're going through a rough patch in your relationship to, to give up or anything, what we're saying is that if it is 100%, you know, someone falls out of love or the big thing that, that you hinted at was You can't work, you know, X, Y, or Z in a certain way to change someone from who they already are.

Actually, I read something the other day that really describes toxic relationships or relationships where people are holding on. Which is, uh, Johnny T, shout out Johnny T, host of Refuge Freedom Stories, he sent me a Substack article about marriage. And it said, these are the four things, the four reasons why you should not marry someone.

Or like, the four reasons. Why you shouldn't marry someone and it was like the first one was if it's because of lust not love, you know If it's a if that physical attraction is too big a factor Um, if it's almost to the point of objectifying rather than just being a part of why you're attracted to someone If you don't agree on politics religion or finances Uh, and then if you're waiting for things to change and it was like how long have you been waiting how long will you wait and then if you Or your partner have to change significantly from who you are.

There's a difference between compromise between the two of y'all Incomplete change,  you know, so I think I think  Yeah, so that's that's what you were addressing and I just want Clarify because I don't want a bunch of people to be like, you know what ronica and mr. Whiskey said Um, you can't work hard. We can't make things work.

Goodbye, you know, don't go out there dumping people left and right There's yeah, exactly. Thank you for clarifying that there is a huge difference that what I was trying to What I was trying to say was that um, you can't make someone love you You  No matter how hard you work. If they don't love you, you cannot make them.

You cannot force someone into loving you. And if you would have to change yourself completely top to bottom  to make them love you, that's not love. They don't love you. You know what I mean? So yes, exactly. So it's, it's, uh,  relationships are so difficult because, um, they rely on, they rely on so many different factors to really be successful.

Um, And,  especially when you've, when you don't really know what love feels like and when you don't really know what it is, it can be such a strange unfamiliar feeling to you that until you've experienced it a good few times, like you have to like experience it three or four times and in different versions in a different varieties to really understand  and to not be afraid, like to not be afraid of losing it or be afraid of it  for you to actually really finally, um, get through it.

So  I, my therapist said that it's not going to be the first relationship that I have after, after kind of stepping into my healing  phase. Um, that's not going to be the one that lasts. And it's not going to be the second one. It's not going to be the third one. It might be the fourth one. It might be the fifth one. 

It's only after a good few healthy relationships. And that's not just romantic relationships. That's friendships. That's, That's everything else. Right. Because other people who have had a  non traumatic upbringing or who have had a very healthy family structure, who have had a very healthy, um, calm, peaceful life, the kind of life that, that everybody should have, those people learned those relationship structures when they were in kindergarten, and then when they were in middle school, and then when they were in high school, they learned those things.

Um, Kind of in an unbroken manner. I didn't. I had no, I had no idea. Um, and a lot of people who either they might have grown up healthy but then had a really traumatic event later in life that just kind of disrupted everything for them, so they have to relearn these things as the new person that they've become. 

That's fine.  If it takes you, if it takes you a couple of A couple of years to really understand. Oh, this is what human relationships are like  This is the type of person i'd like to be These are the types of people i'd like to surround myself with that are healthy for me that lift me up  And the sad news is that some of those are gonna break Some of those aren't gonna turn out to be as healthy as you hoped they would be  And that's okay, too And then we come back to the letting go and then we come back to the  It's okay if I lose this friendship.

It's okay if I lose this relationship. I am still, this, my self worth is not tied up  in this other person liking me, in this other person loving me, in this other person wanting to be my friend.  And to untangle your self worth of,  from the perception of others,  I think is one of the, is one of the more difficult things that, that we have to kind of  contend with as well.

Right. Well, especially if you've had a traumatic childhood where you didn't get validation from parents or mentors or other friends or lovers. So I agree. Uh, I have a couple interesting questions for you, Veronica, but I want to pivot real quick to, um, Back to when you said, uh, you can't make someone love you, not personal experience maybe, but if a woman does not love you for five to six years and then she ends up homeless and you pay her housing bills and her car bills, and then she says she loves you, maybe she didn't change her mind.

