The hard times have led up to this moment.

I've reached a point in life now where I feel I can start to say that 'all the crap I've been through, all the pushing myself to extreme limits has led to this moment'.

It's been 21 long, stressful years but I feel I can start to breath again. Don't get me wrong, I'll never put my guard down and I'll always be cautious about everything but for the first time in forever I feel some sense of normality.

I'm at University. I'm gaining a degree. No one can tell that I've had a bad upbringing. I just blend in and it's kind of nice. It's not like at school where I might have had behavioural problems or missed classes. Or had a different person take me to every parents evening. Like the obvious 'troubled home life identifiers'. No one knows anything about me.

Don't get me wrong there's still things that link me with the past.

The other day I got a voicemail saying that there was an error on the University registration system because my term time address and non term time address were the same. So, I went down and explained how I don't have a home outside of University so it was my only address and I got given the strangest looks from this man. Then, the lady was like 'Oh that's odd, I've never had that before'.

At the time this made me feel like crap. It's almost like there was some sort of hierarchy of like students, then people who were in care but still have some family and then me, a  care leaver with no one. Buuuut I got over this quickly and I'll tell you why.

I decided to shine another light on what she said. 'I've never heard that before'. It's something I've had said to me a lot in my life. Someone in a children's home who doesn't smoke? - 'I've not seen that before'. Someone who achieved there GCSE's whilst living at Seaside children's home - 'That's not happened before'... like these are all good things! I'm setting precedent. I'm an individual. I'm glad there's not many people like me. It means people will remember me. It means I can make changes and make a difference.

The life I've had has been horrible.  Even this year has been horrendous. But I kind of get it more now. These unique sets of unfortunate circumstances have built me up and made me into someone capable of achieving great things and someone who understands deeply life so, so deeply.

I've made it this far and I'll keep on making it.