Default How to Burn Out from Stripping: A Guide

[EtherealMOD]

Have at it, ladies!

Title mentions stripping, but all are encouraged to contribute! This will hopefully turn into a fun reference for newbies and veterans alike.

[EtherealMOD]

I'll start.

If you want to burn out from stripping as quickly as possible, be sure to eliminate any non-stripping-related activities from your life to allow for maximum time spent in front of Netflix, thinking of nothing but your next shift.

Be sure to set large financial goals for yourself, and resolve to make them even if you have to work 8 hours/night, 5 nights/week. When you don't make them, either a) beat yourself up for being not good enough at hustling or not pretty enough, or b) blame the brokeass customers and horrible club management to the point that you start hating the building

omg the beating yourself up for not being pretty enough! god I did that in 2012 I'd set goals like I had to make $600 to be ok, $800 to be decent, $1000 to be good, and I could only be "happy" if I make $1200... I made a lot of money back then (tho I've heard SF has gone down hill) but I burnt out so bad I couldn't work for a year and was lucky to have a very rich boyfriend at the time to completely support all my needs.

This time with stripping I'm going to be more realistic/happy with myself.

Too many shifts in a row. Drinking alcohol while working. Smoking. Not exercising. Guilty of the first two and last one. Not the third. I woke up one morning hung over, with some strange dude, no clothes to be found in an apartment in Louisville after working seven straight days. I resolved then and there to clean up my act.

Be sure to cut back on any and all "Fun Expenses," since your only goal in life now is to make as much money as possible stripping.

That yoga membership that brought you peace & happiness and also helped you recover physically from grueling club shifts? CANCEL THAT SHIT. Those once-a-week cocktail meetups with your girlfriends that brought laughter into your life and helped you stay socially connected? NOPE. TOO MUCH MONEYZ. Those luxurious morning coffees that made you feel all warm and gooey inside? HELL NO GIRL.

In your down time, formulate an elaborate, ambitious, 10-year stripping plan that details your financial goals, complete with aggressive deadlines and strict consequences. "Will work 4 shifts/week for the next five years, then 3 shifts/week for the five years after that. Must make $500 minimum/shift. If shift goal is not reached, add 1 day/week onto schedule until weekly goal is met or exceeded."

Definitely waste lots of time complaining and not hustling so you don't make any money so you have to come in even more days.

And work at a club with low earnings and shitty management and you will hate your job in 2.5 seconds

In the name of saving up as much money as possible, sign a lease on a shitty, tiny, depressing apartment that fills you with dread every time you come home. Who needs quality of life?! All that matters is being able to retire by the time you're 50 (doesn't matter if you're a dried-up cynical raisin by then - you won't have to work anymore!). Your 20s, 30s, and 40s should be USED, not ENJOYED.

Do things that are beyond your comfort zone, stay until the end of the night even though your body/feet are aching like fuck, and keep talking/trying to sell dances to dicks who treat you like shit.

Quit your vanilla job abruptly and completely depend on stripper funds from the neighborhood mid-tier club you work at. Be sure to do this in the summer while working in Florida. When you notice that the club is dying and customers have suddenly become very cheap, don't change clubs!! No! Instead, increase your shifts to 5 days a week to meet your monthly expenses. Be sure to keep ridiculously high goals for yourself. You still need to create a huge savings account and be able to purchase luxury items.


(still haven't recovered from the burnout caused by this lol)

Convince yourself that if you don't sell at least 2 VIP blocks a day you are a piece of shit. If you make less then $500 you are a loser. Also convince your financially irresponsible spouse to quit his job and take over all of his bills as well as your own. Work doubles. Lots of doubles. Start taking on customers that you make you uncomfortable because you can't afford to pay your utility bill or buy diapers for your kid without them. Put on a fake smile and pretend like you'e not mad night after night when your boundaries are pushed. Also never talk about it. Just keep pushing the hatred down. (It really helps if you're married to someone who literally won't let you talk about work with him.) The less emotional support you have, the better.

