The Story of Channon Rose: Lessons between the Lines

THE STORY OF

CHANNON ROSE

LESSONS BETWEEN THE LINES

CHANNON ROSE

Copyright © 2014 Channon Rose

First Edition

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a license issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd.

ISBN-13: 978-1505462685

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The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties for a particular purpose. No warranty maybe created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation.

This is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of the author’s memory. While all the stories in this book are true, names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or website it may provide or recommendations it may make.

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This book is dedicated to my mom.

Mom, I put you through hell and back (and that is an understatement), but you never gave up on me. You may have not always had time to deal with all my sh@t…being a single mom and raising two kids on your own while working full time, but somehow you always found a way to try to do what was best for me when I was making it virtually impossible for you. You are the strongest person I know, and I can only dream of one day being half as good a mom as you were to me. No words could ever express how thankful I am for all that you have done for me. I want you to know how blessed and honored I am to be able to call you my mother. Thank you, Mom, for all that you’ve done and all that you still do for me. I love you past forever.

Contents

Introduction: Welcome to the Asylum

Chapter 1:   Kicking & Screaming in Silence

Chapter 2:   My Shattered Fairytale

Chapter 3:   Drugged Up in the Asylum

Chapter 4:   I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me:
Childhood Bipolar Disorder

Chapter 5:   Cutting Out the Pain

Chapter 6:   HIGH-School & Prostitution

Chapter 7:   School for Disturbed Youth

Chapter 8:   My Near Death Experience

Chapter 9:   Panic Attacks & Graduation

Chapter 10: Becoming a Stripper

Introduction

M
y name is Channon Rose. You might know me from my YouTube videos where I post daily blogs, product reviews, makeup tutorials and fashion tips. Or you may recognize me from hosting Playboy TV or the viral sex tape I was in with Paris Hilton called “One Night in Paris.” I now lead a comfortable, laid back life with my fiancé and Bengal cat. But it was not always that way. Any story worth telling is grounded in truth, even if that truth is uglier than you would like to admit, and I admit mine was pretty ugly. While many of the things that I experienced as a child were traumatic and disturbing, I would like you to remember my story is one of growth and discovery, making mistakes and then recovering from them, and eventually finding myself amongst the chaos. Let’s just say I had a pretty f**cked up childhood. I know most people do, but I wanted to share my story with you so you can not only get to know me a little better but I also hoped it will maybe help someone out there that may have been through similar struggles.

This book is for everyone, whether it be for entertainment purposes, to get to know me better, or maybe reading this book will make you feel less alone. Most importantly, if you know someone that would benefit from reading my story, please pass this book along to them. I wrote this not only for my own therapy but to help others learn from my mistakes. This is an account of my childhood years and the many lessons I learned along the way. I hope you find some wisdom among my chaos. This is my story—well, at least the first 6,570 days of it.

Welcome to the asylum.

Chapter 1

W
hen I think back to my childhood I remember mostly negative aspects of my life in which my stepmother secretly verbally and physically abused me. I was eight years old when my parents got divorced. My dad cheated on my mother with a so-called “Christian” woman who was my moms best friend and who was also married at the time with two children of her own. Her name was Misty, and for most of my childhood I blamed her for everything that went wrong in my life.

For me, there is no such thing as silence. In my quietest moments, my mind fills with images, emotions, and pain from the past. I was born on September 16, 1985, in Northridge, California. I had a 50% chance of even being born. My parents weren’t together for very long before my mother found out she was pregnant.

At the time they were just dating so my mom told my dad that she wasn’t going to have the baby unless they got married. My parents ended up getting married when my mom was three months pregnant.

