Speaker 1: I guess on conversations today is Amanda goth. Now you
Speaker 1: might not recognize the name, but you certainly would recognize
Speaker 1: her her pseudonym Samantha X. And she's written a new
Speaker 1: book called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X. Samantha hang on, Sorry, Amanda, Amanda,
Speaker 1: welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Everyone gets it muddled up. Don't worry. I
Speaker 2: sort of am still Samantha deep down.
Speaker 1: Are you sensitive about that? Though?
Speaker 2: Not at all? No, I sort of think when you know,
Speaker 2: my old next door neighbor used to call me Samantha,
Speaker 2: and I thought, what websites? No, not at all. I
Speaker 2: mean I created her. She is part of me.
Speaker 1: So you've had two previous books hooked back on top.
Speaker 1: Now you wrote in this book you can't believe you
Speaker 1: wrote them. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Well, looking back now, it hooked and back on top.
Speaker 2: They were very sexually explicit, well reasonably sexually explicit, and
Speaker 2: to me, I just think, God, I can't believe I
Speaker 2: wrote all of this. I did, and it's out there
Speaker 2: and they did pretty well. So I think, especially these days,
Speaker 2: erotica is very in demand, especially with women, so I
Speaker 2: have to maybe relaunch the books. I was a bit
Speaker 2: ahead of the times about ten years ago.
Speaker 1: This is a different book either. The fore word is
Speaker 1: written by a professor of psychiatry, Gordon Parker. He's also
Speaker 1: headed up Black Dog. Then he talks about bipolar iiO
Speaker 1: and obviously you've been diagnosed with that. Yes, did you
Speaker 1: realize you had mental health issues?
Speaker 2: I think everyone else around me realized. I think I
Speaker 2: was probably the last tact to know. I just thought
Speaker 2: it was part of my character. I just had all
Speaker 2: my life the periods of what I now know is
Speaker 2: mania and chronic depression, and I just thought that was
Speaker 2: just me. I didn't realize it was an actual illness
Speaker 2: or disorder and that there could be treatment for it.
Speaker 2: But looking back some of the decisions I made, and
Speaker 2: very publicly too, and a lot of things I did,
Speaker 2: I look back and I think, you know, it gives
Speaker 2: me context. Bipolar just gives me context. It doesn't certainly
Speaker 2: doesn't excuse my behavior or I can blame bipolar, but
Speaker 2: it helps me understand myself a bit more.
Speaker 1: Pretty frank about your behavior, particularly about your first visit
Speaker 1: to the Church of Saint Margaret Margret, I think you
Speaker 1: say that just explain that for us. Obviously the first
Speaker 1: time you went there, you weren't in a good space.
Speaker 2: I first went to So it's in this church is
Speaker 2: in a little village called Cortona, which is in Tuscany,
Speaker 2: near Tuscany, and my sister lives in Italy. And inside
Speaker 2: the church is the mummified body of Santa Margharita, which
Speaker 2: is who was and I can't remember when she.
Speaker 1: Was alive escapes thirteenth century.
Speaker 2: Okay, thirteenth century.
Speaker 1: Give the date in the book. Actually it's twelve or so.
Speaker 2: Apparently another symptom of bipole, his memory loss. So I've
Speaker 2: got an excuse. And she was the ordained saint for misfits,
Speaker 2: so lapovorell which means misfits, so prostitutes, you know, robbers,
Speaker 2: divorced women, single mothers, that kind of those kind of
Speaker 2: people people I relate to. And when I went to
Speaker 2: this see the church with my sister many many moons ago,
Speaker 2: I was drunk, and so I went back recently and
Speaker 2: I sort of got to make amends with her, because
Speaker 2: it's not every day that you see a mummified body
Speaker 2: of a saint ordained, a woman ordained who helped and
Speaker 2: I'm going to say prostitutes and back in the day,
Speaker 2: but she did so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty graphic about her body. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: lies it's a mummified Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've never seen any body, thankfully, and I saw I
Speaker 2: saw her body and it was just it didn't even
Speaker 2: look like a body. It was just so it looked
Speaker 2: like if you blow on it, it would disintegrate. But
Speaker 2: it was dressed in you know, in in a shroud
Speaker 2: and holding the cross. It was fascinating and her history
Speaker 2: is fascinating and it's a beautiful church and anyone who
Speaker 2: is in Cortona, I really suggest you go and see it.
Speaker 1: So was there an epiphany of sorts? I thought, all,
Speaker 1: I've got to go back and make amends, to sign
Speaker 1: to Marguerite.
Speaker 2: I think subconsciously there was, Yes, subconsciously it was quite
Speaker 2: a pivotal moment. He was in the middle of me
Speaker 2: writing my book as well, and that's where the title
Speaker 2: Misfits came from, because she was the saint for misfits.
Speaker 1: We go back because I'm fascinated about this journey of yours.
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
Speaker 2: I was born in London, Southwest London. I was born
Speaker 2: in ham Smith and I grew up in Wimbledon, it
Speaker 2: which is southwest London.
Speaker 1: And what was the family history? What did what did
Speaker 1: mom and dad do?
Speaker 2: My father was a very successful lawyer, he had his
Speaker 2: own law company in London, and my mother was a
Speaker 2: speech therapist. And I went to a private girls school,
Speaker 2: very privileged. I went to Wimbledon High School for girls.