Maybe you're just. Paying for her to not be homeless, uh, that's very specific. Yeah. Well, I just given an example I want people to relate if anyone  Has nothing to do with me has nothing to do with me But I would I would I would very much question kind of that love um, it can't happen, you know In this person's example  I only know what you just told me, so I don't know, but um,  Yeah, but,  Anyway, that wasn't, that wasn't the main point, It's just something I wanted to bring up, and then um,  We ended up talking a lot about love and dating and healing, so I do want to bring up  Two things from real life, um, one, you mentioned prostitution, which is a conversation I do want to have, and then I know from your, your bio, which you haven't shared with everyone yet, is you dated a hell's angel that was twice your age, um, I almost became, An off brand florida hell's angel.

That's one of the other lies. I almost lived which we can get into later on But yeah, that's because that's a really interesting kind of harsh part of my life. Yeah Yeah, I want to start with the the prostitution aspect which you mentioned earlier in the beginning of the episode And you said it shortly after when you were around 16, you got involved with the wrong crowd Is that what pushed you into that was the prostitution?

voluntary or involuntary It was voluntary, which is, people always think, um, which is why, this is one of the reasons I really, really talk about this topic as often as I possibly can. And this is one of the reasons I'm, I'm here right now. This is one of the reasons I'm an activist and this is one of the reasons I speak all the time. 

And people can't make me shut up about it. Um,  Because it was. It was voluntary. I was not forced. Um, I was trafficked later on and things got very, very, very dark much later on when I was around 18. Um, things got a lot darker. But starting out, um, it was voluntary. And I was not,  I was not put into a room and, and like, treated horribly and beaten up and forced into this.

That was not the case. I walked into it with my eyes very open, but I was also only 16. Um, I was a teenager. I had been severely abused by both my parents. I was  beyond, beyond broken. Um,  so no healthy 16 year old girl  should  walk into it with her eyes open and voluntarily and with a smile on her face. So the fact that I did already showcased just how, just how completely,  um,  Damaged I was before I even started.

Um, and, and four years in, in, you know, pretty violent circumstances. Certainly didn't help to make anything better.  So when I say I volunteered for it, what do I mean?  I mean, I met, I, I don't wanna use his real name, so let's call him Joe.  Um, I met Joe when I was 16 years old. He was a Hell's Angel at the time.

Um, he was 34.  He was, uh.  dangerous man, a violent man,  but a kindred spirit.  And I really struggle. A lot of people whom I've told my story to have a lot of bad words about him. I will not utter a bad word about him. Not once. Um, He was a pimp.  He had multiple women. Um, I was, like I said, I was 16. I met him in a bar.

He walked in with all of his Hell's Angels crew. He saw me across the crowded room.  And my fate was sealed. Um, and we were together for four years. And throughout those four years, we had horrendous times together. We, we  had, you know,  shootouts and gang violence and, and, uh,  really just awful things. He, uh, he was kicked out of the club,  which you can imagine led to consequences that were quite severe and quite dire, which,  uh, you know, led to situations in, in which my life was  very much at risk.

And I was  perched under my kitchen table with a gun pointing at the door. So it, the, the  situations I was put into  in those four years were horrendous.  The relationship I had with Marcus. Oh, Jesus. I'll, I'll, I'll get to that. That's Derrison's real name. Fuck it. Doesn't matter. Um, the relationship I had with him. 

I don't want to say that that was a bad thing in and of itself. Were you in love with him at the time? Yes. You were attracted to his wildness and the authority. I was definitely, I was definitely in love with him. I was, I was definitely in love with him.  And I know for sure that he was too. Not at the beginning, because at the beginning I was just a girl. 

At the end, I know that there was, there was something there for him too.  Um,  the day I left, the day I got out,  he, and he tried to get me back for, for a few months after I got out.  So about three months after I left, he quit prostitution,  opened a little cafe.  Um, broke up with all his other girlfriends. And I got back in touch with him a good few years ago.

