When you have been DOWN to the very bottom, there is only one way left to go, UP!
I suppose i should start at the beginning, I grew up in a single parent family with my Mum and two Brother's,
Dad was an alcoholic woman beater, so he had to go.
We lived on social welfare, in England in the 1980's which were tough times,
Margret Thatcher was in the middle of destroying England, and protests and riots were normal, football hooliganism was at its peak, all in all things were not good.
My Mum was on her own with three boy's, and we were terrible,
running rings round our Mum, causing chaos.
Out of all three, i was without a doubt the worst, i got expelled from my first School at the age of 5 and things got worse from then on.
I think i was about seven or eight when i got put into care, my Mum's new man hated me and I'm pretty sure he gave her an ultimatum.
Getting put into care was devastating for me, you have to go and live with strangers who mostly are in it for the extra income and don't CARE about the child they invite into there homes, and if your lucky you don't get abused. I was tough and had a attitude, so i got left alone, but i have many friends from care that were not so lucky, I'll spare you the details.
That was it, i was on my own and i decided from that day on i would never be hurt again, so i shut the doors, built a huge wall and took to fighting anyone who got in my way, i was angry and hated the world.
After two years when my Mum and her man split up, she asked me if i wanted to come back, but the wall was built and the damage was done, so i said no.
I got expelled from every school i went to, and buy the time i was fourteen no school in London would have me,
and by then i was more focused on taking drugs and fighting the world.
It's a common misconception that it's mostly girl's that self harm, by cutting them self's,
this is not true, boy's self harm just as much as girl's, but in a different way.
Boy's and men self harm by putting them self's in dangerous situations, i did this a lot, i would take on groups of youths, and fight them all, hoping that they might just put me out my misery, but someone must have been looking over my shoulder.
At fourteen i was in court for street robbery, and the only reason the judge didn't send me to prison was because i had a kid on the way.
Sorry about the picture quality it's been in my wallet 21years
Chanel, Born 4th of September 1995
So now i had a reason to stay out of trouble, but it didn't last. We split up after 6 months and i fell deep into drugs and violence and was homeless on the streets of London by the age of 15.
Being homeless in London was a buzz at first, if you are under 18 you usually get a bed in a hostel somewhere with loads of other street kids, we was all in the same boat, and we stuck together, a bit like a family in a strange way.
During the day's we would go out and earn money, a lot of them would do street robberies, but i promised Chanel i would never go to prison or be a heroin addict, so instead we would go and sell fake weed to foreigners.
It was genius, we'd buy a packet of herbal cigarettes, and when you emptied a cigg into a bag it looked like weed, but i didn't smell like weed, so we would take them into troccoderas, an entertainment complex in the west end, the place had loads of cameras so when we gave them them the weed, if they tried to smell it we would say "oi you idiot watch out there is cameras everywhere" worked almost every time, and you couldn't get arrested for it.
The novelty of being homeless in central London soon wore off, and after a massive gang fight in which we all got shot at, i decided to leave London.
By the time i was eighteen i was still homeless, but something happened.
My uncle got a gig cooking food for the drummer from Queen, for his 50th birthday bash, and he asked if i wanted to come and work for him. i was in a bad way at the time and i am pretty sure this single act of kindness saved my life.
Nobody had ever stretched there hand out to me like this, so i jumped at the chance.
I loved it, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous and I worked really hard for my Uncle, and he acknowledged this.
A few weeks later he used the money from the Queen gig to buy a pub and asked if i wanted to come and work for him,
that was it, my road to recovery, my way out, i felt like maybe life was worth living after all.
I worked hard at it, and within a month i was the bar manager, then i was pretty much running the place.
The Red Lion pub Southampton
All was well, and i truly felt a sense of worth and that i could do anything, but my cocaine and weed habit stayed with me and i had a lifetime of chaos buried in my closet, so it didn't last and i messed it up like everything else in my life.
Homeless again! i was living at a homeless charity called Emmaus in Brighton were i met a Swedish girl, we started seeing each other, and shortly after there was a baby on the way, i didn't want to bring another kid into the world, but she insisted she would go back to Sweden with or without me and have the baby.
So i followed her to Sweden, of course it didn't work out, but i stayed to be close to my child.
I started to like Sweden, nobody knew of my history and it felt as though it all got left behind in England.
Then i met Louise, and thats when things really started to come together. Louise had some family issues, and we both stayed up for hours talking about our pasts, helping each other to bring it all to the surface.
That was it, i decided to get my shit together and stop taking drugs.
I thought long and hard about what i wanted to do with my life, and i remembered, all i wanted to be when i was a little boy was a truck driver. Louise lent me some money to do my car license, and then i got on a 6 months intense course to become a truck driver, in Sweden you don't just take the driving test, you have to know every thing about the truck, the breaking system, how to fix the truck, i had to do three separate theory tests, followed by two driving test, all in a foreign language.
I was up till four in the morning studying some nights.
It felt great, it felt as though i had really achieved something, something i always wanted to do, OK it might not be much for most people, but for me, i had made it, i was a real man now.
After 4 years we had our first child, followed by another, i was saving loads of money and we lived a comfortable life.
We had a nice house, a new car in the drive way. Then i started my own company, we had money in the bank,
i could buy what ever i wanted, and did so quite often, flashy watches, carbon fiber road bike's, 20" rims for the car.
It was so far removed from my old life, you would think we would be happy, but the thing is we was not living our lives, we was living the dream life that everyone thinks you should live. We was not happy living this fake life, we wanted more.
Thats when we decided to SELL IT ALL, AND NEVER LOOKED BACK. to find out what we did you will have to refer to my first Steemit post.
Today i am not in prison, I have never been a heroin addict, and i am not dead, like so many people told me i would be, i don't drink alcohol, i don't even smoke cigarettes anymore. As well as trucking i also work for the local psychiatric ward, helping people who have had a rough life, i take them out for the day, we eat pizza, go for walks and after telling them my story they usually open up, and realize that there is a way out.
I have also been to the local social services, to see if i can help kids in care, which is my ambition in life.
They jumped at the the chance, but every time they found a child for me to help, i have been out traveling.
Hopefully this year it will happen, because i truly believe i can help.
My relationship with my Mum is the best it's ever been, and all though i don't see them as much as i would like, i have great contact with my first and second child.
Ok so I'm not a millionaire, although i do have money in the bank, gold buried in the ground and bitcoins in cold storage,
What i meant in the title "I was homeless at 15yrs old, now I'm rich beyond my wildest dream's" is that i have everything i could ever want. We live a free life, we don't owe a penny to the bank, we own our home, and we now have four of the most beautiful kids in the world, who we spend as much time with as possible, Louise has always been a stay at home Mum and i only work six months of the year.
We are rich, and if you think money makes you rich, think again. There are plenty of miserable millionaires out there trust me.
Yes we have money in the bank, but even if we didn't we would still carry on living the simple life we do.
The reason i am writing this post and revealing my life story to the steemit world, is to point out that no matter how bad life gets, you can always pull it back together again.
Never give up and get out there and make waves, because if you don't you will be forever chasing other people's dreams , only to realize when you finally get them, it doesn't make you happy. and if you ever see someone who is in dire need of some help, and you are in a position to help them, then don't hesitate, you might just save a life.
If you liked this post, if it gave you something, please show some support and spread it, it takes a lot for me to do these posts as i never really went to school (sorry for the bad grammar) and check out my other posts, starting from the bottom of my page and working up.
Peace and love to the world
My first ever selfie, just for you guy's, yeah i know i still kinda look homeless