-Try any and all drugs offered to you and add their street value to your earnings.
-Take everything customers say to heart, it's not like most are unattractive with mommy issues.
-Fuck school, get as drunk as you need to in order to get fingered by big spenders.

I'm laughing my ass off over here...omg...

thredjack: I actually just wrote a piece similar to this for my creative writing class. It was like "How to marry the wrong guy-twice!" or something. Actually was very therapeutic and my instructor was like "Sorry all this happened to you but this was hilarious" haha

If you live in a city that has both dives and nicer clubs, stubbornly work at the same dive you started in for the next four years of your stripping career. Auditioning in new clubs is stressful and thus couldn't possibly be worth the increased earnings potential. It's best to stay loyal to your shitty ass club filled with the same cheap regulars who show up every. single. night.

Instead of thinking of stripping as "just a job," look at it more as a *lifestyle*. Or, better yet, as an IDENTITY. You are a stripper. That is who you are. If you're lucky, after a few years of cultivating this mentality, you will have convinced yourself that that is ALL you are.

Start stripping with a 6 year plan: "I'll just strip through grad school! No problem! Hmm I wonder if I should get my PhD in Liberal Women's Basket Weaving or just stop with a Masters?"

End with a 6 month plan: "Maybe I'll just do the dental assistant program...They make what $14/hour? I could live on that...Then I'll only have to dance for 3 more months!"

Omg yes. I relate so hard!!!

Glad I'm not the only one...My guy is trying to talk me into nursing school and I'm like "hmm...nursing eh?...Maybe I could be a nurse...that's only another two years, hmmmm" Everything is measured by how long it takes/how much it pays/how likely I'll be able to get a job immediately. haha

Bring stripping home with you whenever possible! Try to infuse your personal life with anything that reminds you of your club, your regulars, and your work persona.

Only hang out with other dancers otc. Wait for the confessions to come out about what they're "really" doing in VIP...Become even more discouraged at work because "everyone else" is doing extras so why even bother? Also continue putting up with the grabby regular with bad breath week after week, since you "need" his steady $150.

Upon installation of the new cameras in VIP that are viewed by the DJ, make sure to repeatedly try to catch girls doing extras, and subsequently bum yourself out about being one of the few clean girls.

Befriend a girl (and share DR counter space with, so you cannot get away from her), who is your exact body type and equally as pretty, but who does extras and loudly proclaims how much money she makes. Develop love/hate relationship as you resent that she makes 2x as much in less hours because she gives hand jobs and allows kitty touching, and again beat yourself up... since you're physically equal, you should be making the same as her.

Wear the same three outfits every night for years in an attempt to bore yourself to death.

[EtherealMOD]

Saturday and will feel like crap the next day. Don't accommodate your schedule's new needs - just let everyone push you around on their 9-5 schedules because it's easier than explaining to vanilla people what your day-to-day is actually like. Proceed to resent job instead of them or your own shitty boundaries.[/QUOTE]

I actually really needed to read this. Even though I do well at my dive, the only reason I haven't tried working at a more upscale place is because I'm "scared".

I can identify with a lot of stuff in this thread, especially this. I got burned out from dancing about a year ago and still haven't managed to recover. Wish there was a guide on how to get motivated and excited to get back into it....I guess I'm retired now, lol.

[EtherealMOD]

Definitely waste lots of time complaining and not hustling so you don't make any money so you have to come in even more days.

And work at a club with low earnings and shitty management and you will hate your job in 2.5 seconds

Instead of working consistently in your home town, procrastinate working endlessly, and channel your efforts into planning never-gonna-happen strip trips across the country. Take aaaalllllll of the energy you could've used to drive fifteen minutes away and walk into a real club, and instead sit on your ass and research literally every club in the country aside from your own.

Honestly, time is key. Years away from the biz if need be. I have a thread around here somewhere about chronic stripper burnout...

