Where you start isn’t who you are. Some of us just had to graft harder to prove it.

I’ve spent a lot of my life either sitting down to write or standing up to share my lived experience of addiction. I’ve been on both sides of it, and I’m vocal about the obstacles I had to navigate, not because I enjoy dragging myself back through the hard bits, but because those experiences shaped the grit, empathy, and determination that drive me now.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it: “I wouldn’t be where I am today without the people who came into my life and saw something in me long before I could see it myself.” They encouraged me, challenged me, and nurtured me into the woman I am now, someone my younger self couldn’t have even imagined becoming.

And yet… here I am.

The social disadvantages I grew up with didn’t mean I was less capable. They just meant I didn’t start from the same place as others.

And that’s not just my story. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been running a series of Have a Word With Yourself workshops with people who would be classed as “multiply disadvantaged.” Some are using their lived experience to influence policy at local and national levels. Others aren’t ready to advocate for anyone else yet because they’re still learning how to navigate systems and advocate for themselves.

Those workshops are powerful. When people share their stories, I hear bits of my own woven through. The details shift, but the undertone stays the same. That’s what connects us. Not because our stories match, but because the terrain feels familiar, the labels, the assumptions, the quiet battles no one ever sees. That feeling of being misunderstood or underestimated before you’ve even opened your mouth.

That feeling of being handed a dud pack of cards in a game you never agreed to play.

Many of them, like me, grew up in environments that imposed labels long before they had the language to challenge them. Not because people didn’t care, but because everyone was doing the best they could with the limited resources, skills, and emotional bandwidth they had. When you grow up in a world where survival is the priority, dreaming feels like a luxury. Thriving feels like something that happens to other people, in other postcodes, with other families.

But here’s the truth:

• We are more than the circumstances we were born into.
• We are more than the assumptions made about us.
• We are more than the labels that never quite fit.

 

The gap between us and the CEO in the glass office has never been about brains, talent, or drive. It’s access.

It’s about the deck of cards they were handed. It’s about who gets invited into possibility. No one ever asked me what I wanted to become. Meanwhile, others were asked that question from the moment they could form a sentence and handed the keys to doors I had to first find, then figure out how to open.

But imagine what any of us could achieve if we were:

• Given the same options
• Nurtured instead of doubted
• Encouraged instead of dismissed
• Asked what we wanted instead of being told what we’d get

 

Because a lack of opportunity does not mean a lack of ability.

Like me, many of the people I’m working with are carving their own path and unlearning the belief that ambition is “not for people like them.” That belief is exactly why I’m so passionate about spreading this message as far as I can:

That people can become anything they want to be. Some of us just must work harder than others. But harder doesn’t mean impossible. With the right support and encouragement, anything is possible.

But here’s the part we all need to sit with:

Every one of us plays a role in challenging the conscious and unconscious biases we hold about people who’ve been socially disadvantaged. Those biases don’t just shape opinions; they shape opportunities. They shape who gets encouraged. Who gets believed in? Who gets invited in? Who gets a seat at the table? Who gets written off before they’ve even begun.

And  here’s another truth I want to leave you with:

We can’t change where people start. But we can change how we see them. We can change the stories we tell about them. And we can change the systems that decide who gets to thrive. And when we create environments where people are seen, supported, and believed in, we don’t just change individual lives.

• We change communities.
• We change systems.
• We change what becomes possible for the next generation.

 

That’s the work.

That’s the invitation.

And that’s the hope I’ll keep fighting for.

 

Love, Fordy

AKA UnapologeticWriter

 

Thank you for taking the time to read.

I don’t write for financial reward or gain; I write to share my lived experience in the hope it helps someone else. And because, frankly, I just bloody love writing. If you fancy getting the occasional email (NO SPAM) with my latest blogs, feel free to subscribe at the bottom of the main page.