Jordan's Story: From Surviving to Helping Others Thrive

By Jordan (He/They) Early Years and Hidden Pain My story begins in the South West of England, between Devon and Cornwall, where I spent my early years with my young mum. She was a teenager when she became a parent, and from the very beginning she showed a strength I would only truly understand later in life. The first four years of my life feel like a purposeful blur, memories I have had to return to and look at with honesty. For many years, I struggled to understand and accept what had happened during my childhood and how those experiences shaped the person I became. Looking back now, I can see that many of the choices I made later in life were attempts to cope with pain I didn’t yet know how to name. Years later, my father was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the harm he caused to our family and others. My mum’s courage eventually gave us the chance to escape and begin again. Life became safer, but it wasn’t always easy. The next person in our lives was an improvement, but as a queer child trying to understand who I was, I quickly learned that being different was something some people struggled to accept. He was a proud military man, captain of the local rugby and football teams, and he couldn’t understand a child who found joy in gardening, singing and creativity rather than sport. Without meaning to, I learned that I had to hide parts of myself to feel accepted. Searching for Belonging As I got older, I started searching for belonging in places that couldn’t give it to me. At sixteen, I began experimenting with substances and drinking heavily. At eighteen, I packed my bags and moved to London, hoping I would finally find the life and community I had always been looking for. I started working in NHS mental health services, and helping others came naturally to me. I cared deeply about people in crisis because I understood what it felt like to be struggling. But while I could recognise pain in other people, I hadn’t yet learned how to understand my own. I hadn’t learned what healthy love looked like, or how deeply my early experiences had shaped the choices I was making. In my early twenties, I became caught in addiction. I put myself in dangerous situations, searching for connection and acceptance in places that ultimately harmed me. One night, I accepted what I believed was ecstasy from someone I trusted. It wasn’t. I lost consciousness, and when I woke, I knew something terrible had happened to me. I won’t pretend that moment changed everything overnight, but it became the point where I realised I couldn’t keep living the way I was. It was the beginning of choosing myself and began my journey to a life without drugs. A Turning Point When I reported what had happened, I left feeling as though I was being judged for taking drugs rather than listened to as someone who had experienced trauma. I chose not to pursue the case further. For a long time, that reinforced the shame I already carried. Although I had stopped using drugs, I was still searching for love in places that couldn’t give it to me. I contracted HIV, became isolated from my family and friends, and found myself trapped in an abusive relationship where my need to be loved was used against me. Trauma has a way of convincing you that you’re alone. Eventually, the abuse escalated into violence. By then, I had become physically and emotionally isolated from the people who cared about me most. The relationship reached a point where the police became involved, and suddenly my whole world fell apart. What happened next changed my life. Finding Safety and Support My mum got into her car and drove hundreds of miles to bring me to safety. Friends in London helped me find somewhere to live and supported me as I slowly rebuilt my life. The people I thought I’d lost had never stopped loving me. They had simply been waiting for me to be ready to let them back in. Alongside the unwavering support of my family and chosen family, I received help from a domestic abuse charity. They helped me understand what had happened to me, process the guilt and confusion I carried, and begin to feel safe again. For the first time in a long time, I realised I didn’t have to carry everything on my own. Healing wasn’t a straight line. There were setbacks. There were days when I questioned everything. There were moments when old coping mechanisms felt easier than facing my past. But slowly, I learned to recognise my warning signs, understand my trauma, build healthier relationships and develop ways of coping that no longer led me back into crisis. Turning Survival into Strength Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned was that healing isn’t about pretending your past didn’t happen or punishing yourself for the choices you made when you were trying to survive. It’s about meeting yourself with compassion, understanding why those choices made sense at the time, and believing you deserve something better. At some point, I stopped seeing myself only as someone who had survived. I became someone who could stand beside others. Being queer was never the thing that broke me. The rejection, shame and trauma I carried were the things I had to heal from. Today, I see my identity, my experiences and my journey as some of my greatest strengths. Looking back, I often wonder how different my twenties might have been if someone had recognised what I was carrying much earlier. There is still so much silence and shame around abuse within families, yet it is far more common than many people realise. If I’d received the right support as a teenager, perhaps things wouldn’t have become as difficult as they did. But I don’t tell my story because I wish I could change the past. I tell it because I hope someone else gets the support they need sooner than I did. Today, I am five years clean from drugs. I am happy, healthy and living openly with HIV. I am undetectable. I have a career that allows me to support people through some of the hardest moments of their lives, and that is a privilege I never take for granted. Most importantly, I know I am loved. For a long time, I searched for love in places that could never give it to me because I didn’t believe I deserved healthy love. Now I know that the people who truly love you won’t ask you to become someone else. Hope Starts Here If you’re reading this and you’re struggling, please know this: your past may explain parts of you, but it does not have to decide your future. Healing is rarely quick, and it is almost never perfect, but it is always possible. You are not defined by the worst things that have happened to you. You are worthy of love, support and hope, exactly as you are. There was a time when I was just trying to survive. Today, I get to help others realise they can thrive. If sharing my story helps just one person believe that they deserve a future they never thought possible, then every difficult step that brought me here will have been worth it. And to the little boy who spent so much of his childhood believing he had to face the world alone… nothing that happened to you could ever take away who you are. You never needed to become someone else to deserve love. One day, you’ll build a life with people who see you exactly as you are and love you because of it. You’ll discover that your greatest strength isn’t what you’ve survived, but the kindness you’ll show others because of it. Keep going. The world is so much better with you in it. Hope starts with people like you. By donating today , you’ll ensure LGBTQ+ people across the UK feel seen, safe and valued every day. Your support will enable us to reach the thousands who rely on life-saving services for connection, wellbeing and hope. Want to share your moment of hope and joy? Send a selfie and a short story about what gives you hope and joy to stories@lgbt.foundation , or share using #LGBTHopeStartsHere and #hopeandjoy and tag @lgbtfdn .