Work somewhere very close to your home so that whenever you're out running errands, you're practically guaranteed to bump into regulars! That constant feeling of looking over your shoulder will ensure you leave your home as little as possible, which will help you feel like a caged animal. Trust me, in no time at all, you'll dread even going out to get the mail!

Try to find a club where the clientele is 100% regulars who don't spend unless they have your email and phone number so they can be in constant contact. This will help you get to a point where you can't even use your phone without being filled with dread and loathing. Each club shift will be basically the same as the last, which insures soul-deep boredom. And you'll feel increasing pressure to keep your regulars interested, which will help you feel like you aren't good enough for even perverted, smelly old men.

Make sure to work on days you know are dead, because you have "nothing better to do" than sit in the club making $10/hour.

^Umm...yes. I could write a book on self-sabotage as related to my dancing career. Jesus. I'll be sure to add some gems of my own later.

hah. Quit your day job, and make stripping your ONLY means of income (while trying to adjust to full stripping v part time stripping) so you spend your shifts a big ball of stress trying to hit your goals.

^^This in addition to the others are such hard habits for me...no wonder the thought of going to work lately has me feeling off. I had stripper burnout and didn't even realize it, I was beating myself up for not being in a super great mood every single shift. This thread has opened my eyes that it's not just me.

Read "My last shift" and beat yourself up seeing everyone else's huge money nights. Forget to consider the fact that you work in a $10 dance city (meaning their numbers must be cut in half to actually compare), AND that you work day shift because night shift fucks with your sleep/school schedule.

Work at a club that requires use of the busiest freeway in the state. Be sure to leave for work around 3-5pm when rush hour traffic keeps you in the car for 2 hours, thus adding 3 hours to your work day and making going to work for a 4 hour shift literally an all day affair.

Try to be your authentic self at work, in every way possible. Talk about topics that are very meaningful to you with your customers, and when they express their medieval, inane beliefs, argue passionately with them before remembering to ask them for a dance. Bring up anything that might be a turnoff for your customers. This way you'll challenge yourself continually to make any money (easy money is boring) and will constantly expose your vulnerable self to people who could not care less about you as a human being. If you aren't being your real self, you're a fucking poser, am i rite?!

-Let the club bully you into working six nights a week when you're in nursing school five days a week, so you can show up for clinicals hung over or still drunk.
-Sleep with coworkers who don't quite look the same in lighting. Make sure you tell them this, too.
-Take advice from customers.
-Approach every Indian who comes in.
-Give everyone who needs a ride home one whenever you can. Don't think for a second these extras girls can't afford cars-or a damn taxi-because of a drug habit. When you find their needles in the back seat, make sure to return them, they'll get mad if you dispose of the evidence.
-While on the topic, spend all your money on drugs to feel cool.

Lmao!

Be an introvert...while working 4-5 10-12 hr shifts a week with only a few hours of sleep.

:rotfl:
Also approach every Mexican. Actually, approach everyone who is not a white businessman type.

I make half of my money off of Mexicans because I'm a white girl who can speak Spanish.

Spend all of the money you make at work on more things for work. New outfit, new bag, new makeup. Repeat.

Put on your best stripper counselor act and focus on the customers that are having emotional break downs.

Let the managers talk you into working day shifts and slowly begin to control your schedule until you're always on the slowest shifts. Work night shifts the nights before your 9am classes. Stop going out with your friends to bars or clubs because "You could just 'go out' at work and make money while you party." Become obsessed and addicted to money. Start planning expensive vacations and setting goals to buy a new car in cash within 5 weeks (for example.) Put as much pressure on yourself as possible to meet said goals. You don't need breaks, or fun, when there's money to be made.

When you're making new friends or dating, bring up your dancing job as quickly as possible. Not because you're a proud, independent woman. Do it because you're insecure and think that people won't like you unless you have dancing to talk about. You're only interesting and worth knowing if you're a stripper!

Omg, this and this. Allll the time when I first started.