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, I haven't been invited back for a careers.
Speaker 2: They might just skip over my name. So I had
Speaker 2: a very reprivileged life. You know, I was the eldest child.
Speaker 2: There were issues at home. I no longer have a
Speaker 2: relationship with my family. I think me being a very
Speaker 2: public escort was the nail on the coffin, but it
Speaker 2: was quite a dysfunctional relationship before then.
Speaker 1: It's one of the why what was it? Were you?
Speaker 1: Were you a rebel or No?
Speaker 2: I didn't have a relationship with my mum basically.
Speaker 1: So it always fascinates me. Why does a daughter not
Speaker 1: have a relationship with their mother.
Speaker 2: I genuinely think some women don't love their daughters, you know.
Speaker 2: And I you know, I have careful what I say
Speaker 2: because my mum's still alive. But I generally think that
Speaker 2: some women. I'm not going to say my mum was
Speaker 2: one of these women have a very complex relationship with daughters.
Speaker 2: It's maybe, you know, as they see their daughter grow,
Speaker 2: it's just a mirror reflection of themselves and what they're
Speaker 2: what they're growing out of or getting old or whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 2: she didn't have a great upbringing herself, and I think
Speaker 2: I bore the brunt of it being the oldest. So
Speaker 2: I had no sort of primary female role model in
Speaker 2: my life. And I know a lot of sex workers
Speaker 2: also have a lot of mummy issues. Everyone assumes it's
Speaker 2: father issues, but it's actually mother issues.
Speaker 1: What was your relationship like with your dad?
Speaker 2: It was okay, it was okay. They had a very
Speaker 2: sort of I could say, toxic relationship. And again I
Speaker 2: got in the middle of that, so it was it
Speaker 2: was he was a great he was a good parent. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my dad was a good parent.
Speaker 1: But it seems as though your career path was traditional.
Speaker 1: You had a good education. Did you go straight into journalism?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did. I was so when I came out
Speaker 2: of school, I went to university and I studied a
Speaker 2: course called humanities, which was the biggest waste of time,
Speaker 2: and then I went to journalism. College. I was paid
Speaker 2: to go to journalism college by newspaper in London, and
Speaker 2: so they trained me up to be a journalist. And
Speaker 2: then I worked on the tabloid It's in London, chasing
Speaker 2: celebrities down the street with paparazzi photographers, totally unethical stuff.
Speaker 2: And I remember meeting Piers Morgan, who at the time
Speaker 2: was the editor of The Mirror, and I was doing
Speaker 2: some freelance shifts on the Mirror. I won't say what
Speaker 2: I used to find out in the Mirror newspaper, but
Speaker 2: it was explosive. So I love my time. I can't say.
Speaker 1: You can't say that you have to give us some
Speaker 1: give us just a tidbit.
Speaker 2: When it was in the era of the phone hacking times.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to say whether I witnessed any
Speaker 2: of that, but it was in that time, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of the people I worked with, not
Speaker 2: just the Mirror but in that newspaper group, some of
Speaker 2: them have gone to prison.
Speaker 1: Did you ever listen into private phone calls?
Speaker 2: No comment, I'm going to say no, but okay, my
Speaker 2: memory is terrible memory.
Speaker 1: So what was your life like as a as a journalist?
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds it's intrusive, but it's also it
Speaker 1: sounded like it's quite exciting to chase the celebrities around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the era of Princess Diana, and you
Speaker 2: know it was it was I used to wait outside
Speaker 2: a celebrities house for twelve hours just to get a
Speaker 2: snap shot of them with a photographer, and it was
Speaker 2: why I wanted to be a journalist. It was exciting
Speaker 2: and sometimes unethical, but I loved it. And then when
Speaker 2: I moved to Australia when I was twenty six twenty seven,
Speaker 2: I remember working for a magazine and writing up an
Speaker 2: interview I done I had done with I think a
Speaker 2: famous violinist, and I added a bit of color to
Speaker 2: it being a tabloid preyer journalist. And my editor said, Amanda,
Speaker 2: stopped making stuff up here. We don't misquote people in Australia,
Speaker 2: and I remember thinking, God, how boring. You know you
Speaker 2: actually want back because in London we just used to
Speaker 2: make celebrities sound more exciting than they were, and celebrities
Speaker 2: didn't mine because to be in a tabloid newspaper in
Speaker 2: London was a massive It was a massive thing, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's the celeb needed the press just as much
Speaker 2: as the press and needed the celebrities.
Speaker 1: But not if you're writing mistruths about them.
Speaker 2: It wasn't mistruths necessarily, It was more adding a bit
Speaker 2: of color to their quotes. But they didn't used to
Speaker 2: complain because number one, they can't who can afford to
Speaker 2: take on a big newspaper like the mirror of the
Speaker 2: Sunday people. And you know, any publicity is good publicity.
