How Escorts Manage Burnout in High-Earning Years

Jordan makes eighteen thousand dollars in a good month, which sounds like a fortune until you understand what it costs her. She's twenty-nine, in what should be her peak earning years, and she's burning out so badly that some mornings she can't force herself out of bed. "I'm making more money than I ever dreamed of," she told me when we met at a quiet bar in the East Village, "and I'm more exhausted than I've ever been in my life."

The burnout isn't just physical, though her body certainly feels it. It's the accumulated weight of performing intimacy with strangers, of being constantly "on," of smiling through situations that make her skin crawl, of compartmentalizing trauma so thoroughly that she's not sure where she's storing it all anymore. "It's like running a marathon every week," Jordan explained. "Except the marathon never ends. You finish one and immediately start another. And you can't stop because this is when you're supposed to be making your money, these years when you're young enough to command premium rates."

The pressure to maximize earnings during these peak years is immense. Jordan knows her window is limited. In a few years, she'll be thirty-five, and the bookings will start to slow. The clients will request younger Asian escorts. Her rates will have to come down. This is her chance to save enough money to support herself when that happens, which means she can't afford to slow down. But working at this pace is destroying her. "It's a trap," she said. "I need to work as much as possible right now. But working this much is breaking me. So which do I choose? My financial future or my mental health? Because I apparently can't have both."

The burnout manifests in ways Jordan didn't anticipate. She's developed insomnia, lying awake at night with anxiety even though she's physically exhausted. She's lost interest in things she used to enjoy. She cries at random moments for no apparent reason. She's drinking more than she should, using alcohol to numb herself before and after appointments. She's gained weight despite barely eating because stress has wrecked her metabolism. "My body is literally falling apart," she admitted. "And I keep pushing it because I'm terrified of what happens if I stop."

Jordan has tried various strategies to manage the burnout. She takes vitamins and sees a therapist, though she can't be fully honest with the therapist about what she does for work. She practices meditation and yoga. She schedules regular massage appointments to work out the tension she carries in her shoulders. She takes days off when she can afford it, though she usually spends those days feeling guilty about the money she's not making. "Nothing really helps," she said quietly. "Because the problem isn't that I need better self-care. The problem is that the work itself is unsustainable."

What makes it harder is that Jordan can't talk about her burnout with most people in her life. Her family thinks she's thriving in her fake consulting career. Her civilian friends see her expensive clothes and nice apartment and assume she's doing great. Only other escorts understand what she's going through, but many of them are equally burned out and have no solutions to offer. "We're all drowning together," Jordan said. "Just comparing notes on how deep the water is and how tired our arms are from treading."

The financial calculation haunts Jordan constantly. She's done the math: if she can maintain her current pace for three more years, she'll have enough saved to stop entirely or at least work far less. Three years. It sounds manageable until she thinks about how destroyed she feels after just two years at this intensity. "I don't know if I have three more years in me," she admitted. "But I also don't know how to stop. If I slow down now, I might not save enough. Then what? I end up working into my forties because I didn't push hard enough in my twenties? That seems worse than burning out now."

Jordan ordered another drink, her second in less than an hour, and I watched her hands shake slightly as she lifted the glass. "You want to know the really fucked up part?" she asked. "I'm one of the lucky ones. I make good money. I have savings. I can afford therapy and massages and vitamins and all the things that are supposed to help with burnout. Most escorts don't have those luxuries. They're burning out just as hard and they can't even afford the band-aids I'm using to hold myself together." She was quiet for a moment. "Sometimes I think this industry is designed to chew women up during their best years and spit them out when they're used up. We make good money, sure. But what are we trading for it? And is any amount of money actually worth what this work takes from us? I used to think I knew the answer. Now I'm not so sure."