How I Escaped my Addiction to Hip

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Being hip almost killed me.

I grew up in Scarsdale, a grotesquely wealthy suburb of New York City, and I failed at striving early on. I always had the wrong clothes, and I never had a car, a phone, social skills, a nose job, a Bat Mitzvah, or a dot of confidence. My father began to sexually molest me when I was five. Then, guilty, he rejected me with a shocking vengeance: constantly criticizing me, cursing me, beating me. I was a terrified mess, hungry for love, desperate for friends. My peers smelled it and hated me for it. In junior high, they even formed an Eve-haters club. I felt dirty, ugly, suicidal. I lived in a continual state of longing and despair.

Then the '60s happened.

The '60s released me—or so I thought—from my crying need to fit in. For the first time, I could be who I really was—an outsider. It was hip, and hip was my refuge. Hip made me feel safe.

Grace Slick was my icon, everything I longed to be: outrageous and cool, beautiful and tough, a woman inventing her life, heeding her desires. I dressed like her, talked in a deep voice like her, and even became a singer in a rock band (despite being so tone deaf that the band leader secretly turned off my microphone during performances). When Grace came to New York, I snuck out to the late shows at the Fillmore East to bring her feathers, stones, and other trinkets.

My father became progressively more tyrannical and violent. But he could no longer reach me. I had become immune to his cruelty and disapproval. I had learned to disguise my hunger for love with a look, a style, and a dare.

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