If I’m going to die, I might as well go to Thailand first

Well... where do I begin?

Since this is the very first story I’m sharing with you, I think I want to start with what seems like the beginning of the discovery of who I really am.

And it started not with a vision, or a breakthrough, or a miracle, it started when I checkmated myself emotionally. When I backed myself into a corner so deep and so tight, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak the truth of my experience to anyone. At least, it felt like I couldn’t. For so long, I’d been holding it all inside: the pain, the numbness, the anxiety, the feeling of being barely here; and I had lived like that for years. Smiling. Doing what was expected. Going through the motions.

And under that surface, a quiet suicidal energy was always brewing up. At first, it was just a foggy daydream in the background, something I didn’t even register as dangerous. But it became more real with time, more seductive, more rational even. Like: of course I’d want to leave. Of course this isn’t working. Of course I don’t belong.

And then one day, I got to a point where I was so serious about it. I genuinely didn’t care at all anymore. Not about what people thought, not about my job, not about the future. Nothing. I felt so profoundly disconnected, so flatlined from everything and everyone, that I thought, honestly: Well... if I’m going to die anyway, I might as well go do something different first. Something radical. Something that might, just might, open a different door.

That’s how the decision to go to Thailand came to me. Not from joy, but from a last breath of rebellion. From that very raw place of fuck this life, fuck everything, let me at least try something else before I leave.

At that time, I was also really struggling with digestion. Everything I ate made me nauseous. I constantly felt sick. I had zero appetite for life, and my body mirrored it. I was trying to fix it, of course, researching, experimenting, removing animal products, adjusting my lifestyle, doing everything I could to make the nausea stop. And in one of those rabbit holes, I came across a YouTube channel about the fruitarian lifestyle. It sounded extreme and bizarre and beautiful in a way I couldn’t explain.

And something in me whispered: Why not?

Living in Almaty, that kind of lifestyle wasn’t realistic but in Thailand, it would be. And suddenly the idea didn’t seem so far-fetched. I thought: I’ll go to Thailand. I’ll live on fruit. I’ll get into fitness. I’ll detox my body and maybe my soul will follow. I didn’t have much of a plan. Just a feeling.

I decided I would study for my CELTA certificate in Chiang Mai and hopefully, once I had that in hand, I could find a job teaching English and stay longer. That was the spark, and from the moment I committed, something started shifting. I suddenly began getting more students for my English lessons. I felt motivated again. Alive, even. I began working more, saving money, which was always hard for me. Still is, in some ways. At the time, I’d spend whatever I made. Not that I made much to begin with. But this time was different. There was clarity. There was purpose.

And so I saved. I booked a flight. I gave away all my belongings and left without a thought that I would ever come back.

That was my leap of faith. My very own quiet revolution. My fuck you to the scripted life I was never meant to live.

And it was also the beginning. Not the solution, not the arrival but the beginning of a new kind of movement inside me. The beginning of a different relationship with myself. The beginning of curiosity. The beginning of healing.

So if you’re reading this and you’re in that dark place, that silent, sticky place where nothing makes sense and nothing feels worth it, I want to tell you something that no one told me:

Do something different first.
Something radical.
Something that breaks all the rules you’ve been trying so hard to follow.
Shake up your world.
Let life surprise you.

Yes, people might judge.
Yes, you’ll feel crazy.
Yes, it will be hard.
But as long as you stay, truly stay, there’s always a new chapter waiting for you.

Because I swear: this planet wouldn’t be the same without you.