Sister self-destructing and raped

[svodop]

Current crisis - She seems desperate to spend Christmas with her ex and pay off all her debts by joining the porn industry in a foreign country for 1 month. Cash in hand, hundreds per day.

Her dad paid for the initial flights (I'm scared its one way). I said no when she asked me for the money with a story about an internship.

I live in the UK; she flew from Australia via heathrow to east europe and then onto final destination, where she will make enough money to fund further travel and pay everyone off.

This starts for me when I got an email from her in-transit waiting for the next leg of her flight asking for $50, just until tomorrow when her flatmate will transfer the money he owes her. I said it was impossible as I was at work, couldn't get to the airport before her next flight and wouldn't get into the transit lounge anyway. Also any bank account I have would take 3 days to transfer to hers.

This story has come out in dribs and drabs when she has been able to get on the internet but this is what I have pieced together:

Before she got on the first flight she was raped by 4 men and made a statement with the police who did nothing (so in Oz). They also stole her money which led to her in-transit email to me. No one knows about this other than me and she asked me to not tell Mum.

She got to Prague, stayed with and was lent some money by a friend she met on the plane (and also had sex with on the plane). She was kicked out by said friend so was essentially homeless in Prague but had a pre-booked flight coming up.

She hid her luggage in some bushes, which got stolen but she found them again and this caused her to miss that booked flight.

She got caught busking by the police, swore at them and one of them hit her across the head.

She has slept at the airport for 2 days. A friend from home booked her another flight which she also missed because it didn't include enough of a luggage allowance (easyjet) and she didn't have any money to pay for more.

I was about to pay for another flight to the UK when she was arrested by the airport police for stealing alcohol and they were demanding that she pay a fine before they let her go. The fastest that I could get that money to her was by flying over the next day. This wouldn't be quick enough as the police were demanding the money now etc. via western union.

I called her Dad and he deposited the money in her account as an instant transaction and now she has some cash, has been let go by the police and booked a bus to Amsterdam and I hope the reason that she is no longer online is that she is on it.

My stance has been that I will fly to her and bring her back to the UK with me and she can stay with me until she sorts herself out/heals (?) or I put her on a plane back to Oz.

What would you do? I want to make her go to a doctor and get checked. I want her to call rape crisis and speak to someone about it. I want to hug her and tell her it will be ok. I also want her to grow up and take responsibility, stop lurching from crisis to crisis. I don't want to bail her out. I want her to stop acting without thinking. I want her to stop smoking pot. I want her to finish her degree and get a job and live a calm life. I want to help her but I don't know how.

She is putting on a brave face to all her facebook friends. A bit like a school kid playing up to the teachers with friends cheering her on, but she is 22, and acting up to the police while crying to me about how all the bad things happen to her.

I have to act as if the rape is true. If your sister told you she was raped and asked you not to tell, would you? I have urged her to tell her mum herself.

Her Dad is useless and is more likely to help, hand over money, out of guilt for being a crap dad.

Our Mum had the opinion that my sister needed to learn her lessons the hard way as she wasn't listening to my mums advise, and so was trying to stay out of it. But is now much more worried/involved.

Contrary to popular belief, porn stars do not make oodles of cash. For a hardcore film she will be lucky to make around £600 or the local equivalent. The market is flooded with Eastern Europeans doing very hardcore for less than that. There is also a limit to the number of films that any one 'star' can make. If she was lucky and did 50 films, that's only £30,000 which isn't a huge amount of money for the long term effects, though it may seem it to a vulnerable 20 year old.

For soft porn and photos she wouldn't even get £150 a day - I suspect she has been offered this but will be pressured when the time comes into doing hardcore work.

Your SiL does sound very self destructive and in need of drama in her life to make it seem interesting.

Your main priority has to be yourself. You need to ensure that you are okay and in a position to help her when she is willing to be helped. I really hope that she wakes up soon and realises life isn't a film.