Omg this mixed with almost working every night for 2 weeks straight when I'm normally used to just working 3 shifts a week made me burn out really fast. I worked too much and did absolutely nothing except sit in my apartment alone for those 2 weeks that I ended up not working at all the next week. This wasn't a major burn out but it showed me exactly what NOT to do lol.

Convince yourself that your hustle is so strong that you can (and WILL!) sell dances to extras-seeking customers. Spend 15 minutes trying to close sales with them by using evasive, misleading language. Endure the most miserable lap dances ever while they try to lick you, grope you, grind on you, and push you around.

Then convince yourself that your super hustle means you can sell $250 VIPs to everyone, even college students and blue collar dudes on slow nights. Don't even bother trying to get them to buy $20 dances -- those are for loser baby strippers. Fail to sell a single VIP or dance, and leave with $30 after a six hour shift. For maximum burnout, spend $10 of it at Taco Bell on the way home so you can eat up all your stress.

Hang out with lots of vanilla people doing lots of cool, interesting things and moving up in the world. Make sure to compare that to the fact that you're "just" a dancer. Forget about all the stuff you HAVE accomplished. It sounds lame when compared to the fact that they've done all that AND more. You may as well not even talk unless you're contributing some "court jester" fluff story about a drunk customer to make people laugh. That's clearly all you're good for in social situations.

Be afraid to leave your first club cuz cleaner clubs with hot as hell girls are too intimidating, even though your home club has been taken over by extras girls who got there just in time for the summer slump. Work seven days a week for a month to make ends meet before heading for greener pastures, where you'll proceed to make the highest average of your dancing career. Oh, and instead of being happy to have found a club where literally everything is different for the better-and you can finally wear boots, making your stage show so much better, you beat yourself up for not having the balls to do it sooner. Then, do the math on how many extra days you worked since the invasion of the extras girls.

omg...this is my life...((cries))

THIS IS LITERALLY ME RIGHT NOW. I've been at my original club again for a few months and I feel so drained. I'm making decent money off regulars but it's like 90% of all my money is regulars. It's exhausting. Cue intense fucking burnout :/

I obsessively read my last shift and I usually feel like shit after. I really need to not read it.

This is sooo true! I'm so glad when I started dancing, my goals were just to live nicely, still have fun and start a savings account. Very simple goals. I achieved that and then beyond. So, I allowed myself, school, travel, non-stripping night club excursions, bountiful trips snowboarding...fun stuff. Lot's of restaurants when I worked/lived in San Francisco!!!! Lots of fun tasting all kinds of exotic food, participating in a contest to find a sucky restaurant in San Fran (but slowly gaining over 20 lbs doing it) but those lbs have been gone for a while!!


But on a more serious note; you never know what the future will bring: economy changes, physical changes, accidents.....you never know. All that money you slaved away saving could be gone in a second. I've been there. I recently had to clear $26K out of my roth IRA (husband had an accident). Now I don't have enough to even start one. But I have some things that are paying small dividends and currently going through a paid certification program for a new job. So there is change, but some balance. And compromise: we can no longer afford our season passes to the biggest ski resort in the western US, I no longer get my yearly trips to the Sundance film fest in Park City, with snowboard perks, but I had them. And I enjoyed the hell out of them!!! But instead I get free gas gift cards, Sephora cards and Starbucks. Not as pricey, but a nice compromise.

( I know this is long), but save a little, make your plans, but please never forget to have some fun and release your stress while you have the $$, the energy and the health to do it.

[EtherealMOD]

Definitely waste lots of time complaining and not hustling so you don't make any money so you have to come in even more days.

And work at a club with low earnings and shitty management and you will hate your job in 2.5 seconds

Instead of working consistently in your home town, procrastinate working endlessly, and channel your efforts into planning never-gonna-happen strip trips across the country. Take aaaalllllll of the energy you could've used to drive fifteen minutes away and walk into a real club, and instead sit on your ass and research literally every club in the country aside from your own.