And he really did quit prostitution.  He runs a little cafe now. He found Jesus.  And he's pretty happy  so  I mean redemption,  you know, so He wears weird hawaiian shirts now  Don't don't say that because I that's no don't say that because when i'm not on the show, that's what I wear  But it's a positive thing like he's all colorful and wears hawaiian shirt  And he's and he's you know walking around  With sandals on and he's super happy with his life and he runs a little cafe And there's nothing evil going on in his life at all anymore so  You know, and and he says to this day that my leaving was the catalyst for that.

So  That's why I cannot  Cannot bring myself to say anything Horrendous about him.  Yeah, what I will say  is that the experiences that I did have during those four years  were horrendous. I was severely raped. I was, I was beaten to within an inch of my life. I had my jaw broken. I, I, you know, I, I, I nearly died.

I, I  have, you know, there were horrendous, horrendous things that happened during those four years  and they traumatized me and they changed me and they, they made me into someone I was never supposed to be.  Um,  so, um,  When I speak about my time in prostitution, I always want to make very, very clear that  when you walk into something, even though you walk into something with your eyes open,  you don't know the consequences of what's going to happen. 

But once you're in the consequences, you do have,  you do have the ability to  get yourself better.  Sometimes you don't have the ability to get yourself out completely, or maybe not as quickly as you want to, or as quickly as as you can. 

But you can eventually  you will get out  and it might take longer. It might be harder than you thought,  but nothing is permanent. Nothing is forever. 

So did  Did prostitution negatively affect, because we've had a couple episodes on the show about sexual intimacy and how the world is destroying that through social media, through  young women making a lot of money by posting their inappropriate photos and all that. Did prostitution affect,  Your, your view on intimacy and the way you, you process stuff.

Do you feel like at some level that prostitution was a way to feel loved? And, and  like? Well, that's a, that's a really interesting question. Um, I think there's two questions in here. Um, did prostitution, was prostitution a way to make me feel loved? And how, how do I work with my, how is my intimacy now?  Um, To answer the first one first, uh, was prostitution a way to make me feel loved?

Um,  yes, I think so. Um,  I substituted sex for love when I was young because, um, because of the way I had been treated during my childhood. So, both my parents sexually abused me. So,  sex was love in my eyes because I didn't know, because I didn't know that it wasn't. And if that's what your parents do to you, then you kind of think that's what love is.

Um,  so yes I'm i'm this is the first time that i've asked myself this question. So thank you for asking it. Um, But I think the answer is yes I think I think I did substitute one for the other because I didn't have any love  Um, and how am I dealing with my sexuality now? I love this topic so much I can't I we i'm gonna talk for three hours.

No, um, You  Healing, healing your sexuality and healing your, your, um, how you approach intimacy can be such a difficult thing. It is the, it is one of the most difficult things that we, we can ever, we can ever attempt. Because it is the most,  it's the most base instinct. It is the most kind of, integral part to who we are as humans is, is how we deal with our sexuality.

Um, and growing up is such a difficult thing anyway, so that when we're, when this big, huge wrench gets thrown into our, our growing up  of, of a destroyed or warped or, or kind of mismanaged or, or mis kind of represented, um, duality,  it can be, it can be absolutely impossible to untangle that. So,  I am very, very, very happy.

I love intimacy. I think sex is amazing. I am not afraid, even though I've had many, many very difficult sexual experiences in my life, obviously.  I'm really happy with sexuality now. I'm really, I'm, I'm, I'm very self expressive and I, and I love everything to do with sexuality.  And that can be a very healing factor.

And also because now I own it. It's mine.  And to, to rediscover, to rediscover that I own my own body, um, has been a really, really difficult process, but that's one of the processes that I feel like I've actually accomplished and that I've actually been successful in. Um, so how did I, how, how do you take back control over your own body if you feel like you, if you have been,  if you have been made to feel like you don't?

Which is always the case in rape, always the case in sexual abuse, a lot of the times, even the case in, in severe neglect, when we don't have any sexual intimacy and that's something we long for, how do we take control of, in that case, of our own body? Um, which can be also very harmful and very painful and very, very, you know, damaging to us. 

So what can we do?  I think one of the most, most healthy kind of approaches is, again, um, Self acceptance and the acceptance that you cannot,  no matter what it is,  make other people. Again, to go back to that topic, you can't make someone else love you. You cannot make someone else a part in your healing process. 