I think you have to act as though you believe it's true, but for your own sanity and peace of mind, I also think you need to retain your scepticism because if you were gang raped and robbed on the way to an airport would you really

1. Just get on a 24hr flight, penniless,as though nothing had happened?
2. Hook up with a stranger on the flight, join the MHC, and go and stay with him?

I guess it's possible if you were seriously off you face, but then would they let you on the flight? You see what I mean about it not adding up?

I really feel for you. All I can say is be there for her- which is what you're already doing- but don't let her play you.

If your sister told you she was raped and asked you not to tell, would you?

I wish I had. Nothing like the drama associated with your sister: mine told me she was 'forced' by her first boyfriend and also that our father fiddled with her. She told me shortly after the events, the second one immediately after. Both have now been totally written out of her memory, leaving me as the sole keeper of her truth. It's a sad and frustrating position to be in. With hindsight, I wish I'd pushed her to talk to appropriate bodies as it might have helped her realise what she'd been through and, perhaps, make fewer mistakes later on.

Being delayed/detained by Customs/passport control is one thing; stealing alcohol from an aiport retail outlet or bar would be a police matter and any arrest is unlikely to be dealt with by way of an immediate fine that a handcuffed prisoner would be allowed to raise by unsupervised Skyping from the airport.

Rape is defined by the victim's lack of consent to the act and I've never heard of it being 'classified by the amount of time' either in the UK or any other English-speaking country.

Sounds as if your cellar will quickly be depleted and you'll need to stock up on salt, OP. I would advise that you avoid the temptation to simply throw money her way as, once you give in to sending funds, the demands and their reasons will increase.

NotTheOne, I'm afraid I would have at her age. My self-worth and even sense of identity were incredibly poor; I had no boundaries to speak of. I don't know what's happened in this girl's earlier life but mine gave me absolutely no idea I had any rights & entitlements. If an authority figure told me I had no case, I'd have taken it as gospel.

Izzy, the Czech police are very big on on-the-spot fines, even for drugs offences.

I think that she is also the same in her relationships - equates drama/fights (and in my opinion both parties being abusive) as passion and love.

What is it that makes her think planning, organisation etc is boring and uptight.

I have never had a fight with my DP where we were yelling insults as each other. I think she thinks this is sad as we don't love each other as much as she has loved her DPs.

We are opposites. We grew up with our mum smoking pot daily, as a functional addict I guess. I will never ever try it and hate it, I have told my DP that I will leave if her ever touches it. She is now taking it daily and sees me as an uptight snob.

Is there anyway to get her to see that actually, I am the one with a normal life and am mostly happy. Its not normal to have constant drama.

I know a fair amount of eastern Europeans. They come here to make money out of sex, not the other way around. It really does seem odd that she believed it was possible to make money in the porn industry there, rather than in Oz/UK.

On the other hand, she is clearly in great crisis, so all you can do is to support her without doing anything at all to enable her.

I wont be handing her any money. I will only be offering flights to the UK and then home.

I wish I understood. Its like I learnt from watching our mums mistakes, whereas my sister is copying my mums mistakes (only my sister is doing it on a much grander scale).

Is it an older versus younger sister thing?

This is horrible, but would she make more money in photos if she looks younger than she is? She could look about 14.

No, it's really hard. It's precisely the same as when people give up addictions (most addicts have an emotionally dramatic background, too.) When your life has been a roller-coaster of adrenaline highs and self-medicating through the come-downs, normal life feels oddly blank and flat.

There's also a perception that events cannot be controlled - true enough in the greater scheme of things, but taken to the limit - so you may as well throw yourself to the winds and see where they take you. I hope she'll see sense sooner rather than later, as the older you are the longer it takes to adjust to normality

She's going at it far harder than I did, which could perhaps mean she'll have a forced landing at a useful age. Her self-esteem will be in tatters, though, and one just has to hope some arsehole doesn't get her started on crack while she's 'out there'.

Dunno if this will be any help at all, but I made some firm rules for myself and my sister: Never go into anything you can't go out of; no heroin. She's said she always kept those rules in mind, as did I. You'd have to add 'no crack' now, too ...

There is a huge demand for 'teenage' porn, and consequently for women/young girls who look underage.

