#heroesstruggletoo
Autism
ADHD
Anxiety
Depression

Thank you so much @roguemaycosplay you're an absolute legend for bringing this beautiful movement to life. #heroesstruggletoo

A lot of people struggle so much through so many different circumstances.

I'm no exception, while a lot has been manageable through a lot of will power, sadly there's still a lot that continues to linger on despite everything.
 Some folks need help more than others.

 I thought I might drop a story about myself, I've not revealed this an extended group of people except for my closest friends and to this day most of them know not about it.

I apologize for overstaying my welcome and making such a huge post. But this is my story.

I've had a lot of people nowadays tell me they admire me for my confidence and how I tend to go about things but most of the time I'm frightened, I don't like to show what goes through my head.
So I think it's time to reveal how I truly am when I'm not trying to be the reason for someone's smile.

 This was my choice, in the end, to fight my problems by myself instead of relying on others to fight alongside me.
I'm far too prideful and stubborn to ask for help in times of need. My whole life has been a struggle with anything relating to social interaction, relationships and so on.

 For the longest time, I was simply an introvert who isolated myself from everyone, I couldn't talk to people much less physically approach them. It was a complicated task just to speak to anyone and not a lot of people know about my conditions because I don't show it, especially my autism.
For my whole life, I've hidden it as much as I can and to this day not a lot of people know about it.
The fear of people treating me differently as if I needed a handicap... It's impressive how much people change when you tell them you have something like this and I'm far too prideful to accept being treated like I constantly need help because of something I was born with, which people have done in the past.

I've always dealt with depression since I've moved to Australia, moving somewhere away from all my family members besides mum and dad, learning an entirely different language from scratch and It didn't get better when school started, I was always the weird kid with the broken English, a different culture and quirky person who used to spill dumb jokes to try and cope with stress and facing constant discrimination for being from a different country and being an outright different person.

I left school a year earlier than everyone in my year group as I was fortunate enough to have been accepted into college as a programming student thanks to a game I was making while still in high school.

It wasn't until I left college where I started being able to feel like I was in the right environment, being slowly able to talk to people, fighting anxiety slowly and then I was incredibly blessed to have met my best friend @mc_bretag who introduced me to cosplay, helped me make friends and brought me up.
Had it not been for him I would've still have been in a shell away from everything.

For the most part, the years following up until 2018 were amazing.
I was running my own company, I made an amazing group of friends, my anxiety was becoming manageable whilst it was still very prominent, I became a lot more social...
Heck, I was on the verge of being able to purchase my own house!
I was on a winning streak.
Then it started taking a turn for the worst...

It wasn't until I was 20 years old that I had my first girlfriend which didn't work out, I was used and abused, taken advantage of and misled. The destruction of trust, the petty garbage she did after we broke up...]
I fell into depression again.
Later the same year I had my second relationship which sadly didn't work out either.
I've never been in a relationship, I've always struggled with people and the whole relationship thing was not easy for me due to anxiety, always feeling the need to see them and always feeling like I'm walking on eggshells no matter how well I thought I was doing.
I had fallen in love both those times and neither worked out.
I'm not proud to say it, but I still struggle to this day on the subject.

Physically wise, I was at the peak of my game. I was incredibly fit, active and proud of my achievements. 6 pack abdominals, Being able to easily pull off over 120 consecutive pushups, handstands and I was constantly training and I had even got accepted in Australia Ninja Warrior.
I had worked so incredibly hard, every single day and it was easily one of my best long term achievements.
But then disaster struck again, I damaged my knee in a way that it was so bad it never healed and to this day it's never been the same.
This was a week before I was supposed to participate in Ninja Warrior...
6 months after my shoulder followed and while I was able to cope with a bad knee, I couldn't say the same about my shoulder and I fell once again into a deep depression.

Disaster just kept following, I had to shut down the business, I was out of a job, I lost one of my best friends because he backstabbed me, I gave up cosplaying for good.
I had good friends reignite the fire briefly but it didn't last for long, such as when my best bud @phantombladecosplay had my back and had lent me one of his Assassin's Creed cosplays to cosplay alongside him.
Despite it all, I couldn't seem to bring myself to love cosplaying again.

The one thing that kept me going, was photography. I had some amazing mentors to help me.
Reagan Smash Productions, CK Imagery, Joy Rahman and to this day, photography has not only become my biggest love and passion, but also the best coping mechanism I've had to date.
There's no better feeling when I get told people love my work and that I put in a smile on them and that my photos made them look "beautiful" (Just for the record, I didn't make you look beautiful, you're already beautiful, I just captured that beauty and framed it).

While 2017 was my best year, 2018 was my worst but 2019 has been an uprising year and things have been getting better by a lot.
I rose from the Ashes thanks to those that lit my fire once again.
A lot of what I have been able to achieve today, how I feel every day couldn't have been done had it not been for everyone who's been by my side.
Everyone I know has changed me in some way, shape or form for the best and I cannot thank everyone enough for all you've done for me.

Thanks to everyone who had my back, this year has been a definite improvement for me and I hope I'm able to keep this streak going and fight the good fight alongside everyone else.

Sorry for the long post but it's about time I told my story, At least a chunk of it.

Thank you, everyone.