The Hand you're dealt with! (中文)

What people usually hear is the simplified version of my life. Difficult childhood, drugs, homelessness, rehab, architecture, business owner. Technically, that is true, but it tells you nothing about what it felt like to live through, or what it took to survive it. My story began before I could speak for myself. My mother was young when she had me, and had been sent to a mother and baby home where adoption was expected. Before my life had properly begun, there were already plans for me to be given away. My father and grandmother stopped that from happening, but I entered the world surrounded by shame, uncertainty, and family conflict. My childhood was marked by fear and instability. My father drank, gambled, and carried unresolved trauma from military life. Abuse in our home was constant. That kind of environment changes a child. You learn vigilance before peace, and defensiveness before identity. School offered little escape. I was naturally left-handed, but forced to write with my right hand by strict nuns who believed it needed correcting. Later, I discovered I had dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ADHD. But as a child, I was labeled disruptive and difficult. I struggled to fit into systems that never seemed built for people like me. By 16, I had left home. I drifted through jobs while trying to find direction. Eventually, drugs became more than experimentation. I used hard drugs, sold drugs, and lived in environments where violence and intimidation felt normal. Growing up around fear had made unsafe places feel familiar. By my mid-twenties, I was homeless, staying in the Salvation Army and eating in soup kitchens, while addiction consumed my life. I was ashamed, lost, and surviving day to day. Rehab interrupted that path. It did not magically heal me, but it gave me distance from the life destroying me. What followed was not an overnight transformation, but a slow rebuilding. Against every expectation, I returned to education, studied architecture, completed qualifications, and built a career. Architecture gave me structure, order, and purpose. Over time, I became a senior interior architect and eventually started my own practice, building a respected business from nothing. I still carry the effects of trauma, addiction, ADHD, dyslexia, and shame. But I also carry resilience. I went from homelessness and addiction to building businesses, relationships, and a future. For years, I believed I was the ruin. What I finally realized is this. Even from ruin, people can still build something extraordinary.