Speaker 1: So what was happening in your private life while you're
Speaker 1: you're this tablaud journalist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't great, to be honest. You know, I'd
Speaker 2: always suffered anorexia when I was a kid, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I was a bit lost. I didn't really I didn't
Speaker 2: live with my parents, so I sort of lived with
Speaker 2: boyfriends or with friends, and you know, I had no
Speaker 2: idea who I was. You know, I used to get
Speaker 2: a lot of attention from men, and I suppose that's
Speaker 2: where I got my validation from because I wasn't getting
Speaker 2: it anywhere else. And so yeah, I would have these highs,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know that we were highs. And I
Speaker 2: would be so disassociated sometimes and my anxiety was through
Speaker 2: the roof, like I couldn't get on a London underground
Speaker 2: tube because I'd get my panic attacks were so bad
Speaker 2: and so I didn't know what was wrong with me.
Speaker 2: Like we didn't discuss mental health in those days. I
Speaker 2: didn't know there was such a thing as anxiety, but
Speaker 2: I suffered it really badly.
Speaker 1: Amanda GoF is my guest. We need to take a break.
Speaker 1: A new book is called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X.
Speaker 1: Back shortly, Welcome back to conversations. My guest today is
Speaker 1: Amanda Gough. Now you might remember Amanda's Samantha X, who
Speaker 1: shot to fame here in Australia, Australia's highest I don't
Speaker 1: know about highest paid, but most high profile escort. But it's
Speaker 1: a sad story and a sense that that her upbringing
Speaker 1: was I would say troubled, which she suffered from anxiety
Speaker 1: and a Redixia didn't have a great relationship with her
Speaker 1: mother and father. Working as a tabloid journalist, decides to
Speaker 1: come to Australia. What prompted the move to come to Australia.
Speaker 2: I wanted to live in the sunshine and I wanted
Speaker 2: to get as far away from my family as possible.
Speaker 2: To be honest, and I couldn't think of a more
Speaker 2: further away place in Australia. I'd never been to Australia.
Speaker 2: I just used to get books out on the library
Speaker 2: on Sydney and I knew inherently deep down that's where
Speaker 2: I was meant to be. So I ended. I was
Speaker 2: working as the features editor of a magazine in London
Speaker 2: at the time, and I said to them I really
Speaker 2: want to move to Sydney. Can you get me a job?
Speaker 2: Then they managed to transfer me to the same magazine,
Speaker 2: but based in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Were you married by then?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, I've never been married. No no, no, I
Speaker 2: was single and I didn't know a soul in Australia,
Speaker 2: not one person. But I packed my bags, signed a
Speaker 2: two year I actually think it was a four year
Speaker 2: two or four year contract, and off I went.
Speaker 1: I hope you're not offended by this question, But were
Speaker 1: you a promistuous young lady?
Speaker 2: I don't know, looking back, I probably thought about it
Speaker 2: more than I actually did it, As most people do
Speaker 2: with sex. You know, it wasn't that I was promiscuous necessarily.
Speaker 2: It was that I allowed men to take advantage of
Speaker 2: me because I had no idea about boundaries and consent.
Speaker 2: I actually thought you were you know, it was my
Speaker 2: job as a woman to please men, and if I
Speaker 2: didn't please them, they would get angry. That's what I felt.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought about men. I didn't realize I
Speaker 2: could have a say in the matter. I was never
Speaker 2: told that.
Speaker 1: I never learned that you have a daughter? Now I do.
Speaker 1: Are you guiding us strongly in that we have?
Speaker 2: We have a yes, And she's completely the opposite to me.
Speaker 2: And I think when you don't have a mother, you become.
Speaker 2: I became a mother that I wish I did have,
Speaker 2: and we are extremely close and I'm very blessed to
Speaker 2: have her in my life. And she's my children have
Speaker 2: taught me a lot how to love and be loved,
Speaker 2: which I've talked about in my book. And I hope
Speaker 2: I'm by no means a perfect parent, but I hope
Speaker 2: I've taught them a lot of things that I wish
Speaker 2: i'd known.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to you get on a plane, you
Speaker 1: come to Sydney, you don't know anybody. You've got a
Speaker 1: job on a tabloid, which were Women's.
Speaker 2: Day it was. That's life. I've worked on Women's Day.
Speaker 2: But it was That's Life magazine, which was great fun
Speaker 2: because I was still interviewing people. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: really care much for celebrities, since I find them quite dull.
Speaker 2: I actually love real people and real stories, so I
Speaker 2: would I used to be. I am still fascinated about
Speaker 2: people's stories, you know, because everyone has a story. And
Speaker 2: I think that's why I loved my job as an
Speaker 2: escort so much, because I would hear so many stories
Speaker 2: from men and it was just so compelling for me
Speaker 2: as a journalist that I wrote to you know, my
Speaker 2: first two books were about their stories.
Speaker 1: So you're working as a journalist in Syne.
Speaker 2: Yes, what happened?
Speaker 1: What happened? Tell me what all of a sudden are you? Well?
Speaker 2: One is a more ethical career. I guess which one
Speaker 2: it is. So I wasn't. Yeah, Well, I met someone
Speaker 2: and we had two children, and you know, I had
Speaker 2: a very nice, white picket fence life, and then I
Speaker 2: just there was something about it that I wasn't happy.