Remember the one time you made 1k in a shift, dwell and be miserable it never happened again.

^ What if you don't have a choice?? (Los Angeles, here)

I'm very sorry, haha.
Not trying to be racist but in Phx they're a groping pain in the ass 90% of the time, and the short conversations usually consist of "How much for sex? Why you no do that? Not even for $xxx?"

And don't I know it!:'(

I'm sorry to read this. My spouse will nod his head and say I'm sorry, but not really listen. I understand.

WAY better idea: Try to work in a club where this is the main customer base. Those old white businessmen types are stuffy and boring anyway!

Edit: DorienG, I'm sorry this is actually your situation. Props to you, I've got no idea how you can handle it! (And yes, I am relatively proficient in Spanish.....but it wasn't helpful for me.)

Continue going in to work when you're struggling with something in your personal life, and be sure to tell all of your customers about what you're going through. It's always a great idea to invite strangers into emotions that you haven't even begun to process yet.

Haha for me:

*Work 5-7 days a week and justify it by the fact I'm 24 I started late I need to catch up on all the money I could've saved but lost out on because I was too scared to dance from 18-23
*Never attempt to go out and meet people for the fear of the dreaded question "so what do you do?"
*Never take a Friday or Saturday night off because a night out is not worth missing out on the $500+ you would likely make working
*Worry immensely about what the mangers, hospitality, and other dancers think/say about you
*Blow off things like cleaning your place or cooking a decent meal because going straight to work and grabbing food on the way will allow you to go in earlier and potentially make more money
*Take everything customers say about you to heart
*Read reviews of your club constantly to see if anyone posted anything about you
*Oh yeah and the leaving for work during rush hour thing was spot on lol

Tell friends, family, and strangers where you work so you'll constantly worry that someone you know will show up unexpectedly during your shift.

sign up for expensive money draining private fashion uni, study 5 days and work 4 nights and somehow still find time to intern.

depress yourself about your inability to do this one simple thing of making and spending hundreds on your education in the same day, while eating cup noodles by candle light coz you cant afford to pay your bills on time.

promptly drop out and try a cheaper course thats only 2 years instead of the 3 uni years. overwork yourself, party everynight with coworkers and through a severe anxiety condition until you inevitably fail half your subjects.

panic about being stuck in dancing forever and the fact that you started this for fun and extra cash and come to the realisation that somehow 6 years have gone by and you managed to not get ahead with your life. panic about not having any 'real' friends whom you cant connect with over their opinion of your dancing.

consider enrolling in any and every direction of study. tell yourself no matter how much you cannot bring yourself to do another shift, youre probably fine to pull through another uni degree if you have that to motivate you.

come to your senses and complete a one year diploma program cursing every day that goes by about not coming to your senses and do anything less ambitious any sooner

stay in contact with old regulars once you quit, because you dont know how to break up with them and what if theres an emergency and you need to dance again anyway

Experience multiple significant deaths (parents, extended family, pets, close friends.) Don't take time off. Stop yourself from grieving because puffy, red eyes are ugly.

Develop complicated grief and depression. Don't take time off because bills. It'll go away eventually, right? And everyone's so fucked up that they won't notice you sobbing in the corner of the locker room.

Choose a club that doesn't have it's shit together. Make sure the managers are either absentee, drunk or are powerless. The doorstaff should be chilling with customers and the DJ's sniffing for pussy rather than doing their jobs.

Make sure that every emotionally wrecked person you know has your number and that they call you whenever they have a problem they want to cry over. Bonus points if it doesn't occur to them to see how you're doing and they call you while drunk.

Work through injuries. All of them. Broken feet aren't a big deal.

Lust after a very hot player you work with. Plan your shifts around his schedule. Definitely don't do anything about your crush and DEFINITELY don't date anyone else.

Do not have a social life. In fact, be a complete hermit. If you get lonely, adopt another special needs pet.

