Chap­ter 41 brought a mix of strength and uncer­tain­ty. I had grown stronger over time, espe­cial­ly after con­nect­ing with women in AA who taught me a lot about nav­i­gat­ing life with courage and hon­esty. I was feel­ing more empow­ered, though the nag­ging sus­pi­cion that my father might be plot­ting some­thing lin­gered in the back of my mind. Despite this, I focused on stay­ing pos­i­tive and build­ing on the inspi­ra­tion I had gained. My birth­day was a bright spot, with Hesam tak­ing me to a spe­cial place, and I had start­ed mak­ing plans for the hol­i­days. How­ev­er, things quick­ly took a turn when my father insist­ed that he would be tak­ing my chil­dren for Christ­mas, and if I want­ed to see them, I would have to see him as well. When I resist­ed, his response was firm: “The boys don’t want to be with you this year,” he said. His words stung, but I found myself reluc­tant­ly agree­ing, even though it hurt deeply.

At the same time, the Vegas show was still ongo­ing, and I was active­ly work­ing on the per­for­mances, hir­ing new dancers, and refin­ing the rou­tines. One day, dur­ing a rehearsal, I found myself strug­gling with a move that one of the dancers, who had been with the show for years, demon­strat­ed. The move was dif­fi­cult, and I expressed that I didn’t want to do it, think­ing it was a minor issue. But before I knew it, my team and the direc­tors had dis­ap­peared into a room, leav­ing me feel­ing as if I had made a seri­ous mis­take. I couldn’t under­stand why a sim­ple refusal to do one move in a rou­tine would lead to such a response. After all, I was five years old­er than when the res­i­den­cy first start­ed, and my body had changed. We were hav­ing fun, laugh­ing, and communicating—at least, that’s how it felt to me. How­ev­er, the way my team react­ed left me uneasy, mak­ing me won­der if some­thing was amiss that I wasn’t aware of.

The unease grew when, dur­ing my ther­a­py ses­sion the next day, my doc­tor con­front­ed me about ener­gy sup­ple­ments that had been found in my purse. I had tak­en these sup­ple­ments to boost my ener­gy and con­fi­dence, which I felt were nec­es­sary for my per­for­mances, but the doc­tor made it seem like a seri­ous issue. “We feel like you’re doing worse things behind our backs,” he said, adding that I was giv­ing every­one a hard time dur­ing rehearsals. I was furi­ous, as I had worked so hard and felt com­mit­ted to doing my best. It seemed like every­thing I had been doing was being ques­tioned, even though I had always giv­en my all. But things took a dra­mat­ic turn when I was informed that I would be sent to a men­tal health facil­i­ty over the hol­i­days. A doc­tor, who I had seen on TV and dis­liked instant­ly, came to my house to con­duct hours of cog­ni­tive tests. My father informed me that the doc­tor had declared I failed the tests, label­ing me as men­tal­ly unwell. The solu­tion, accord­ing to him, was a “lux­u­ry” rehab pro­gram in Bev­er­ly Hills that would cost $60,000 a month. I was dev­as­tat­ed, cry­ing as I packed my things, unsure how long I would be gone. The facility’s staff gave me no clear answers, only telling me it could be one month, two, or even three, depend­ing on how well I per­formed in their pro­gram. The idea that I was being sent to a place where I would be iso­lat­ed from every­one made the whole sit­u­a­tion feel even more suf­fo­cat­ing.

This series of events high­light­ed the com­plete lack of con­trol I had over my life. Not only was I being told what to do with no room for input, but I was also iso­lat­ed from my loved ones. This expe­ri­ence revealed how vul­ner­a­ble I was in a sys­tem that claimed to be “help­ing” me, but in real­i­ty, it was strip­ping me of my auton­o­my. In addi­tion, the fact that I had to rely on sup­ple­ments to feel ener­gized dur­ing per­for­mances spoke vol­umes about the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal toll I was under. No one seemed to under­stand or care about the immense pres­sure I was fac­ing. My work eth­ic and ded­i­ca­tion had always been clear, but it felt like no mat­ter what I did, it was nev­er enough. This con­stant scruti­ny made me ques­tion my worth and my abil­i­ty to con­trol my own des­tiny. It also made me won­der how any­one could thrive in such an oppres­sive envi­ron­ment, where even the sim­plest choic­es were tak­en away. The “help” I was receiv­ing felt like a prison rather than a solu­tion to my prob­lems.