Bianca’s new life

This article is published in number 14 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until April 5, 2022

Like everyone else, he remembers nothing about his first birth. Of the second every little detail: the painful intoxication she felt when leaving the house of a man who had made her very unhappy for the last time, the minimum weight of the trolley that contained her things, the rigidity of the mattress that the same day he bought and took to another house where almost nothing was missing. Just a mattress. And the courage to go and live there.

What happened next is a journey that Bianca has decided to share through social networks, a newsletter, an email address to which she can be written. She a couple of weeks ago she told on Instagram that she did what she is called social egg freezing: she had eggs taken and frozen. If you want a child (for her the third of her: Matilde, 15, and Mia, 6) she can have her eggs inseminated and have them implanted. You can do it with a partner or not.

A choice of freedom and self-determination that comes from far away. Perhaps from an evening in 1998; Bianca is 14 years old. There is a party, she is drunk. “There are so many people in the room, everyone laughs because they made me drink and I don’t understand anything. A little boy touches me all over, I don’t want to. But everyone laughs. These laughter convinced me, for years, that there was nothing wrong with what had happened. Four years later, I am 18. Again I am not lucid. This time there are no people, just me and a boy. He wants to have sex with me, I don’t want to. I say no, I say it clearly. He rapes me. I don’t have the physical strength to push him back and he doesn’t hit me. This is why I think, again, that what happened is perhaps also my fault, and that it is not that serious. And yet it is. These two things have created damage within me. For years I have tried not to feel the substances with alcohol. And every time a man asked me for a sexual favor I thought I couldn’t say yes. If I had said yes, he would not have forced me to do so. I pretended it was my choice, but in reality it almost never was. From being a little girl who can’t say no to sexual intercourse, I’ve become a woman who couldn’t say no to love. If a man loved me, I thought: how cool! I really want to be loved. But maybe I wouldn’t have chosen that person. “

When did you understand?
«It was a long journey, culminating in a moment when I stopped and made up my mind. In life I always seemed to decide little, that things would happen to me: I fell in love with a man and it turned out that he was an asshole, then another and that too was an asshole. Could it be that I only met assholes? Was it a coincidence? When I realized that the common denominator among the assholes was me, I wondered what I could do to not accept what did not suit me ».

The last story was particularly tough.
“It was a toxic relationship. This man, with meticulous manipulation, had managed to convince me that no one loved me. Not even my daughters, not even my parents: he said “little girls love you just because you are their mother. Yours, as a mother, just can’t stand you ”. He said these things very calmly, never screaming. I was the hysterical one, he was screaming. He talked to me for hours and convinced me with very reasoned theories. At first I reacted, I answered, I showed that it was not true, that someone loved me. Then slowly I was no longer able to do it because I no longer knew where the reason lay. I felt crazy. This thing has a specific name, it’s called gaslighting“.

Where did he find the strength to leave?
«I have found the strength that comes from not wanting to live anymore. When you think you don’t deserve love, there is no longer any reason to move forward in life. When you hit rock bottom there are two options: one is to get it over with – and I, thankfully, didn’t have the balls to do it -, the other is to get back up. In the nothing that I felt and had, in the fear I felt for the first time in my life, I gave myself a chance ».

Had he already tried to end this relationship?
“A lot of times. But fears blocked me: I already had two divorces behind me, what would people think of my umpteenth failure? And my mom who always wanted me to settle down? So I went back. My mind was all alone on the relationship, I no longer thought about friendships, my daughters. I literally couldn’t be happy. When I was happy, he made sure to sabotage my happiness, creating problems, setbacks. Realizing that my unhappiness made him strong was very important to me. “

What is the first step in getting out of a toxic relationship?
“For me it was saying it out loud to someone. From the moment you say it, it exists, you have a witness. To those who follow me I say: it’s okay to write it in an email, to me. Sharing the efforts, telling the progress is really important. This is why I did it on social media. But before my followers, I spoke to my daughter Matilde ».