If somebody else becomes a part of your healing process through their, through  their affection and their love and their input and their wisdom and their, their. Sexual prowess, you never know. Um,  that's beautiful.  That's wonderful.  But depending on somebody else to heal you,  that's not going to work.  That's not how it works.

So when we work on ourselves and really kind of discover  who do I want to be as a person with all aspects of our personality.  So even when we don't have any sexual desire, or whatever the kind of, where we are on the spectrum,  self acceptance  is the first thing.

Self acceptance is the first thing that we have to come to  in order for us to have healthy sexual, a healthy sex life, and healthy sexual, a healthy sexual understanding of ourselves. Um,  Because you cannot, you cannot expect anybody, your partner, your lover, whoever, society as a whole, whoever, um,  to kind of  give it to, to give you that, that acceptance or to give you that, that  self-determination or whatever it is that you wanna call it. 

It has to come from within. And if your power has been taken away, and however, that, however that looks, however that looked in the moment  that the place you regain it from is yourself.  So it's complicated. It's the most complicated thing in the world.  But also, again, it can be done  slowly,  with a lot of patience with yourself,  and with a lot of love to yourself,  and acceptance.

And every time, every time we think about bad things, or we think about horrendous moments, we take a breath, and we accept. That this is what we're thinking about and this is how we're feeling right now.  And then I think slowly we can come to that  healthy kind of mindset. 

What you mentioned, I think is very applicable to people because I think. Not just people who have experienced sexual abuse of some kind, but I think a lot of people in general, especially the younger and newer generations of today have that equivalent of sexist love or value because what we see online is Your beauty is your value and beauty being not being a beautiful woman, but how Busty are you or how you know, how much sexual entertainment or value can you bring is your actual worth?

That's what we're seeing a lot with social media We see young women developing eating disorders, which is nothing new but on a on a worse level now we see editing and social media presenting false narratives, uh both social media and um Pornography setting up expectations of value and sexual content that is not realistic.

And then um, just the fact that kind of like if, we also see like kinks and uh, other sexual things being like, well you can't just be, you can't just have regular sex, you know, that's not valuable enough. You need to do all this crazy stuff, you need to, and if you have a disability, you're actually more sexual val you know, valuable.

Uh, so society has taken it really  In my opinion, a very negative twist in that direction and so I think what you said that sex is a substitute for love I think that's something that a lot of people feel and what I want to say is if you're someone  who where sex  Like you're someone where sex means love to you You need to communicate that with your partner because I have found out And I know plenty of people who have found out that When you think sex means you're in love, this is something special that you would only do with someone you love. 

There are people who have sex with you who don't feel that same way, and then you'll find out that they're not in love with you, or that, you know, this doesn't mean you're gonna get married, or that, you know, which is So, I think it's important that you communicate that, which can be A very difficult conversation, a taboo conversation, especially when you're, you know, teenagers or in your mid twenties.

But it's an important conversation to have because, like,  I don't want to get too personal here, but like, there was a woman that, that I did have sex with a few times, and I was in love with her. And I thought that, you know, if you're gonna have sex with me, that means you're in love with me, we're gonna get married.

And, um, she did not feel that way at all. And so I found out the hard way that, like, that's something you have to communicate because some people, everyone has different views, regardless of religion, regardless of culture, everyone has their own personal view, whether it's because of their childhood or just You know, what, what they believe on what sex means to them and what it means for the person that they're sleeping with.

So, please communicate that. Like you said, Veronica, it can become quite a, a, a mess. You know, it's already such a mess and then when you have trauma on top of that. Uh, so, if I, if I heard you correctly, did you say you had kids at some point? I did, yeah, I have two sons. So how did that  change you know, kind of your life?

How did that change your life? You don't have to tell us how old they are, but like, when did that happen? They're six and ten. Um, they're, oh my gosh, I lie, he just turned seven, actually. He just turned seven. Um, so, seven and ten. Um. I think I always wanted to be a mother. I think becoming a mother and I became a mother quite young.

