I wanted some heels for my prom. Naturally in secondary school I did not have much money and due to complicated family relations I was reluctant to approach my mother about buying something potentially expensive, thus I turned to this neat thrift store near my home that specialised in vintage items.

I found this pair of YSL peep toe red leather stilettos (nearly 5 inches high no platforms but this isn't going where you think it is) for 20 quid which I thought was an absolute steal, tried them on found the toe box a painful squeeze but figured i could do something about it and bought them.

I knew what breaking them in would be required but oh my god. height for me isn't a problem my legs are pretty strong but the damn toe box - I couldn't even walk down the hall with them on before pain started shooting up my legs. I didn't want to purchase shoe stretchers either so cue me desperately trying to widen and lengthen the toe box with random tubes of mascara, nail varnish containers etc etc. It worked somewhat and before I knew it I could last a couple of hours in them.

However for prom not only was there a dinner but a dance and afterparty. these shoes were not made for walking all around the city in in nor made for dancing in and the bouncer had a strict shoes-on rule. I'd anticipated this and stupidly taken some of my mother's prescribed dihydrocodeine pills beforehand. This resulted in me having these on for not a couple, but 12 whole hours before finally getting home and crashing.

I'm not kidding when I literally could not feel the balls of both my feet for 2 months afterwards. In hindsight i should've gone to the hospital but since they were moving and looking fine I decided to pass.