“Travelling helps me to escape the problems in my life.. 2 years ago I lost my mum.. I hated her, she lied to me.. I started to self harm.”

“Travelling helps me to escape the problems in my life and to just be away from it all. For me it allows me to have time to enjoy a different country, immerse myself in a totally different culture and to be in a new environment where I can take in the beautiful surroundings and re-evaluate life. 2 years ago I lost so much, my mum, my job and my girlfriend. The worst thing was losing my mum because we hadn’t been speaking to each other for a while, after I found out that the man I had grown up to believe to be my dad wasn’t actually my dad. I was so angry with my mum because she lied to me for all these years. I felt like my whole life was a lie, that I didn’t even know who I am at all. I began to hate her so much and didn’t want anything to do with her. I fell into a very depressive state to the point I questioned my own existence. All this time I felt confident that I knew who I was, after finding out — I no longer knew who I was. I used to wish that I wasn’t born. When the person who is meant to be the closest, loving and the person who you can rely on to trust lies to you. It’s like I don’t even know my mum anymore, was she even my mum? my heart was broken and I could not find any space in my heart to forgive her. After years of not speaking to my mum, I later found out that she had cancer and only had a few months to live. This really made me realise that I needed to let go of my pain and forgive her because life is too short to hold onto pain forever — I forgave her. A week later, she had died. Later followed was me losing my job at a large banking corporation due to them wanting to cut jobs. I didn’t know what to do next, I felt completely lost; I didn’t know where my life was going. My depression got worst that I started self harming. I didn’t start to overcome my depression until my family pushed me to see a Counsellor. Talking to someone that wasn’t going to judge me and just listen really helped me to open up and talk about how I was feeling. The counselling helped me so much, I even finished before the full 12 weeks therapy. Talking allowed me to get things off my chest and to feel a sense of release.”