I was 23 Um when I had my first um, so so I was quite I was quite a young mom. Um, and depends who you ask some might say you were behind the game Some might say you're you're taken to your some might say you're past your prime, you know, so Yes, well, um So, but I was, I was, I always wanted to be a mom. I always knew that I was going to be and becoming a mother, I think  it, first of all, it makes you grow up, you really have to grow up, um, grow quite quickly.

Um, and then also your capacity, your capacity for love goes away, uh, or it grows just exponentially. Um,  but what I, what it really kind of the most pivotal thing that it made me immediately, um,  was my parents.  So immediately after I had, um, my eldest son,  my tolerance towards what my parents had done to me vanished, gone immediately.

I've been very kind of forgiving and I thought, oh, you know, um, they were horrible parents and they did all this horrible stuff, but they're still my parents and I should,  I should play nice and I should be nice and I should play nice and I should accept them. And, and Right. You know,  and immediately after I had my son,  I just. 

Thought, no,  no, no. I do not. I do not accept what you did to me. I do not accept that this is normal. I do not accept that, um, that is something you can do to a child. Mm-hmm. Um, and my parents have never seen my children and they never will. Um,  because I'm not about to allow my parents anywhere near my jail.

They wouldn't, I'm sure they wouldn't hurt. Them  but they hurt me right? No, they hurt me so badly that no, they should never be allowed. So I think What the first thing it really made me realize how bad my childhood actually was Because you don't when you're living when you're living through really horrible things  Very often we don't know that they were so horrible or the phrase that I've heard all over and that I've heard a million people Repeat is oh, it could have been much worse or oh, it wasn't so bad or oh You're just exaggerating.

It wasn't as bad as you remember. Those are the phrases we always hear and they're  Bullshit. They're not true. It's a lie. It was as bad as you remember. It could have been, maybe it could have been worse, but it could have been a hell lot better  as well. Um, and it definitely was as bad as you remember. So,  um,  immediately after I had my children, um,  I  unforgave my parents,  um,  and have not spoken to them since.

It  Because I understand what it's like. I understand what it is to be a parent  and what they did,  ain't it?  So, um,  that was the main,  the main switch that kind of flipped inside me.   I can understand that. I think it's interesting. In fact, actually in the episode before this, we were just talking about,  uh, forgiveness and boundaries, uh, being held emotionally hostage, specifically Forgiveness versus denial.

Uh, and when it comes to our parents in particular,  that denial being, Oh, I just don't want to think about that. Or, you know, they're my mom or dad, you know, and we, we were talking in the context of alcoholics and drug addicts and abusive parents, but it applies again to, to that kind of situation as well.

And I think, yeah, I guess being, being a parent could definitely change that. And I know I am thankful for having relatively awful parents because. I feel like it has set me up to be a good parent. I know it can go the wrong way, right? I could end up just like my mom or dad, but there's a lot of things that I have in the back of my mind already of, could never do this, could never do that.

And, um,  yeah, I think, I think there's a balance to be had. There is the, my parents are just people. They did the best they could do. And then there is the, my parents are people and they made bad choices and they did stuff on purpose. So, um, In my case, I don't think they did the best they could do with me. 

The awful thing, not the awful thing. I mean, it's really good. Both of them had children after me separately. Um, so I have, I have half siblings on both sides  and all of my half siblings had really happy childhoods  and were never abused.  And are really happy, well adjusted people.  So no, they didn't do the best they could do with me.

I, I feel, I can feel, I feel your jealousy and, and, and your resentment. Like, I, I feel the same way, you know, just hearing that I'm like, oh, good, good for them. Right. Good for them. Like, I'm so happy they did. Um, look, I wouldn't wish them anything bad ever. Of course. Of course. But like, yeah, it was only me. It was only me that my parents did that to because I'm the only child in that relationship.

Yep. So they were just so toxic that they just kind of spun themselves into, into a toxic mania  and drugs were involved and everything. So, but as soon as they separated from each other, they didn't, like, they were still not great parents. Um, but they weren't as, they weren't as severely abusive to their other children as they were to me.

