The beginning of my story, before SafeTalk, before I even knew what mental health was.
When I was seven, I was put on a plane to Austria. I didn’t really know why. I thought I was going on a holiday to visit my grandparents and cousins, to eat schnitzel and Apfelstrudel. No one said, “You’re leaving because your parents are going through a messy divorce.” It just… happened.
Being away from both my parents for that long, two whole years, wasn’t easy. It felt like a lifetime. But back then, no one really asked how you felt. That just wasn’t something people did.
A bit of context, my parents had moved from Europe to South Africa in 1972, right into the heart of apartheid. So yes, things got complicated.
When I finally came back from Austria, the home I returned to was nothing like the one I’d left in Johannesburg.
My father had remarried, and we were now living in Lesotho. His new wife was a woman of colour. A new country, a new town, a new school, and I could hardly speak English anymore, a whole new reality.
We didn’t exactly hit it off. But her sons, my stepbrothers, became my brothers. No drama. No discussion. Just family. Although, my youngest brother kept rubbing my skin to see if the “white” would come off.
Meanwhile, my mother had also remarried, a man of colour.
So there I was, two white European parents, each now with partners from a different background, building a family that didn’t fit into society’s neat little boxes.
We were fully blended, multicultural, multiracial. We were later nicknamed “The United Nations.” At a time and in a place where that wasn’t just frowned upon, it was literally against the law.
We couldn’t live together in South Africa. Apartheid didn’t allow for families like ours. So we lived in Lesotho, and I crossed the border daily to attend school in Ficksburg, a whites-only school in South Africa.
Imagine growing up with a family you had to hide. At school, racism was open, casual, and normalised. At home, it was love across colour lines. I carried that contrast in my body every single day.
Later in life, one of my brothers would take his own life. And one of my sisters passed away just before her fifth birthday.
It sounds heavy, and it was, but we didn’t really talk about those things. Grief wasn’t unpacked. It was buried.
Over the years, I would attend 12 different schools. Just when I’d begin to settle, it was time to move again. That kind of constant shifting doesn’t just mess with your schoolwork, it messes with your sense of self, your sense of home, your sense of belonging.
The strange part? Despite all the people and places, no one really saw me grow up. My Austrian friends didn’t know why I was there. My Lesotho and South African friends didn’t know what had come before or what came after. I moved around so much, I became a story only I fully understood.
But all that movement taught me something:
That’s part of what led me to start SafeTalk. Because I’ve lived between the lines, between countries, cultures, and identities, and I know how lonely that space can be.
I also know how powerful it is when someone simply gets it.
I’m not sharing this for sympathy. I’m sharing it for the person out there who’s been holding their story alone, wondering if it matters.
It does. And so do you.
If this hit home, stick around. I’ve got more stories coming from Austria, Lesotho, and the spaces in between.