Speaker 2: I was I was suffocating in this relationship. We never married,
Speaker 2: but we had children. It was you know, committed, and
Speaker 2: I just there was nothing against him. I just it
Speaker 2: was more what that life represented and that was, you know,
Speaker 2: the same thing, day in day out for the rest
Speaker 2: of my life, and I just couldn't do it. So
Speaker 2: we separated, and you know, I was a nightmare at
Speaker 2: the time. I had a lot of anger inside me,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know sort of it was. Looking back,
Speaker 2: I think it was my bipolar bubbling to the surface.
Speaker 2: And I had always been fascinated by sex work, even
Speaker 2: when I was a young girl, and I had I
Speaker 2: was when we separated. I was single for a year
Speaker 2: and I dated men for a year, and I just
Speaker 2: got sick of being messed around by men. So I thought,
Speaker 2: I'm going to I'm going to take my power back
Speaker 2: up other men, and I'm going to research what it
Speaker 2: is to be a sex worker. And that's what I'm
Speaker 2: going to do. And I don't think any of my
Speaker 2: close friends were shocked, but you know, I didn't know
Speaker 2: anyone in the industry. You know, We've got to remember
Speaker 2: it was over ten years ago. It was not it
Speaker 2: was not talked about in the media. It was there
Speaker 2: were no podcasts, there was no only fans, there was
Speaker 2: no sex workers writing columns. There was nothing in the
Speaker 2: media about it. So yeah, I mean I was. As
Speaker 2: soon as I started, I was I was completely hooked
Speaker 2: on the on the industry.
Speaker 1: What was the first one, like my.
Speaker 2: First client, it was Yeah, I won't forget. He was
Speaker 2: just so normal. It was so kitchen table, you know,
Speaker 2: it was just very very ordinary vanilla. I just remember
Speaker 2: the conversation. We just talked about very vanilla stuff. So
Speaker 2: and I remember thinking, my god, is this it? And
Speaker 2: I was almost disappointed. I thought, you know, the job
Speaker 2: was going to be magical and mystical and sexy and decadent.
Speaker 2: It was very It was like a therapy session and
Speaker 2: I got paid hands for it. So that was it.
Speaker 2: I was hooked.
Speaker 1: Were you satisfied as well?
Speaker 2: You'll have to read my book about that. Sex is
Speaker 2: sex and sex and sex. It's aways an anti climax,
Speaker 2: let's be honest. But men weren't coming for sex, were
Speaker 2: coming for a whole lot more.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there's a quote in your book that I
Speaker 1: was really interested in. No man has ever been as
Speaker 1: nice to me as a client has.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think I think a lot of women will
Speaker 2: understand that. And still to this day, I get dicked
Speaker 2: around by men all the time. Still when I'm Samantha,
Speaker 2: I wasn't. Men were very respectful. They were terrified of me.
Speaker 2: They were very intimidated, and I had control. Now I'm
Speaker 2: dating in the real world. Let's just say this is
Speaker 2: when I missed Samantha. Not only am I dicked around Graham,
Speaker 2: but I'm poor with it too, So I'm not even
Speaker 2: mentioning money from them. So I think when a woman
Speaker 2: has become an escort or has dipped their toe into
Speaker 2: the adult industry, it's incredibly hard to go back to
Speaker 2: real life and real dating and real disappointment. And not
Speaker 2: every man is disappointing, present company excluded, of course, but
Speaker 2: it's very I mean, it's no secret that dating is
Speaker 2: really challenging these days.
Speaker 1: What did your friends, What did your ex partner, father
Speaker 1: and children to say when he found out this was
Speaker 1: your chosen profession.
Speaker 2: Well, he's someone who's very conservative. I mean, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It didn't go down too well, but we were separated,
Speaker 2: you know, like it didn't go down too well. I
Speaker 2: don't think he really understood it, and I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people close to me didn't understand.
Speaker 1: I don't want to harp on this career, but of
Speaker 1: course it's.
Speaker 2: Well, I am it was amazing to me that men
Speaker 2: pretend to know nothing about the industries. Every single man
Speaker 2: asked open to is completely dumbfounded about the industry. But
Speaker 2: is there the ones that are funding it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Nod he go. How did you get your first client?
Speaker 2: I worked for a high end establishment, like a you
Speaker 2: know it was. So it was a madam in North Sydney.
Speaker 2: So she had one of these heart This is back
Speaker 2: in the day, you got to remember. It was so exciting.
Speaker 2: So it was a penthouse suite in a higher rise
Speaker 2: in North Sydney and the madam was this wonderful woman
Speaker 2: called Francesca who dressed in leopard print. She was very
Speaker 2: posh and she had about three girls that worked for her.
Speaker 2: So I managed to locate this woman by sheer chance,
Speaker 2: and yeah, we became very close. So I would go
Speaker 2: to this penthouse in North Sydney every Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 2: And I realized I was making more money and having
Speaker 2: more fun in that Saturday and Sunday than I was
Speaker 2: in my five day week job. That I was getting
Speaker 2: paid terribly for working, you know, ten hours a day
Speaker 2: and barely seeing my children.
Speaker 1: So so, how much did you charge? Well, how much
Speaker 1: did you charge in that.
Speaker 2: At the height of my career, I was fifteen hundred
Speaker 2: dollars for an hour. My most popular date was dinner dates,
Speaker 2: which literally is the dinner date, and that was about
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow, did you have a regular client who would pay
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars?