Um, which,  I don't think there's any like real resentment. I joke now about it. There's no real resentment towards my siblings. I wish them all the best. But incidentally, I've not spoken to any of them in more than 10 years either.  Yeah, I get that.  I'm kind of, I kind of don't really have family anymore. Um, and I'm not willing to make the sacrifices that I would have to make in order to get back into that circle because it's not worth it. 

So, yeah.  So, let's kind of shift gears to We've talked a lot about your past and your upbringing and kind of the past few years as well. But let's move into the modern day and age, current times. We mentioned in the very beginning, screenwriting, poetry, activists, artists, and  you know, using those. I mean, when did that come about and what is the whole journey with that? 

I love this. I love this so much. Okay. I feel like you said that for everything, but I know I'm just so excited to be here You have such amazing questions. This is really good. Um  so I The I got an email I was sleeping on the floor Um, I had been made to sleep on the floor at seven months pregnant  Um, with my second child.

And I was sleeping on the floor in the spare bedroom. Um, because my ex partner didn't want me sleeping in the bed.  And I woke up to an email that morning to say that  I had been published for the first time ever.  Um,  so,  when I say that writing saved me,  I mean that quite literally.  Um, I had started, I started writing poetry when I was pregnant, um, the second time  because I was in such a, like, sad and desperate and lonely place in my life.

My partner didn't love me. I was pregnant at the time. He absolutely did not love me anymore.  Um,  my children were happy and healthy, but I definitely wasn't. Um, and I was, with everything else that I was carrying, you know, I'd lost my family at that point. I had, I was living in a country that wasn't my own.

I had emigrated to Ireland, um, for my partner. I was now living in Ireland. I had a good job, like I had a good, nice, comfortable corporate job, but you know, that's only so much you can do.  And I was dealing with this trauma, this just, like, trauma laden life that I had led.  Um, and I was just so  full to the brim with grief.

I'd never had a day of therapy in my life at that point  and I didn't know what to do with all this grief and I didn't know what to do with all this absolute agony and pain and hurt that I was just  heaving around every single day. Um,  and it didn't help that I was, you know, pregnant like a huge big bowling ball in my belly.

I was ginormously pregnant. Um,  And so I sat down to write a, uh, uh, an essay  about a situation where my mother left me on a bus in, in, uh, India  when I was five years old. And she just basically abandoned me on this, like, overcrowded bus in India.  And I wrote that essay because it was one of the, like, more traumatic memories that, that my brain was still kind of allowing me to remember.

Um,  and I sent it off to, like, a magazine or something.  And that opened the floodgates for me. That really did, like it opened the floodgates for me to remember things that I had completely suppressed. That I had not allowed myself to remember. And the one thing that really helped me  to process all these memories and to process all of the trauma that I had been carrying around with me silently, completely silently, for years and years and years.

So, I left prostitution when I was 20, I was 27. When I started writing, I mean, I'd always kind of dabbled in writing, but seriously sat down to really start writing at 27. Um,  so my brain had just fully cooked. I had just become a true proper adult, which happens around 25. Um,  and so I was actually starting to become a real proper adult human being. 

And I sat down to write  and I never stopped. I never stopped writing. Um,  and.  Becoming more and more successful in, first with, with poetry and with essays and with short stories that were published in magazines and, and stuff like that. And then moving into screenwriting, um, in 2019 and I won quite a prestigious, um, competition very early on in my career.

Which then led to, um, screenplays being optioned, which then led to screenplays being produced, which then led to, you know, me being commissioned for screenplays and me having a, uh, the career that I have now.  Um,  if I did not have that catalyst  and knowing that I could be successful while being true to myself and doing something that felt really healthy and felt really good,  I'd still be sleeping on that floor. 

So, waking up to that email on that particular morning and realizing there's a way out.  There's a way out of this.  Not financially, because financially I was fine. I was better off financially then because I had like a cushy corporate job. And now I'm an artist.  Right, yeah, of course. Yeah, um,  but emotionally. 

