“That won’t last forever.” “You need to think about something serious.” “You can’t just spend money and live in luxury forever.”

I was 16 when the world shut down, and strangely, something inside me switched on. While everything around me felt uncertain, I started building, partly because I didn’t know what else to do. What most people didn’t see was that, beneath the drive and presented on social media, I was already fighting battles that weren’t visible. My anxiety had started in secondary school - about 12, but it was around 16 time that depression first took hold. I was put on medication for a sepa

The Freedom Stories Project is a growing archive of real, uncensored human stories—told by people from all walks of life, in all corners of the world. This journey will take me across the world, collecting stories that reflect the full spectrum of the human experience—shared from dusty roads, jungle cafés, hostel rooftops, temple steps, and everywhere in between.