Speaker 2: I had many regular clients. Yes, they were all regular
Speaker 2: clients by the end. Like there were men I've known
Speaker 2: for ten years and I still speak to them and
Speaker 2: I still love them dearly.
Speaker 1: Amanda Gough, it is my guest. There are so many questions.
Speaker 1: Her new book is called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha Rex.
Speaker 1: So we're spending as much time putting it back together
Speaker 1: those but we'll get onto the new book after the
Speaker 1: break back shortly. If you've just tuned into conversations, folks,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Amanda Gough, who you may remember of
Speaker 1: Samantha Rex, and she has a new book called Misfits,
Speaker 1: The Unraveling of Samantha Rex, and we've been chatting about
Speaker 1: her adventurous life as a as an escort. Tell me,
Speaker 1: as a sex worker with things like sexual transmitters, diseases
Speaker 1: and things like that, how do you handle on them?
Speaker 1: How do you take precautions against them.
Speaker 2: I've never even caught a cold, never caught a cold
Speaker 2: of a client, you know, I think. I think whys
Speaker 2: are more at risk of catching things off their cheating
Speaker 2: husbands to be honest when they go on business trips
Speaker 2: than a sex worker. A sex worker has regular tests.
Speaker 2: You know. No other woman I think in the world
Speaker 2: has sexually transmitted tests every three months. And of course
Speaker 2: you use protection. But I've never been caught a cold
Speaker 2: of a client.
Speaker 1: When did you realize it wasn't for you?
Speaker 2: I never realized it wasn't for me. I guess I
Speaker 2: got sick of being known for that. But as I
Speaker 2: got it, I got I guess I got sick of
Speaker 2: always writing the same thing in my columns and always
Speaker 2: you know, being known as Samantha. But the job I
Speaker 2: never had an issue with. And I still don't have
Speaker 2: an issue with the job. And I think I know
Speaker 2: I was under a lot of pressure to stop or
Speaker 2: certainly stopping so vocal about it. But the job, the job,
Speaker 2: I never I never had a problem with.
Speaker 1: That's another thing I've been trigting in your book. You
Speaker 1: don't kiss the kissing, you see, No, I.
Speaker 2: Think kissing is very intimate. So yeah, I reserve that
Speaker 2: for people in my real life. And I say real
Speaker 2: life because Samantha was a character I created.
Speaker 1: Well, you've been flippant when you said you had a
Speaker 1: boyfriend for five hours, which is a record for you.
Speaker 2: I can't remember saying okay, yeah, I've been well, I
Speaker 2: can't remember which boyfriend that was.
Speaker 1: Well, you wrote it like.
Speaker 2: My relationships are not my strong point, my strong point,
Speaker 2: which is why being Samantha suited me, because as I
Speaker 2: also wrote, snapshots of intimacy suit me best rather than
Speaker 2: long stretches of relationships. It's just not who I am.
Speaker 1: So the book, I mean, as flippant as we're being
Speaker 1: here having fun, the book is quite serious. When you
Speaker 1: talk about your bipolar diagnosis, how did you? How did
Speaker 1: you come to be diagnosed?
Speaker 2: So I stopped drinking and how and why through twelve
Speaker 2: step recovery which is also known as Alcoholics Anonymous, which
Speaker 2: those meetings probably saved my life. So I'm very grateful
Speaker 2: to those RUMs.
Speaker 1: Can I pause there? So you had to go along
Speaker 1: at the meetings, you had to stand up and say
Speaker 1: what they say? What was that like for you?
Speaker 2: At first? It was terrifying also, I inherently, subconsciously, unconsciously
Speaker 2: did not and struggle with the word alcoholic. I just
Speaker 2: know I had a problem with drinking. My life would
Speaker 2: turn to mat to a mess. I would It would
Speaker 2: be chaotic, and I had to stop. And the only
Speaker 2: way I could stop willpower is not enough for most people.
Speaker 2: The only way I could stop was to take accountability
Speaker 2: for my actions and be with people who were in
Speaker 2: the same position as me. So meetings really helped me.
Speaker 2: You know, I never went to rehab or hospital or anything.
Speaker 2: It was never that bad, but I could see it
Speaker 2: was progressing that way. So I nipped it in the
Speaker 2: bud pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: And did you go cold turkey? Did you just stop?
Speaker 2: It wasn't that I had to go cold turkey because
Speaker 2: I wasn't drinking every day or even every week. It
Speaker 2: was more when I did drink, i'd binge drink, and
Speaker 2: then you know, the knock on effect was disastrous. So
Speaker 2: then I wouldn't. I wouldn't drink for a few weeks,
Speaker 2: and then I drink again, and then the knock on
Speaker 2: effect was disastrous. So I just had to break the cycle.
Speaker 2: So the best thing to break the cycle was, yeah,
Speaker 2: just quitting that like, there's no I just had to
Speaker 2: start at day one, and it's been a bumpy ride.
Speaker 2: I had one relapse four years ago, but I mean,
Speaker 2: I haven't had alcohol for six years, and I relapsed
Speaker 2: on a mind altering drug we call it in AA
Speaker 2: and yeah, so but no boosts six years. I think
Speaker 2: that's important to acknowledge.
Speaker 1: That what's the mind ordering drug.
