“Wounds are where the light enters you.” ~ Rumi
I grew up in a council house in the 1970s, in a world where children were seen and not heard.
We were kicked out in the morning and told to come back when the street lights came on. On the surface, it looked normal. But what was happening behind closed doors did not seem normal at all.
I didn’t have the words for it then, but I always felt different.
People thought I was shy. And I was. But it was more than that. Being around people felt overwhelming, like I was constantly on edge, scanning for something I couldn’t name. I didn’t feel safe, even when nothing was obviously wrong.
When I was six, my parents divorced.
My mother left and started a new life with my sister. I stayed back with my father. I didn’t understand the whole picture then – only that everything changed overnight.
Before he left, my father told me that he would kill himself if I went with him.
I believed him.
As a child, you don’t question these things. You accept them as truth. So I stayed, carrying a weight no child should carry—the belief that someone’s life depended on me.
Looking back, fear gripped me immediately.
My father was deeply hurt by the separation. He drank heavily and did not work for long periods of time. I didn’t understand his pain at the time – only how it was shown.
Anger.
I became the place of that anger.
Some days, he would wait for me when I came home from school. If I’m even a few minutes late, I’ll get hurt. It was not a one-off. It becomes a pattern. Something I learned to anticipate, even when I didn’t know what I had done wrong.
When you grow up like this you start living differently.
always alert Always alert. Always try to get it right.
And somehow it always seems like you don’t.
My father was not a bad man. I can see now. But he wasn’t able to be the father I needed him to be. There was no warmth, no reassurance, no sense of security.
I was not allowed to sit in the living room.
Most days, I stayed in my bedroom, with nothing to do but stare out the window and imagine a different life. I created a whole world in my head to escape the one I was in.
I had friends, but I was always outside. I didn’t go out as often as they did. Slowly I backed away.
At night, the fear would come out in a way I didn’t understand. I wet the bed until I was twelve. I know why I carry shame.
Something in me already felt… wrong.
When I was eleven or twelve, I found my first escape.
Butane gas.
I used to steal lighter refills from the local store. The shopkeeper left a small window open behind the hill, and I would reach there and grab them. I would spray it on my jumper and inhale.
For the first time, I could leave my head.
It didn’t stop there. the glue Petrol. Then marijuana and amphetamines when I was fourteen.
It wasn’t about getting high. not really
It was about not feeling what I was feeling.
It became my life for the next twenty-five years.
Getting out of my head wasn’t just something I did—I needed it. Substances became a daily habit and eventually, they took over everything.
lost friends I lost my direction. I lost all sense of who I was.
But in a strange way, I found something I had never found before.
belongs to
The people I interacted with became my world. In that chaos, I realized. There were no expectations. No pressure to be anything other than what I was.
The first time, I didn’t feel like the odd one out.
And that made it even harder to leave.
Because how do you walk away from the only place you’ve ever felt accepted?
Then in the late eighties something changed again.
Ecstasy has arrived.
And with that came something I’d never felt before—what felt like love, connection, openness. For the first time, I felt close to people. I felt a part of something.
It was overwhelming in a different way.
beautiful strong addict
I didn’t want it to end.
But it wasn’t real—not the way I needed it to be. This is a chemically produced version of something I’ve been searching for all my life.
And once you’ve felt that, even artificially, it’s hard to go back to emptiness.
So I stayed.
for years
It took a long time before anything started to change.
There wasn’t a single moment that changed everything. It was slower than that. delicate Almost unnoticed at first.
But somewhere along the way, I began to see that the life I was living wasn’t the only option.
That maybe… just maybe… there was something else.
And more importantly, I ignored it.
Life had been trying to show me a different path for a long time. But I wasn’t ready to listen.
As soon as I did, things started to change.
I began to change.
Walking away from that world was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not just because of the substance, but because I had to face everything I had spent years avoiding.
fear Loneliness The feeling that I didn’t quite belong anywhere.
And the truth is that along the way, I’ve hurt people who care about me.
That was something I had to sit with.
But I don’t regret it like I once did.
I carry the burden.
Because something unexpected happened when I stopped running.
I started to understand myself.
I began to see that I was not broken.
I was just adapting to an environment that didn’t feel safe.
The anxiety, the withdrawal, the need to escape—everything made sense when I looked at it through that lens.
My body was always trying to protect me.
This realization changed everything.
Because when you stop seeing yourself as the problem, you can finally start working with yourself instead of against yourself.
Now, at the age of fifty-six, my life does not look like it did then.
I live on the other side of the world. I have a family that I never believed in. I made something meaningful out of experiences that I once thought destroyed me.
But more importantly, I feel something I didn’t think was possible.
A sense of security in oneself.
That doesn’t mean life is perfect. It doesn’t.
There are still tough days. There are still moments where old patterns try to creep in.
But now I understand where they are coming from.
And that changed how I responded.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this:
What appears to be “broken” is often adaptation.
The things we judge ourselves for—anxieties, coping mechanisms, ways we try to escape—often begin as a way to survive.
And survival is nothing to be ashamed of.
It has something to understand.
My story is a success story – but not because everything turned out perfectly.
It’s a success because I can see a way now.
And if you’re in a place that doesn’t seem to have one, I want you to know this:
There are
Your life can improve when you begin to be compassionate with yourself and take even small steps toward change.
And when you do, something starts to shift.
You start to move.
You begin to heal.
And finally, you begin to build a life that feels like your own.
about Matt Little
Matt Little is the founder of Pesona Jiwa, a private wellness retreat in Bali that focuses on nervous system healing and trauma recovery. After decades of overcoming addiction and emotional struggles, she now supports others in reconnecting with safety and a sense of self. Learn more at pesonajiwa.com/nervous-system-regulation/ Or explore more at pesonajiwa.com/
