I didn’t create him.
The man you saw in the headlines.
The so-called scammer.
The dangerous one.
The joke.
The villain.
The meme.
I didn’t make him.
But I had to live inside him.
That’s the strange thing about public collapse.
It builds a version of you so loud, so exaggerated, so simplified—
that even when you speak,
people only hear the character they already decided you are.
I Was Watching Myself Become Someone Else
I read things about myself that didn’t feel real.
Then I saw them echoed by people who had never met me.
And eventually, I started to wonder if maybe I was that person.
Not because it fit—
but because it wouldn’t go away.
I wasn’t allowed to be confused.
Or human.
Or grieving.
Or hurting.
Everything I did became evidence.
If I stayed silent, I was manipulative.
If I spoke, I was lying.
If I disappeared, I was guilty.
If I showed up, I was arrogant.
I couldn’t win because I wasn’t playing a game.
I was surviving a distortion.
Identity Theft, But You Still Live in the Body
Imagine waking up and seeing your name on every feed
next to words that make your stomach twist.
Then imagine knowing that no one will read your correction
because they’ve already shared the punchline.
That was me.
Trying to reclaim a story
after it had been stolen and weaponised.
It wasn’t just public shame.
It was character possession.
The man they made of me
spoke in headlines I didn’t write
and wore a guilt I hadn’t yet had the language to process.
Even when I tried to show remorse or growth,
they thought it was performance.
So I stopped trying to convince.
And started trying to understand.
Who Am I Without the Commentary?
The collapse stripped everything—
business, reputation, relationships, self-image.
And what was left?
Just me.
Not the man they invented.
Not the man I pretended to be.
Just a man who was finally asking the questions
he had spent years running from.
-
Why did I need so much attention in the first place?
-
Why did I overpromise?
-
Why did I rush instead of pause?
-
Why did I keep performing even when it hurt people?
I couldn’t answer those questions while I was still trying to prove I wasn’t the man they made of me.
I had to let him die
so I could live honestly
for the first time in years.
I Didn’t Create the Myth, But I Let It Grow
I wanted to be seen.
To be believed in.
To matter.
And when that started to happen,
I fed the machine too.
Not with lies, but with ambition that outpaced integrity.
So no, I didn’t create the myth.
But I didn’t stop it either.
That’s where I take responsibility.
Not for being the caricature,
but for allowing silence and speed to let it grow.
Now, I take control of the narrative—
not to erase the past,
but to reclaim my name from the avatar they built.
Final Thought
You don’t get to control how the world sees you once it turns.
But you do get to decide how you live when no one’s watching.
I’m not trying to kill the man they made of me with arguments.
I’m doing it by living in a way that makes him irrelevant.
The headlines made a mask.
I’m learning to breathe underneath it.
If you’re reading this,
and you’ve ever been misunderstood, misnamed, or flattened into a version of yourself that doesn’t tell the whole truth—
You’re not alone.
We are not the myths they built.
We are the ones who survived them.
