It was almost 4 years ago on TikTok. I had opened a page called Adriana’s Wings and started posting. Completely unaware of copyright issues, I was sharing every underwear video I could get my hands on. Genuine runway videos featuring real women. I think before two months had even passed, my videos had gone viral. I had videos with hundreds of thousands of views and had reached 15,700 followers — and that was within just a few days. I had posted my video that night as usual and gone to sleep. When I woke up in the morning and opened the internet, there were thousands of notifications waiting for me. I remember the happiness I felt and the shock I was in at that moment. I also remember the grand dreams I was building. But then I don’t know what happened — I suddenly deleted my account. I still deeply regret that foolish decision. Why did I do it? Maybe I threw away a huge potential. I don’t know, but I regret it.

Copyright issues and similar matters are of course serious problems, and on top of that, AI didn’t exist back then, so even if I had decided to modify the content, I wouldn’t have had many options anyway. I could have just kept posting and tried to make money by starting a YouTube channel, but that would have led to the same dead end — copyright. I don’t know why that kind of period existed in my life, but unfortunately it did. I certainly gained valuable experience from it. Since every year I’ve lived has been worse than the one before, surviving required gaining greater experience, and maybe I simply needed to live through it. I’m someone who tends to over-assign meaning to everything — you’ve probably figured that out by now. I behave as though everything I go through must have some deeper significance, but maybe it doesn’t.

Whatever happened, happened, and now I’m here. I’m here with everything I’ve learned. Alone. Without help from anyone — and in fact, in spite of the psychological attacks and schemes directed at me, I’m still here. Against all odds, I survived. I am living. When you interpret the stories you read and the drama series you watch, you should place yourself inside the events and empathize. All of your judgments should be made accordingly. Something that sounds simple when told can transform into a suffocating feeling that turns a person cold toward life and destroys their will to live when it is actually experienced. You cannot read helplessness on a page, but you can feel it. Feel it.

Now I need to focus on the future. I’ve long since moved past everything that happened. I may be involuntarily drifting into thoughts of the past and feeling melancholy today because I feel helpless right now — but that’s what happens to a person when they feel cornered. Until things get better, I need to get used to this unsteady state of mind. It’s perfectly natural, because I’m human. Honestly, every success story I’ve ever read has lied to people by telling the exact opposite of this — but I am determined to show people a real success story. It has to be real, completely real. Emotions, dreams, family dynamics, the conditions of the country, the economy, personal shortcomings, the lack of self-education… If I were to write out all of these struggles, it might take pages. But this is what real life truly looks like, and you need to get used to it.