Yes, I am an abortion survivor. I believe many people are these days, although they are rarely told about it. So thanks dad for letting me be born! When it came around time to bring me into the world I was a breech baby, which means I was in the feet first position in my moms tummy. Normally, babies come out headfirst so the doctors scheduled a C-section. Coming out feet first, kicking and screaming, was not part of the plan. I was born at 4:11 AM and there was a reason I was breech and not ready to come out naturally, it is because I am not a morning person, and definitely not a 4:11 in the morning, morning person. Hello, I wasn’t ready to come out that early, I wanted to sleep in!

The C-section went smoothly and my mom cried happy tears when she held me for the first time.

I was her first-born child. My mother was a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed surgical technician. She had moved from Miami, Florida where she had lived her whole life, to Los Angeles, California to work for a world-renowned plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. She didn’t have any other family in Los Angeles other than her sister (my Aunt Jen), who had also moved to LA to work and start her own company.

Both my aunt and dad were there when I was born, and my Aunt Jen became one of the main people who took care of me when I was a baby because my mom had to work a lot. Recalling my actual childhood has always been a struggle—not because it is hard to remember but because it is so vivid, like a running movie of my life.

My mother and father had met through a mutual friend at a local restaurant called Friday’s. My father was 10 years older than my mother and my mom didn’t really like him when they first met. She wasn’t attracted to him and he was too “crazy” for her. I think he just wasn’t mature enough for her taste and was living life more on the wild side. He was a total adrenaline junkie. That same evening that they met, my dad asked my mother and her friend if they would like to go out on my dad’s boat the next morning. My mother said, “no way!” to her friend, but despite that, when the call from my father came at 7 a.m. the next morning, she was at that lake.

My dad must have been driving his boat really fast to impress my mom, but instead it just scared her, so she told him to drop her off on shore. I asked her how they ended up together if the first and second impression were so bad. My mom said he grew on her, and eventually they fell in love.

Three years after my parents had me, my little sister Birdy was born on Christmas day. It was also the very first day that it snowed in Los Angeles—December 25th, 1988. I was so excited to meet her. I have clear memories of the day I met my sister. I was only three years old and I wore an oversized t-shirt to the hospital that read “Big Sister”. My mom even let me hold my baby sister! Birdy was given to my mom in a great big Christmas stocking—how cool is that!? I remember sharing Lipton soup with my mom in the hospital, thinking how yummy it was, and I remember it being such a happy day for our family.

My father already had two kids from two previous marriages and now two with my mom for a total of four kids. Life was great and having a big family was fun. My mom was still working for the plastic surgeon, and my dad owned his own business as an electrical contractor. They both made decent money, and we lived very comfortably. We were never super rich, but we were never poor. We were fortunate enough to always have a roof over our heads and food on the table. Being wealthy or poor doesn’t always equate to a great or terrible childhood. Things can happen, whether you have money or not. At this point in my life though, life was simple and uncomplicated. We were happy, and family life was great.

I was never close with my older half-brother Patrick; he was much older than me and had his own life. But I was close with Chanel, my older half-sister, even though she lived in Texas with her mom (my aunt Boni).

I loved her so much, and all the times that she was in Los Angeles to visit she practically raised me.

Chanel and I still joke to this day about how it is crazy that my little sister and I are still alive because she would be left alone to take care of us when she was still a child herself. We laugh about how carefree my mom was, and talk about me having green poop for weeks after I ate all the leaves off a houseplant. Apparently I was left alone in my crib, which was within reach of the plant. I guess that plant must have tasted pretty good! Chanel ended up being like a second mom, friend, and sister all rolled into one. She was the one who taught me about my period, how to use tampons and pads, and even how to wash my hair. She would play with me all the time and I loved that. I will always have a lot of respect and love for her and be forever grateful because of that. I felt so lucky to be able to call her my sister and I still do today.

Ever since I can remember I always wanted my mom to take pictures and videos of me, it didn’t matter what I was doing I just wanted to be in the spot light. I loved performing, putting on shows for my family, and singing. It made my soul happy. My mom filmed and took tons of pictures and videos of me as a child. I loved modeling and acting even from a young age. I have the pictures to prove it.