Work your ass off and try not to spend money on anything unnecessary. When you do spend money on something, spend a lot of effort to make sure it's bargain basement cheap.

When the inevitable nervous breakdown hits, keep working. You'll get over it.

I'm beyond burned out.

1) Use work as a distraction from the fact that you are in the middle of leaving an abusive relationship with a sociopathic narcissist who continually uses the kids and your dancing as leverage in an attempt to blackmail you to stay.

2) Bonus points for going to work with fresh scratch marks around your neck where he tried to choke you. Tell yourself you're too strong to let A little thing like DV get in the way of your $$$.

3) No matter how mentally "done" you are by 1:30, push yourself to stay till close or you are a lazy/mentally weak dancer even if you made your goal.

3) Listen to girls gossip in the locker room and make sure to participate (something I actually avoid like the plague because I'm an introvert and prone to anxiety attacks.)

A few things I forgot:

Live on a diet of fast food and copious amounts of Rockstar. It'll ensure that you always have 5 pounds to lose and a reason to hate your body. The massive amounts of caffeine will destroy your sleep cycle. Which leads to...

Sleep is for the weak.

Make grand plans for incredible changes in your life and it must not be subtle. Quit caffeine, cigarettes and junk food all at the same time. Beat yourself up when it doesn't work out and you go right back to your old habits.

Pay close attention to the news and stock your Twitter feed with discussion over every horrible thing that happens in the world. Take it all very personally.

Get to a point of exhaustion and so deplete yourself of give-a-fucks that bathing or basic housekeeping is just not happening, especially when you're a very fastidious person who bathes twice a day and must brush your teeth after eating.

Don't ever treat yourself to anything nice. Put new brakes on your car, because you can rationalize that as a safety issue. Don't buy a new pair of jeans because, even though they're disintigrating, they're still mostly functional and won't get you in trouble for indecent exposure yet. At the same time, buy nice things for other people because you love them and want them to be happy.

Listen to all of the girls who come up to you with a long face and defeated posture who complain that there's no money in the club. Believe them.

Yeah. I really have to do something about this.

drink

And gain weight from drinking.

Make sure stripping is your ONLY option. Back-up plans are for pansies.

And STOP wasting money on tuition! Other girls make more than you because they're not preoccupied with school, not because of the extras they do. Oh, and cry yourself to sleep when someone you consider less attractive outearns you.

Only work once or twice a month. You'll feel like you're staving off burnout by minimizing your time in the club, but really, you're just increasing the pressure to make bank every time you work. Which is super fun, amirite?

You've got five hours to earn $800+. Go!

LOL! I love this thread!

I KNOW you'll have a few things to add to this thread.

Yep - LOL!

Got PTS? Who cares, your mind and soul is not important. You are only a money-making machine. Just ignore the anxiety and horrible feelings and go to work anyway! Also, don't ever go to therapy because it's too expensive! Just go to work instead and keep getting drunk so that guys will continue to push your boundaries all night. Who needs therapy when you could be making money!

Aim to get to the club just before fees hit the highest bracket. Then procrastinate some more once you're ready. It's not like you'd make it on time, and all that matters is how much you pay, not how much time you have to hustle!

If you habitually reward yourself for working, start mentally adding the cost of these treats onto your list of club fees that you have to pay before you actually start making money. That $100 massage you're treating yourself to? Yep, you guessed it, that just became another financial burden!!

Become obsessed with your profit margins...Mentally deduct the week's house fees and tip outs, gas, food etc. from what you made in one shift and start to panic that you won't break even. Develop a serious scarcity mindset, and ignore the reality that your bills are always paid and you're fine.

Put showing up to class and homework on the back burner. Why focus on your education when you could be making $$$?

^It's funny, I got made fun of at my first club for "wasting" money on nursing school. One girl I gave a ride home to went so far to sabotage me, took clinical paperwork out of the back seat at three am that was due at seven am. So, instead of sleeping for three hours, I had to redo it from scratch.

