Confessions Of An Autistic & Sexually Confused Model

By Agata Descroix – @agatacruz
An exerpt from her book – Confessions of An Autistic & Sexually Confused International Model

“Be a model” is a dream for many girls and lots of them envy our position, thinking that we are invited to many parties, that designers give us plenty of free clothes and a Mercedes picks us up in the morning to bring us to our daily photo-shoot. But wait! I didn’t say I was a supermodel. I don’t have a personal driver and I earn what a normal job would pay me. I am just a regular model and represent the majority of the modeling industry. Most of us know about the 3% of highly paid supermodels but who knows something about the other 97%?

Try to get to the subject with your friends and colleagues and you will see how our job is considered. Just by saying the word “model” you will create waves of emotions and polemical discussions:

“Models? They’re all anorexic! And stupid… They earn too much money for what they do.”

“Models earn millions just by sitting in front of a camera… It’s so unfair! They are only asked to be beautiful and that’s it.”

“Models are ugly, real life women are more beautiful and they should definitely shoot photos instead of those bony girls.”

Who said we aren’t real life persons? Why do we get judged so harshly? Why do women hate our body and in the same time, try to lose more weight? So few people actually know the truth behind the curtain. In every single model there is a human and this photoshopped being you see on the glossy magazine is not as strong and unreachable as you think. The myth is going to fall apart little by little, leaving all of us in a naked and vulnerable reality.

Fortunately, models are not all anorexic and if they were, they would probably expect people to be supportive and compassionate instead of being judgmental and mean! Most of models don’t earn so much money due to the fact they have huge debts with their agency and they are often paid months after they did the job. Most of them have no health insurance

and some of them face extremely delicate situations they don’t necessarily know how to solve in their young age.
So why girls want to be models if it’s so hard? Narcissism, love of travel, drugs, alcohol, parties?

I think it’s hope. The same hope that makes you take the job that will achieve a great living for you and your family. We hope that some day we will get what we are working so hard for, we hope that finally we will book the big campaign, get the big pay- check that will make our life or our family’s life easier and safer; thanks to this opportunity, we might be able to realize our dreams.

Behind every single model, there is a story and I will share mine with you. People want to know the truth and I will give you my truth; I will confess you my doubts and fears, I will bring you on my journey, leaving the glamorous job’s beautiful facade to show you the human side of it. How do we get discovered? What do we think when we party? What do we do when we work? How do we feel when we are not the chosen one?

This book is based on my genuine model diary written during my four years of modeling career. In this diary, I don’t hide anything nor make things more beautiful or horrible than they are. It is my true story from beginning to end. I give you a piece of my life and a piece of my heart. Sometimes, we start to feel compassion by listening to somebody’s true story. I hope this book will change your perspective on our dreamy hell. I hope it will make a difference.

My name is Agata. I am a 28 years old woman. There are the only two things I am sure about.
Just before landing in Mexico City, I was living in Indonesia. And before Indonesia, I was living in Switzerland. And before that, in Germany. And before, in China… Traveling alone is what I do best even though I have panic attacks when I do it. So many things have happened during those trips that it would take several books to explain them all. Back in Switzerland, I had lost my job in private aviation because of the financial crisis in Europe and I decided to take a big decision.

“_ I have money, I am healthy and young and I will make a bucket list of all my dreams and realize them one by one.”

That’s why I ended up in Bali. One of my biggest dreams was to give everything I had in my house to an association and go on the other side of the planet to help people. That’s what I did. I packed a pair of pants, two t-shirts, flip-flops and tennis shoes and gave the rest of my house to Emmaüs before flying to Ubud. During six months, I lived some of the most spectacular moments of my life but it couldn’t last forever. At one point, I had to face the truth; I had no money left and I had to use the rest of my bank account to leave the jungle and find a new job in a real city. What was the next dream on my list? Speak fluent Spanish. How much did I have to realize it? US$ 1,258. I bought a one-way ticket to Mexico City where one of my good friends was living and I flew there without knowing anything about the country. I was prepared to put all my efforts in this next step but also frightened to see what Mexico had to offer…

Little did I know that this decision was going to change my life completely and I was going to become a professional international model.

At the moment I got scouted, I quickly started to write a diary in order to remember this crazy adventure from the beginning to the end. Now that I finished my career, I think it’s a duty to share this experience with everybody. I know that my story is original and uncommon but it might give people a glimpse of what a model’s life can be. During this journey, I discovered things I wish I had never known. The loneliness and loss of structure I began to feel throughout my career is universally known in the modeling industry. However, no one knows why do we come to those extremes.

Somewhere, right now, there are models crying of distress, asking themselves if they took the good decision, if they are eventually going to get the money to help out their family; they ask themselves if they should go on, accept, refuse, scream or remain silent. My desire is to bring the light on what is kept in the darkness. I want you to know what is behind the smiley face we post on social network, showing how lucky and happy we are. But are we really? confessions of an autistic & Sexually confused international model