I did not have to depend on the man who did not love me.  Right. I had to depend on myself.  And I could depend on myself emotionally by speaking  and by writing  and by creating art because I knew, I knew that through writing and through art  I could not only overcome the things that I had gone through but  make them into something that was  valuable and that was, that was healing for not just me but for other people too.

Um, which is again, that's one of the reasons I'm here now to talk because I think I found my calling in  Speaking to these things, whether it's through writing, whether it's through film, whether it's through, through visual mediums, um,  speaking about what it is that can break us and then what it is that can heal us. 

That's what I have to do with my life. That's the purpose of my life. Um, and  that is what I will spend the rest of my life doing.  And it happened on that morning when I was seven months pregnant  that I stepped into it.  Wow, I think I you know, the most beautiful part is there was a way out But it was really a way that you had to make yourself, you know, it's a way you had to make yourself So I think yeah, that's important  and  We're gonna have your website in the description below, of course, and I know you've got your projects on there But you also have services.

So I just want to go over that about what you do when you work with people nowadays What does that look like and entail?  Um, so mainly I work with people who want to tell a story and aren't quite sure, aren't quite sure how to get started. Whether it's a screenplay, whether it's a short story, a novel, a poem even, a poetry piece.

Um, so I've helped, I've helped people all over the world. So my last project that I was really, really excited about was, um, two projects actually. One of them was a short story about Nelson Mandela. Which was really interesting. It was about, it was about a relationship he had with a, uh, like a friendship he had with a prison warden.

Um, and that was a really interesting story. And, um, the person I worked with just said,  wanted, knew what he wanted from the story, he just didn't know how to turn it into a treatment for a screenplay. Um, so I was able to sit down with him and we were able to turn it into a treatment for a screenplay, which is just like an outline for a screenplay.

Um, and then the second thing that I did very recently, I can't say too much about it because it's all still under wraps, but I was very lucky to be able to adapt a novel series, um, into a film, um, for a TV show. A film and a TV show.  Awesome. Um, so I am, I, I'm very lucky now that I get to work with people who have stories to tell, um, and that, that want me to help them tell the stories, whether it's, uh, they want to write it and they just need someone to kind of help them out a little bit or a little bit of encouragement or whether they want me to actually sit down and write the screenplay for them.

Um, so that's, that's what I do. And then.  That's my kind of that's my film work And then this half of my work is obviously outreach and speaking to to it's not just podcasts that I do I I speak with  trauma survivors I speak with  Women who have gone through domestic violence. I work a women's refuge here in Ireland  So I give talks there and I help I help with kind of outreach and with art therapy and stuff like that So that's my my other half of my work Um,  that I'm also, you know, tremendously happy about, so I'm, I'm happy to speak at any kind of event or, or  anyone really.

I'm happy to talk to anyone. Um, so those are my, those are my two worlds that I try to combine. Mm.  Yeah. Well, Veronica, this has been a great time. I really enjoyed talking to you. And is there a main message you want to leave everyone with or? Maybe it's just wrapping up everything you said with a pretty bow here.

I know you said a lot of great advice and I think, yeah, I think it really resonated with a lot of people. I hope so. I hope so. Um, my message is it feels very, very hard, but it's really actually quite easy.  Um,  it can get better, it will get better, and the only way to do it is in tiny little steps. 10 seconds a day.

10 seconds a day of you feeling good about yourself,  already a win. Cause tomorrow it'll be 20, the next day it'll be 5 minutes, and  eventually you're gonna feel good about yourself all the time.   I think that's great advice. Like you said earlier on the negative self talk has so much more power than we give credit to.

And you know, when we start thinking negative, it just, it's like a snowball on top of a snowy mountain, you know, it really builds up fast. Whereas positive thoughts is like trying to push that all back up the mountain, you know, it takes a lot more work. So don't start your day off negative. Don't start your evening negative, you know, and just think good things.

And like you said, a little bit more each day, but yeah, I think we've, we've gone over a lot of great things and I really appreciate having you. Thank you so much. Oh my God. This is the best conversation. Thank you so much. And just for everyone who was wondering, did you make it through without any incidents or? 

Imagine that I did. My food poisoning is really gone. All right. That's good. All right. Well, thank you so much, Veronica. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.