Speaker 2: Or marijuana, you know, something like that.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to alcoholics before and recovering alcoholics, and particularly women.
Speaker 1: They realize they're in trouble when they wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning and they're not sure who where they are
Speaker 1: and who they're with. Did you have that experience?
Speaker 2: No, I woke I would wake up with bruises, wondering
Speaker 2: where my bag was, wondering how I got home, piecing
Speaker 2: together parts of the night, apologizing to certain people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then but it wasn't just my actions when I
Speaker 2: was drinking. It was the week after I would you know,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't work, I would look like death. I would
Speaker 2: be really unwell, guilt, shame, remorse, making amends to people,
Speaker 2: and then by the end of the week I'd feel
Speaker 2: better again. And then the cycle would just repeat and
Speaker 2: It's very common, particularly for women when they get to
Speaker 2: a certain age, that we can't handle our alcohol. You know,
Speaker 2: white wine. It was like poison for me, and I
Speaker 2: do miss it. Sometimes I have to say, I have this,
Speaker 2: you know, rose tinted spectacles vision of what sitting down
Speaker 2: and having a glass of wine would be like. But
Speaker 2: then it's just not worth the risk that I could
Speaker 2: destroy everything I've worked really hard for my sobriety and
Speaker 2: my stability and my peace of mind. And with bipolar
Speaker 2: you can't drink basically because of the medication.
Speaker 1: So when did you make the break and how did
Speaker 1: you make the break from escort service?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a good question because I think that there
Speaker 2: should be a twelve set step recovery program for sex
Speaker 2: workers because it is incredibly hard to leave the industry.
Speaker 2: So when I was diagnosed with bipolar, and to answer
Speaker 2: your question previous question, I was diagnosed when I stopped
Speaker 2: drinking because my behavior hadn't changed. So I stopped drinking,
Speaker 2: but my behavior is still erratic, and that's when they
Speaker 2: make up the bipolar. And answer to your second question,
Speaker 2: when I was diagnosed with bipolar and medicator, I became
Speaker 2: more grounded and stable and I didn't need to have
Speaker 2: this character Samanth through my life anymore. I didn't need
Speaker 2: to disassociate and run away and escape from my life
Speaker 2: because I started to sort of accept my life and
Speaker 2: accept who I was and heal. So it was quite
Speaker 2: It became quite exhausting to be two different people. So
Speaker 2: I just thought, I'm just going to be one. I'm
Speaker 2: going to go back to being myself, and with that,
Speaker 2: the escorting sort of fell away.
Speaker 1: With that.
Speaker 2: It was quite a relief.
Speaker 1: Actually, what does yourself look like? When you say you
Speaker 1: went back to being yourself? What did that look like?
Speaker 1: Did you go back to journalism.
Speaker 2: Or I have gone back to journalism. Yes, I never
Speaker 2: really stopped being a journalist. I was always writing, you know,
Speaker 2: I wrote books and I wrote for news outlets online.
Speaker 2: I was never I never stopped being a journalist.
Speaker 1: When you say medication, can you explain that? I mean
Speaker 1: people often shy away from medication, but particularly serious medication,
Speaker 1: And it sounds like the medication you want is quite serious.
Speaker 1: Can you can you explain it? Well?
Speaker 2: So I am on a medication called lamactol, which is
Speaker 2: not lithium, but it's I don't know whether it's a
Speaker 2: form of lithium. But it's what a lot of women,
Speaker 2: what people men and women take when they have bipolar.
Speaker 2: It stabilizes. It stabilized me, and it's it can't stop
Speaker 2: the cycle that I go through, but it can make
Speaker 2: it less extreme.
Speaker 1: And there's another issue that affects all women as they
Speaker 1: as they get older, when menopause starts to kick in,
Speaker 1: and that that complicates it. Over are you contemplating what
Speaker 1: life will be like when that happens? You're not.
Speaker 2: How do you know it hasn't happened already? Well, fifty one,
Speaker 2: I'm fifty one. Look, I to be honest, I have
Speaker 2: no idea whether it's happening or not. I presume it is.
Speaker 2: But I take HRT medication, so I take estrogen and testosterone.
Speaker 2: But taking testosterone, I know what it's like to be
Speaker 2: a bloke now.
Speaker 1: So while this is all happening, you've got two young kids.
Speaker 1: You've got two children. What are they noticing about their
Speaker 1: mother as you're transitioning from being.
Speaker 2: But I'm less, you know, like I'm just back. I'm
Speaker 2: just more grounded, you know, I'm making more sensible decisions.
Speaker 2: I'm more present, you know, I really tried in the
Speaker 2: height of my mad I call it my madness. In
Speaker 2: the height of my madness, it didn't really affect my mother,
Speaker 2: my ability to mother. I was very I was still
Speaker 2: like I worked when so we did week on week
Speaker 2: off for many many years. And the weeks I didn't
Speaker 2: have my kids, that's when I would be Samantha and
Speaker 2: I would travel around the country. And when I did
Speaker 2: have my kids, I was Amanda and I was Mum.
Speaker 2: Now they're a lot older, and you know, teenagers being teenagers,
Speaker 2: they spend a lot of time with their friends, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, university, So I think I think they appreciate
Speaker 2: the fact that they've got a more stable mum who's
Speaker 2: around more.
