I go by Zero. That's not my real name — but it's the most honest thing about me.

For a long time I played the game. Ticked the boxes. Did the degree, chased the job title, wore the right clothes to the right meetings. From the outside it looked like I was winning. On the inside, I was completely numb.

The breaking point came quietly — not dramatically. It was a Tuesday. I was sitting in a meeting that had already been rescheduled three times, watching people argue about a slide deck, and I thought: I have spent years becoming someone I don't recognise, in rooms I never wanted to be in. That was the moment Zero Filter Diary was born — not as a blog, but as a necessity.

I am not a therapist. I am not a life coach. I have no credentials to sell you and no programme to enrol you in. What I do have is years of lived experience navigating burnout, identity collapse, bad decisions, and slow rebuilding — and the stubborn habit of writing every single part of it down.

I stay anonymous because this diary is about the experiences, not the person. The moment a name or a face gets attached, the story becomes about identity. I'd rather it be about recognition — that feeling when you read something and think, yes, that's exactly it, I thought I was the only one.

Everything on this site is real. The conversations, the failures, the small wins that felt enormous, the relapses. I write with zero filter — which means some of it is uncomfortable, some of it is unresolved, and none of it is curated for likability.

If you've found this site, you're probably not here by accident. Maybe you're exhausted. Maybe you're questioning something you've always just accepted. Maybe you just need proof that someone else is also figuring it out in real time.

You're in the right place.