[EtherealMOD]

Definitely waste lots of time complaining and not hustling so you don't make any money so you have to come in even more days.

And work at a club with low earnings and shitty management and you will hate your job in 2.5 seconds

Instead of working consistently in your home town, procrastinate working endlessly, and channel your efforts into planning never-gonna-happen strip trips across the country. Take aaaalllllll of the energy you could've used to drive fifteen minutes away and walk into a real club, and instead sit on your ass and research literally every club in the country aside from your own.

NOt making $$ and staying at the same club would be a killer 4 me. The $$ is the only reason I even dance, if it wasn't for that, id be out!

Holy shit, that's terrifying. I'm so sorry she did that!

omg I would bust her grill

Never saying no to a drink.
Forget that you have a sense of humor.
Get involved with that hottie you met at the club who's crazier than you.
Constantly compare your earnings, looks and hustle to those of other dancers.
Oh, and spend your money as quickly as you earn without nary a thought about a rainy day fund or retirement.


I'm really glad this post exists. Makes me feel a lot better commiserating with you ladies.

I wanted to, but I was scared of getting fired and she had a good eighty pounds on me. Jokes on her, it was full of big words she'd never be able to understand.

Read Hustle Hut obsessively and try to use every single hustle tip simultaneously. If you lose a sale, it's because you didn't study hard enough. Obviously.

Become friends with dancers that compare their earnings with others dancers.

do what I am doing when already on burn out from a couple bad nights and wait almost all month to go to work the last week of the month to make rent because you haven't yet.

Yes, I am ashamed to say, I'll be working everyday into the new year now.... Viva la NYC!

Not keeping boundaries with regulars, so they keep blowing up you're phone with non-stop texting.

When a fellow dancer starts trying to pick a fight with you for no reason; don't respond. The desire to go off and punch the bitch in her face will subside. And if you do the right thing and just complain to the manager and he tells the both of you to behave or you both will get fired, don't defend yourself. Just bite your tongue. After all, you don't want to get fired from your shit job now would you? Who cares if you did nothing to deserve what other miserable people do or say to you?

This also applies for the other bitches at the club like the snotty ass bartenders, massage girls, CUSTOMERS etc..

Lord give me patience...

When your body starts to react negatively to your work (like when you develop a traumatic response to having your nipples touched because you're always touching them at work), don't tell your partner about it. Just soldier on - push through your PTS and it'll go away, right??

(I'm thankful to have never made some of these mistakes - I'm having fun coming up with stuff based on Life Support posts I've seen over the years...)

You and me both darling. Everyday except NYE( only because my brother is home from college and I want to spend it with him). I'm even throwing in a couple of doubles to boot! Good luck babes.

Cancel all plans both on the days you work and on the days after your shifts. Work is such a huge deal - it's not just a job - that you need at least 24 hours to prepare for and recover from each shift. This will help you focus more and more of your free time on stripping so that it truly begins to consume your life. It will also help you maximize time spent thinking about each shift - you must remember to take this job very, very seriously. Suddenly, your part-time dancing gig will feel like a full-time commitment, which will help you convince yourself that little things like school and family are BURDENS keeping you from realizing your full potential as a dancer.

At work, dance to the same set of songs for every shift. Tell yourself that it's because those songs are "yours" and make you more money than any others could. Have a diva fit if the DJ ever plays "your songs" for anyone else, or if he ever plays any other tracks during your stage sets. Obviously your music should be the focus of your shifts, not your customers (or their music preferences). Anything you can do to make each and every shift feel the exact same as the last will pave your way to burnout!

^ Hey now, that doesn't count as long as you still like them yourself

On a similar note...
Allow the DJ to keep playing you the same artist (whom he 'decided on' 1.5 years ago when he initially asked what kind of music you like and you said "So-and-so, stuff like that". Allow him to play you the exact same 3 songs every time, instead of any of the other 20 songs by that artist he has. But hey, he's set in his ways and letting him do this is easier than attempting to argue with him, even if you visibly roll your eyes every time you get on stage.

