All this to say, no, I could never look down on anyone who did not make it through the same gauntlet. I know how rigged it is.

What I want now is not to flex the escape story, but to make the path softer, shorter, and less violent for whoever comes next.

I feel lucky I made it out of my circumstances. Luck, endurance, timing, hard headedness, and confidence in myself in certain moments all mattered.

The system is not broken, it is working exactly as designed.

If anything, it showed me how expensive “success” is in a system built on exhaustion, opression and scarcity.

So many people are kept in survival mode that they never get to breathe, let alone rise.

Then Habilitation Specialist. Care Manager for people with intellectual disabilities. Entrepreneur. Recruiting Manager.

People love to turn stories like that into a grindset inspiration story. “I did it, so anyone can.” That is not how I see it.