I sat on the floor outside my bedroom, stunned.
My mouth was open, staring at the walls and my two friends next to me. We had no words.
Six hours ago we came home from a nightclub. Some guy had sold us some pills and we'd taken one each. I didn't know what was in them and I didn't ask. We'd danced and laughed and somehow made it home. And here I was. Outside my bedroom door. I was eighteen.
Had I been more conscious I would have been scared my parents would come home early from their trip. But that didn't cross my mind.
The rest of that day I felt terrible. Tired, irritable, coming down from a high that wasn't even that good. As I turned up to my restaurant job I realised this: I was wasting my life.
I was lost. But I couldn't see another path.
That moment was the final one of many others like it.
At sixteen I got arrested for shoplifting with three friends from school. After a summer spent stealing clothes, makeup and chocolate bars from high street chain stores, one security guard clocked on.
We all had jobs and could have paid for the stuff. But that wasn't as fun. As I sat in the cold juvenile cell waiting for my mum to pick me up, I cried uncontrollably.
This wasn't me. This wasn't any of us. I was just bored. Bored of my school, lessons, and trips to the cinema. Too much energy for the system, too much ambition for the education conveyor belt. So much to give but no clue how to channel it.
Mum knew I wasn't a criminal. She hugged me. We went home. We never mentioned it again.
At fifteen I started dating some guy I didn't fancy, because people thought he was cool. He bought me cigarettes and showed me how to smoke them. I played along. He told me my shorts were too short and my tops were too tight. I changed them.
This slope was slippery and it escalated fast. He cheated on me with anyone who crossed his path and got mad when other boys talked to me. He checked my phone for messages and new numbers and told me to delete people he didn't want me to know. I deleted them.
My circle of friends got smaller until there was no one in it but him. My fake friends were having their own boy drama. My real friends didn't understand. And neither did I.
Instead of seeing sense. Instead of running away. I started doing what I was being accused of doing. I played him at his own game. I snuck around, lied about where I was. Memorised phone numbers so he wouldn't know. Cheated on him. Brought back the tight clothes.
Rebelling against some loser and losing myself even more.
Getting in trouble, taking questionable substances and being caught in an abusive relationship culminated in that nightclub aftermath where two friends and I had ended up sitting wasted outside my bedroom door.
Somewhere in the hallucinations brought on by the pills, I heard a voice. No advice, just a question. "What the hell are you doing?"
I was ready to change, but I still had to pay the price of the mess. Now school was over, and my grades were bad. One dropped from working 30 hours a week instead of studying. A few more from skipping school. Another from the drink, drugs and partying.
Grades weren’t good enough for my plan A. And I was still living my plan Z.
But plan B arrived and became the new path. I moved 90 minutes away from my home town, signing up for some business degree that sounded fine. No past influences. No one there who knew anything. Ready to get back to being me.
I lived with new people. I started a new routine. I discovered running. I didn't try to give up drugs and alcohol and smoking, I just didn't think to do them. That was my old life. Things were different now. The teenage rebel got left behind and I didn't miss her for a second.
Everyone’s rock bottom looks different.
But whatever it looks like: when you’re there, you realise the only way is up.
By the time I graduated, I was working in a job I loved, running half-marathons every weekend, in an insanely great relationship (that I'm still in now) and ready to start my own business.
By the time I turned 32, I’d built and sold a company. Written several books. Spoken on stages around the world. Competed internationally in powerlifting. Made the Forbes 30 under 30 list, become a Forbes contributor, and lived in 35 different cities.
And, most importantly, built a life I didn’t want to escape from.
I'd designed a career on my terms. I'd learned to value impact over shallow attention. I lived by my principles, not anyone else's expectations. I was known for my ideas, not my past.
New life. New boundaries. New me.
The girl who sat outside her bedroom door was gone. But she handed me her fire.
And what I knew for sure:
I would never again lose myself to please other people
I would never again follow the crowd to fit in
I would never again forget my own worth
Why am I sharing this now? Because I stopped caring about hiding it.
I am not my past.
At any moment, you can choose how you live. One change can change your life.
Change your trajectory by changing your geography
Change your future by changing your intention
Change your life by changing your energy
Walking away is power.
Starting again is worth it.
And owning your story is freedom.