Always go in whenever your manager texts you saying "We need girls".

Work every holiday.

Always show up early and leave late.

Take as much Adderall as you can get, don't eat, stay awake for days at a time. Be sure to buy chewing gum since you will twitch like a crack head without it. Also, drink lots of energy drinks all night and no water. You will be super skinny and make lots of money, possibly not from selling dances but at least by selling your Adderall. Also, be sure to buy some weed or Vicodin so you can finally sleep after the 3rd night of staying awake.

"Push yourself."

(Applies to many scenarios)

This thread is so good!

I love the one about dancing to the same songs every night, I totally do that sometimes and it's so true!

*spend all night in the dressing room getting blackout drunk with the other dancers and complaining about how slow it is
work every single day at a slow club during the off-season and beat yourself up whenever you don't make your highly unrealistic goals
Yell at all your customers at the tip rail for not tipping enough and throw a fit on the stage
Eat anything you want and never exercise because you have such an amazing personality that your customers won't care about those extra 20 pounds and then become depressed about consistently making less than $100 a shift saying "it used to be so good at this club but things have changed"
Give out your number to every guy who buys a dance and go on dates with ugly dudes you don't like in hopes they will come back and spend money on you, even though they never will
Spend all your money on expensive meals, drugs, booze, and clothes you will never wear because you work hard and you deserve it and then Pawn your computer/car/guitar/cell phone when you don't have enough to pay your rent
Travel dance when you need money badly to a hit or miss club saying "I'll pay for my food and hotel with what I make tonight" and end up owing money to th club and sleeping in your car
Get fake boobs on a payment plan so you can make more money only to realize you are making exactly the same and now you're stuck stripping for 5 more years just to pay for them.
Buy cocaine with your last money to make it through your shift, get anxiety from it and make no money and now you don't have money to eat tomorrow. Console yourself by drinking all th alcohol in your apartment when you get home so that you're sick the next day and can't make it into your shift
Care what everyone thinks of you and take everything personally at the club

Oooooh, gurl, you have LIVED.

:grouphug:

On nights when you aren't working but want to go out, run through your pre-work routine of showering and shaving in the exact same way you would if you were working that night, and try to ensure your makeup looks as similar as possible to your work makeup! With any luck, you'll spend your free night resenting the time you spent getting ready instead of enjoying yourself. You will inevitably think to yourself that you 'wasted' your time and makeup "for free" when you could've just gone into work instead.

haha most of those things are observations from other dancers i have had the "pleasure" of working with

my thing would be the one about getting down on yourself for having a bad night and thinking you aren't pretty/skinny/likable enough because of one bad night or weekend

Realize you cannot handle more than 2 days of stupid in a row, yet force yourself to go to work anyway... bail out after 2 hours... and thus feel like you 'worked' even though you really didn't.

Acquire some much credit card debt and a loser boyfriend with no job on top of everyday living expenses so that you pretty much have to work every single damn night. And on the nights when you make shit or not nearly enough to cover housefees tell yourself it is because you genuinely suck as a stripper, are not pretty enough, or smooth enough and that if you want to make money you have to do things you are not comfortable doing like letting customers touch you all over because all the other girls let him do it so it is standard now! All of this while dealing with a loser, broke ass boyfriend who refuses to get a job but doesn't want you to strip yet has the nerve accept your stripping money for living expenses, food, xbox and other dumb shit.

Oh, girl. I've been there too. That won't just make you burn out from sex work, it'll make you burn out from life! :hug:

When you go grocery shopping, panic every time you see an older white man in a business suit & think to yourself that he recognizes you from the club. Make sure to build it up in your head more and more, and then start having a nervous breakdown in the middle of the store, thinking that every male in there has seen you half naked. You should have just stayed home. Don't even bother going out to get food, because someone might recognize you! It's better to just stay home and starve. Then maybe you can lose a few pounds that way, AND not be recognized- 2 birds one stone, right?