30 People Who Turned Their Life Upside Down Share What It Was Really Like

When my husband and I separated 2 years ago.

I lost my marriage, friends, community, hobbies, job, home, pets all within 6 months.

So i decided to say f*ck it and I lived in Vietnam for 3 months. When i returned home i moved to the other side of the city.

Ive have an awesome apartment, have a great job, new partner and a new community of friends.

Something about moving away was a great reset.

I lived in AZ through high school, college and after so I had grown roots there. Nice condo, decent paying job which I enjoyed, had solid friends, family lived up the street, and I was part of a co-ed soccer league. My days consisted of getting my morning cup of coffee, workout, go to work, come home then play soccer, draw on my iPad or play video games with my roommates.

One day, as me and my roommate were working out I had a sudden urge to join the military(never wanted to before this moment). Next day I went straight to the recruiters office, said I want to join the Navy and 2 weeks later I was sworn in and was leaving for bootcamp the week thereafter. I sold my condo to my roommate, broke the lease of my car, tied all loose ends, kissed my family goodbye and said "see ya later" to my friends. I am now in the Navy and got my orders for San Diego for my schooling then Japan shortly after that. I am f*cking happy and there's a new challenge every day.

Funny part, the only ones who's reached out to me is my family. Friends didn't say congrats or nothing, good riddance. I'm gonna live my life and have fun doing what I wanna do on MY terms.

I suppose I did too. My best friend and I boarded a plane to Australia from the UK the day of our final exams at university. I live in aus still 7 years later, with the love of my life, 2 dogs and a thriving career.

In the year 2000, I was starting to become severely depressed, and heading toward attempting to take my own life. I was living in sh*tty surroundings in a town outside of Philadelphia. I kept needing an answer out of things, instead of the permanent way. The worse things got there, the more I wanted to flee. I had no ties there, anyway.

I moved to San Francisco. I drove there, alone, cross country. My mother and grandparents, were totally understanding. We were all a family of nomads anyway, living different places my entire life. So, it was not super scary for me to start over again somewhere else.

I went from the abrasive, dour, unfriendly, east coast to a city where people told me I was beautiful on a near daily basis. This is coming from an overweight chick, who was always made fun of for it. It took me about 6 months to believe it. San Francisco was amazing for the self esteem and confidence that I didn't have much of.

People started conversation with me, and treated me well, and you could truly be who you were without judgement. I had been thinking about moving back lately. However, I understand it's a completely different city now, unfortunately.

I stayed for about a year and then moved to New Mexico, and have been here since... Save for a 5 year stint from 11/ 2007-12/2012 in North Carolina, where I had planned on going to college, which didn't work out. That was a terrible decision all around.

I love it here, in my quiet small town. But I wouldn't trade that year in SF for anything, because I learned so about myself, and again, it was a wonderful place for my self esteem.

As someone who was shooting up 200 to 500 dollars a day before I quit around ten years ago you really have to do 2 things if you really are at the stage that you want to quit. The first is very hard but unlike the first person staying around the same people you're around usually just does not work. So much of your kinship with those people revolving around drugs will make you want to drugs even if you stop for awhile. You have to just go no contact with them. Its the only way I found any success.

The second one which is also just as hard for some people is you have to get help. Real help like replacement treatment, suboxone or methadone and therapy. You have to realize going in that the replacements are just as bad but they do one thing thats essential. They let you normalize your life and take away the seeking drugs all the time mentality. Without that its very hard for therapy to work through all this stuff simply cause your mind isn't in a state that it can be worked on. Its constantly starving for something it sees as food now and will not stop wanting more to approach where the addiction is coming from.

4 years ago I got up and randomly decided to go to college.

This is from a 19 year old burger flipper from rural Utah with a middle school education. In fact I would have dropped out of middle school if I could have.

Moved from utah to texas, took enterence exams, got scholarships and all the sudden I've been in college for 3.5 years with a 4.0 gpa and very good prospects of getting in to medical school. (Attending college in utah because in-state tuition is cheaper)

Your future doctor didn't graduate highschool.

Scandinavia to Australia about three years ago. I never realised how much sunshine and beaches improve your life! Nature is beautiful back home and beautiful here, and so are people. Moved for love and haven't regretted it for a second.

Left my small town for the big city when I was about 23. I lived in a van with my wife and three dogs for about three weeks. It sucked but it was also great. We had a great little set up right by the Mississippi River. We both got jobs and found an apartment eventually but those first couple weeks of real freedom changed my life.

If you are in a rut and have the chance to start fresh somewhere with a better job and lifestyle then just do it. Modern transport and telecommunications mean that keeping in touch with friends and family is easier than ever.

I took a chance and moved from a cr*ppy place in the UK to central Europe 12 years ago and it completely transformed my life in almost every meaningful way. I went from really strongly disliking the place I live in and the kind of people I had contact with, to now living in what is for me a paradise, working in stimulating and increasingly well paid jobs and surrounded mostly by positive and intellectual people. Also my quality of life is just awesome and my health and fitness is now really good. I still haven't met my soul mate or life partner, but I've no idea if that person even exists and at least I have had some good along the way with some great and memorable people.

Lord knows what I would have been doing with my life if I hadn't of taken that chance. Probably in some uninspiring job in an uninspiring place dreaming about how my life could have been different if only I'd had more balls.

Life is short, so take what opportunities you can to make it better,

Quit my job and gave up my penthouse apartment in Vancouver ( oh, man, the view of Stanley Park and the mountains was amazing ) and moved to Japan for one year, maybe two. Twenty-four years later, I’m still here, happily married, and living in an even bigger penthouse apartment (oh, man, the view of the hospital and the railroad tracks is sh*t). Life? Am I right?