Speaker 1: They don't have to explain anything to their friends who
Speaker 1: might recognize you.
Speaker 2: I think those days are well over now. I think
Speaker 2: they did have to. But yeah, it was a challenging time.
Speaker 2: But I've certainly taught in brasilience.
Speaker 1: I still have so many questions. Amanda Goff is my guest.
Speaker 1: Folks will take a break back shortly. Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 1: We're chatting with Amanda Goff, who some of you may
Speaker 1: remember as Samantha X. A very high profile escort. But
Speaker 1: she has a new book, Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X,
Speaker 1: and she talks about the mental health issues she've had
Speaker 1: and the difficulties that we're associated with the previous life
Speaker 1: and how she transitioned from that. I did read you
Speaker 1: were a pilates instructor and you're working in Bondi, But
Speaker 1: then I read you've left bonda and gone to Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Now what is your what is your current situation?
Speaker 2: Anyone would think I had bipolar. I'm always making these decisions. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I did study pilates and I have got my qualification
Speaker 2: and I am moving to Melbourne. I've always wanted to
Speaker 2: move to albourn I've been in BONDEI for twenty five
Speaker 2: years and either it's changed or I'm getting old. I
Speaker 2: think a bit of both. So I've always loved Melbourne,
Speaker 2: being a London girl. So yeah, I may or may
Speaker 2: not teach pilates, I don't know, but I'm qualified in it.
Speaker 1: It's a big step, though, to go from BONDAI to Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Melbourne a great place to visit, let's face it, but.
Speaker 2: I just feels changed a lot. It's you know, it's
Speaker 2: full of young influences, and I've always found Melbourne very
Speaker 2: sophisticated city and exciting city. Sydney I think is boring,
Speaker 2: to be honest. It's beautiful but boring, and Melbourne there
Speaker 2: seems to be so much to do and I've got
Speaker 2: a better network in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: You wrote that in BONDI you're a six out of ten. No.
Speaker 2: I didn't like that. I Daily Mail wrote.
Speaker 1: In Melbourne, You're nine out of ten.
Speaker 2: No. I would never say that. That was a That
Speaker 2: was a good, very clickbait headline from the subs, and
Speaker 2: I just had to accept it was going to be
Speaker 2: a week of cringe when it came out. It's passed
Speaker 2: now until we brought it up.
Speaker 1: You can't deflict it like that. You must have said
Speaker 1: it true, So.
Speaker 2: I speak the truth. I didn't like that headline, and
Speaker 2: if you read the column, I didn't actually say those words.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the context of that. You feel
Speaker 1: that you did you feel in Bond Are you that
Speaker 1: you weren't as attractive as you wants?
Speaker 2: I feel no. I don't really think it's about that
Speaker 2: so much being attractive. I just think that I no
Speaker 2: longer recognized Bond lie for the place but I think
Speaker 2: I'm just getting old. I just want to be somewhere
Speaker 2: where it's not all about active where twenty four hours
Speaker 2: a day and influencers. I just want to go where
Speaker 2: it's a proper city and there's more depth to it.
Speaker 2: And I think Bondla has been great. It's the longest
Speaker 2: relationship I've had with anything in anywhere. But it's time
Speaker 2: to move on and I think it's important to evolve,
Speaker 2: and part of evolving is is a new life and
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about it. A lot of people from
Speaker 2: Bondi are actually moving to Adelaide's they watch out.
Speaker 1: Well, I know, but then they've inflated the prices of
Speaker 1: it they come over. We're so unaffordable here in Adelaide now,
Speaker 1: prices of property of just since COVID when we have
Speaker 1: an influx of people coming back, coming back or moving
Speaker 1: to Adelaide, property prices have really escalated. So we know
Speaker 1: they're expensive in Sydney. But yeah, well, if you move
Speaker 1: to Melbourne you have to have a football team. You
Speaker 1: can't with that colleague.
Speaker 2: Well I have a reason for that, because someone wrote,
Speaker 2: because I I put it out there to my to
Speaker 2: my Instagram followers who should I support And someone wrote
Speaker 2: Collingwood because they're the underdogs and everyone hates them and
Speaker 2: they're controversial. So I thought to myself, that sounds like
Speaker 2: a team I would get behind. So yeah, besides nice.
Speaker 1: Colors, they're not the underdogs. They're the biggest team in Australia.
Speaker 2: Well someone said they no one likes them and they're
Speaker 2: controversial or something along with the line.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: So I thought I can get behind someone who's a
Speaker 2: team that's controversial.
Speaker 1: The Adelaide Crows, of course, but in Melbourne. My first
Speaker 1: memory is watching my father play footy in Country Victoria
Speaker 1: and he was wearing a black and white jumper, the
Speaker 1: same as the Collingwood jump. So when I was a
Speaker 1: little boy, I did varry for Collingwood. But moving to
Speaker 1: Adelaide black and white team is Port Adelaide and I
Speaker 1: played for another team and we hate black and white
Speaker 1: in a football since we hate it, So no, you
Speaker 1: can't go wrong with it, will you? Will you attend games?
Speaker 2: There? You go? I haven't been to a game yet,
Speaker 2: but yes, I will be going to games. I will
Speaker 2: be throwing myself in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Life do you still have relationship? Is in England? Your
Speaker 1: mom's still alive.