How did he explain what had happened to her?
“We believe we have to tell our children the difficult things in a muffled way, but we don’t. Matilde lives six weeks in Paris with her father and two weeks with me in Los Angeles. The end of my story coincided with her arrival and I was really disheartened to have to tell her that she had gone wrong again. And instead, when I did, she said to me: “Do you know I’m happy? One night we were arguing, I pretended to sleep and I heard him saying so many bad things to you. And I was wondering: why doesn’t mom say anything? Why doesn’t she leave him? ”. I tell it because there are so many women who write to me telling me that they do not end relationships for their children. But the children know everything, they understand. It doesn’t matter where the wrongs or the reasons are, if the relationship hurts, you have to close it “.

What was the first day of your new life like?
“Very hard. I didn’t sleep for the first month because I had anxiety attacks at night. I was lucky because I didn’t go back, but it could have happened ».

Why didn’t it happen?
«The universe was in league for me to make it: so many things happened, and didn’t happen, to make sure that I didn’t retrace my steps. But I was well equipped: when I decided to leave I made two calls: one to a real estate agent and one to the fertility doctor. To fix two aspects of my independence, one residential and the other reproductive ».

Had having a child been a battleground for you?
“Yup. My desire to become a mother was evaluated and weighed. I had to “deserve it”, I was not “suitable”. A friend of mine calls it “biological blackmail” and it seems like a perfect definition to me. We women, all of us, live the biological blackmail linked to the time of fertility, which is not infinite. Anyone who is in a toxic relationship and does not interrupt it because they want to become a parent, is the victim of a further blackmail, that for which motherhood depends on the relationship. It was enlightening to discover that the two can simply be disconnected with egg cryopreservation. It’s liberating. I underwent the treatment immediately after the end of my story: I was very sad; American healthcare is totally impersonal and that didn’t help me, plus there was hormonal treatment to do, which affected the mood. In short, it wasn’t easy ».

Would he do it again?
“Having done that is one of the things that made me most proud of myself in life. From that day on, I have walked around the world with more freedom: that of making personal and professional choices with more serenity ».

What do you respond to those who say that a child needs two parents?
«The best is that children have two parents who love each other and are happy. Ok. Then life is complicated. My daughters have fathers who are very good parents, but still they have lived through the trauma of divorce, the suffering of change. Who decides what is best? I think it’s more likely to love a child you’ve wanted so badly than someone who accidentally comes in for a fuck. ”

How will she know when it’s time to become a mother again?
«A year later I think mine egg freezing it was a more symbolic gesture than anything else. Among other things, they took 5 eggs from me, which are very few. I don’t know if I will do this son, if I will meet a man who will make me want to do it or if I will want to do it alone. “

How has it been this past year?
«The most beautiful of my life. I am lucid, I choose, I use the lessons I have learned and I feel useful to others. If I tell then what happened to me is not all wasted. Women write to me, tell me, thank me. I cry you sow, maybe they will bloom. I also did it in September, at a Ted Talk in Perugia. I have never been able to speak: I have always stammered, stumbled. But it went very well. Growing up I realized that sharing generously makes you feel good, giving something to others is good for those who do it. It’s a kind of secret that even the selfish should discover. ‘

Doesn’t it hurt to expose yourself?
«I practically have no haters, perhaps because I put myself on social media with simplicity. Famous people are often envied and even hated for their supposed fortunes. Seeing their frailties makes us understand that we are all the same. I believe this truth so much that I invited five famous women from the fashion world to chat with me in my bed. It’s a special version of my Instagram column In bed with Bianca. Let’s start on April 1st ».

What would you say to Bianca a year ago?
“It will not be easy. You have responsibilities too, look at them. But if you change, everything changes. In a year you will be another person, between two who knows where you will be. Have a nice trip”.

In 2021 Bianca Balti started talking on her Instagram account about what she had learned from the toxic relationship she came out of. Her response was so positive that she decided to create the video column In bed with Bianca, in which she sends messages of strength and empowerment to women from her bed. In addition to a YouTube channel and a newsletter, you have also opened an email address: [email protected].

Photo Morelli Brothers
Marc Eram service
Make-up Arianna Garcia @ Makeupari_. Hair Angel Gonzalez @Princeangelll. Bianca Balti is represented by Brave.

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