My story starts back to the year of 2010 when I was in secondary school. I dived into the world of drama. I had no clue what drama was, but the school all made us choose an extra GCSE after choosing our options. The list was short, and all the options that was listed I was already studying for except drama.
All my GCSEs were very academic, but drama was very different. It involved me becoming a different character and telling a story to an audience. I got sucked into this world of being someone else and I loved it.
This idea of being someone else appealed to me, like no sport or any other hobby did. I can hide my emotions through the words of another character. I can pretend to be a different character in reality. I didn’t have to be me.
My Home Life
During secondary school, I was quite popular with a group of friends but I would be the one in class who didn’t really contribute much. I was more of a listener than a speaker. With my culture, being Chinese, we don’t tend to speak out, it’s listen and obey your elders. I was bullied and on top of this, through the 5 years of secondary school, my story got a little more interesting when my mum was facing a divorce and from that moment my life spiralled.
Juggling studying, my mum’s divorce and trying to be a normal teenager, I slowly shut myself from the world, losing the friends I had and going to college getting medioarce grades. Something had changed. Or was it that I had changed? I was more quiet than before, I had low self esteem in myself and what I could achieve. But I ploughed on, not knowing how to fix or change it.
Becoming An Actor
I set out to be an actor, even though my mother opposed. Instead of going to drama school, a special training school for actors, I went down the traditional route going to university. I didn’t even apply to drama school as I knew I wasn’t good enough. I had a chance to move out of home and go to Bath Spa University to study BA Acting. The new story of my life began, new place, new me, new friends or so I thought.
However, it wasn’t anything like I expected. I was crying every day, not knowing why. There were many promises by the school and we were constantly let down over and over again. The grades I got weren’t meeting other people’s expectations. Everything was different; no one understood me, and I felt lost. So in the first year of uni, I had dark thoughts and wanted to commit suicide. I didn’t tell my family how I felt, I didn’t go to the doctors, I didn’t want to trouble anyone. I didn’t know what to do.
Speaking out my emotions is something that wasn’t story encouraged in my daily life or throughout the education system. I was so caught up on revising, to get the grades I needed to get into the next institution, that I forgot how I felt. I was living in a ball of lies, pretending to be a different version of myself, trying to fit in at university, trying to keep people happy.
Acting Revealed My Darkest Secrets
The story was I hated myself. My mental health was at its worst. There were days when I was seriously thinking and acting upon committing suicide. I wanted to change. I vowed to myself to never think or feel like this again. I set myself the BIGGEST mission: just be my authentic self. And it doesn’t matter if it takes me one year or ten years, I will change.
From this point forward, I had a goal, I had something to strive for. It’s never too late to start becoming a better version of yourself. Every successful brand starts with a compelling story and this was the start of mine.
To be continued… Read my story Part 2 here.
If you are worried about your mental health here are a list of places you can go to for help. Or alternatively book a discovery call with me and see how I can help you. Check out my Speak Confidence course!