Speaker 2: Did your parents live in South France?
Speaker 1: How exotic? As exotic as it sounds.
Speaker 2: South of France, it's beautiful. I personally am not a
Speaker 2: big fan of France. I prefer Italy. England and France
Speaker 2: seemed to have very tense related I've never liked Paris
Speaker 2: that much. I've always thought London was way better. I
Speaker 2: prefer My sister lives in Italy. My parents live in France.
Speaker 2: But my mom's exotic. She's from Iran. She's a Persian princess.
Speaker 1: A Persian princess. You tried to slip that.
Speaker 2: One by us, it says it in my book.
Speaker 1: Well I didn't. I didn't see that. Well, what's her story?
Speaker 2: How did she end up in She's not literally a princess,
Speaker 2: but she came to England where she was very young
Speaker 2: and she yeah, she met my dad when she was
Speaker 2: very young. And yeah, she's from Tehran.
Speaker 1: And was that before or after the downfall of the
Speaker 1: shower before?
Speaker 2: So I think she really missed her life there.
Speaker 1: Do you I have fascination about her family back there?
Speaker 2: I think the older I get, I do, and it's
Speaker 2: a shame we can't talk about it. She never wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Really. See if you never met her parents.
Speaker 2: I did. I met her father. I met her father.
Speaker 2: He was a very successful, influential man in Iran. He
Speaker 2: worked with the Shah. But yeah, it was they had
Speaker 2: a very tense relationship. He didn't live in England when
Speaker 2: we were growing up in London. He lived in France.
Speaker 1: There's so much to talk about, but we're really here
Speaker 1: to talk about your book, and we've done everything but
Speaker 1: the Misfits to just give us a broader expansion of
Speaker 1: what's in the book and what do you hope to
Speaker 1: get from it?
Speaker 2: Well, I hope that people who read my book will look,
Speaker 2: I've changed my life at my age, and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people are too scared to change their
Speaker 2: lives and to reinvent themselves. But to me, it's harder
Speaker 2: to live in the past and not to change. I
Speaker 2: had to evolve. And no one talks about bipolar. We
Speaker 2: all talk about ADHD or you know, that seems to
Speaker 2: be the buzzword these days. But there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people who have bipolar and feel that they're stigmatized because
Speaker 2: people with bipolar are seen as mad and crazy. But
Speaker 2: I feel like it can be a gift. I wrote
Speaker 2: my best selling books in record time. I have achieved
Speaker 2: a lot in mania. A lot of Sportsman Graham have
Speaker 2: bipolar and Winston Churchill, Vank, Winston bankof have bipolar. It
Speaker 2: it can give you immense creativity that can last days, months, years,
Speaker 2: but it also can bring a lot of sadness and depression.
Speaker 2: But as long as you understand that you can manage it.
Speaker 2: It's getting the diagnosis, and a lot of people are
Speaker 2: diagnosed later in life, so you know it's okay not
Speaker 2: to be okay, And you know I've made my mistakes,
Speaker 2: and I made them very publicly, some of my mistakes,
Speaker 2: but I own that and I have no shame. I've
Speaker 2: had to work through that, and I hope that it
Speaker 2: helps people who are maybe in the same boat. You
Speaker 2: don't need to be a high cler escort to make
Speaker 2: mammoths mistakes in your life and to feel shame at
Speaker 2: certain decisions, but you can get through it and realize
Speaker 2: that everyone's a bit mad.
Speaker 1: Well, everyone is a bit mad. Is it hereditary though?
Speaker 1: Does it concerd you that it might be hereditary?
Speaker 2: By Paula? It's caused by trauma. It can be caused
Speaker 2: by trauma, and it can be genetic.
Speaker 1: Yes, what was the trauma that would of course yours?
Speaker 2: Just just growing up and you know, there wasn't one
Speaker 2: single event I could I could point it to. But
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, a very strained relationship with
Speaker 2: my mother. I think was as a young girl was
Speaker 2: looking back, pretty traumatic.
Speaker 1: What feedback if you had from this book, which is
Speaker 1: so different to your other books.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. It's it's more, it's I've had
Speaker 2: a lot of people who have contacted me saying that
Speaker 2: they struggle with bipolar and addiction, and it's amazing btically
Speaker 2: men and I find that, you know, it makes me
Speaker 2: sad that men don't feel they can talk to anyone
Speaker 2: about that and they suffer in silence. And funnily enough,
Speaker 2: a lot of sex workers have contacting me saying that
Speaker 2: they have bipolar too, so much so are created a
Speaker 2: WhatsApp group for a few of us. So it's interesting
Speaker 2: that that people are drawn into the sex industry with bipolar.
Speaker 1: Maybe what's the name of the WhatsApp group?
Speaker 2: Say that grand I cannot I cannot give that away.
Speaker 2: I cannot give that away, but I can add you
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 1: Want, I think I'll be right. Thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: for the offer. It's been great chatting. I can see
Speaker 1: why you were so successful as a companion the tope.
Speaker 1: The book goes well for you and people understand you
Speaker 1: a little bit better. Mandy Goff is my guest. Folks.
Speaker 1: A book was called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X.
Speaker 1: It's an Echo publication. Thank you so much for joining us.