The 'friend' in Amsterdam is likely to be a stranger she has encountered on the internet which is extremely worrying. Please encourage her to give you a name/address or even a general location for where she is staying - Amsterdam is a small city and its police force are well versed in locating 'missing persons'.

One way or another, all of this can be put at the feet of her df who paid for her flight to Europe without, it seems, having any regard for her safety. Has he joined the list of her 'creditors'?

I have to act as if the rape is true. If your sister told you she was raped and asked you not to tell, would you?

Yes - yes I would, especially given that there are a whole host of other issues being presented to you as well.

When your life has been a roller-coaster of adrenaline highs and self-medicating through the come-downs, normal life feels oddly blank and flat

You've described it exactly garlic. Those from dysfunctional families can be as addicted to the need for the thrill and excitement of continual melodrama as they can become to more conventional drugs of choice.

You're between the proverbial rock and hard place, svodop.

You want your dsis to come to you if she is in need and will, inevitably, fear that you'll drive her away if you tell your dm about the rape that she's specifically asked you to keep to yourself.

On balance, I would suggest that you omit the allegation of rape from any account you give your dm but, if you haven't already done so, you mention your fears that she may have travelled to Amsterdam to meet a stranger from the internet with a view to engaging in porn.

I asked that with the knowledge that she has sent "test photos" of herself and was wondering if this might be why she has been promised more money than has been suggested on here is possible.

The problem and the worry is that anything is possible.

She's a loose cannon and you're in the unenviable position of wondering when the bomb will go off. All you can be certain of is that it will go off and, IME, these explosions tend to occur at the most inconvenient times.

In the meantime all you can do is get on with your life and try not to let your imagination get the better of you.

Hi svodop,

re your comment:-
"I wont be handing her any money. I will only be offering flights to the UK and then home".

Would not do that because doing that enables her and it would be a huge error of judgment on your part. Harsh as this is to read you cannot rescue or save someone who ultimately does not want your help. She is intent on hitting that self destruct button and only she can make the choice to stop hitting it.

You are not responsible for her actions.

Is she in fact already working as a prostitute? The destinations and the sexual misadventures sure make it sound that way.

What others have said about porn seems broadly plausible AFAICT. No money in softcore but she gets hired to do softcore then pressured into doing hardcore, anal, gangbangs etc.

Why the hell would someone who's been raped in Australia then fly to Prague and bus to Amsterdam to do porn??

Apocalypto, one of the regrettable, but well-documented, after-effects of rape can be a period of extreme promiscuity. Victims can find themselves feeling they're worthless except as a sex object (violent sex in some cases.) It's also widely known and reported that almost all prostitutes have sexual abuse in their background - rapes, child abuse or both.

It's because svodop's sister sounds so much like the messed-up people I've known - and came so close to it myself - that I'm taking a more tolerant line than many others here. If she's going to crash she needs a safe landing, not a "made your bed" lecture.

OMG in custody what has she done now??

I agree with GarlicBread . You need to offer her that safe landing and the flights home. Tell her you will offer a place to live and food etc until she gets back on her feet in the UK. Call regularly. Try to get an address of where she is regularly - this is very important, as the unsavory "agents" who have hired her to do porn are very very likely to try and get her hooked on crack etc. Not saying that for effect - it's true, and even more prevalent in the porn industry than it is the unfilmed prostitution industry.

Maybe have one try of flying over to get her. But like Attila and others have said, she is an adult and you can't force her back.

When she (hopefully) comes out of this fog/hell it will be very very important and imperative to her that you are there for her.

But, no don't send any more money.

I'm inclined to disbelieve her reasons for requesting money. But I am inclined to believe her rape. I have never met a prostitute/porn actress who was not abused in some way, usually sexually (and I have known maybe just under 100, including myself). And sadly, a common after-effect is risk-taking behaviour. This is IN NO WAY saying that it was her fault for taking the risks with men, it IS the fault of the vile perpetrators who smell and take advantage of messed up girls taking risks.

Good Luck OP x x x x

Do you need to type for skype?