Life Before Ditox

Before Ditox, my life looked like most people's — busy, connected, and built around technology the way all of ours are. Phones, apps, platforms woven into everything from work to relationships. I worked in digital marketing, so technology wasn't something I questioned. It was just the water I swam in, the way it is for most of us.

When the Water Turned

That changed when I started noticing more and more families, children, workers and every day people become addicted to technology. Social media and phone addicting quickly became a problem. That’s when I founded Ditox, back in 2017.

But it wasn’t until 8 years later, when I realized I experienced technology-facilitated abuse firsthand many years back. I had hidden those horrible experiences for over 8 years, so it didn't arrive all at once — it crept in. The constant monitoring. Unwanted contact through devices and platforms that were supposed to feel safe. Slowly, the tools that had always felt neutral started to feel like something else entirely. That was the moment my old world lit up, whether I was ready or not.

Choosing to Face It

I didn't choose this chapter of Ditox — to focus on digital health and safety (not only wellness) — but I did choose what to do with it. Staying silent would have been the easier path. Instead, I made the decision to face it head-on: to understand what had happened to me, name it clearly, and step into unfamiliar territory to figure out what came next.

The Gap I Fell Into

What I found on the other side of that threshold was a gap I wasn't expecting — almost no clear support systems, no shared language, no simple playbook for what I was going through. I had to learn, often the hard way, how current digital systems can be misused or misinterpreted and how little infrastructure exists to help people respond and recover.

Every step forward for me meant confronting confusion, isolation and the slow work of rebuilding trust — in technology, in people and in myself.

From Wound to Purpose

Somewhere in that process, my perspective shifted. What had felt like something happeningto me started to feel like something I could do something with. That this was for me.

I also realized I wasn't alone — that the gap I'd fallen into was 1.8 billion others fall into too. That realization became the turning point: my experience could either stay a private wound, or become the foundation for something bigger and inspire others.

Building Ditox

Ditox is what I brought back from that journey. It's built on the belief that lived experience, paired with real advocacy and education, can shift culture in a way that silence never could. I didn't come back from that chapter unchanged — I came back with a purpose: to close the gap I once fell into, for everyone who comes after me.

This isn't a niche issue. It touches:

• Women and young girls, 1.8 billion reported face some of the highest rates of online harassment and abuse.

• Businesses and professionals, 358.7 million businesses need safer digital practices built into how they operate.

• All Governments and institutions need lived-experience insight to shape policy that actually works.

• Whole communities, who need to shift the culture around digital safety from silence to support.

The numbers confirm what I felt personally. Global studies estimate that between 16% and 58% of women have experienced technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and 58% of girls and young women report some form of online harassment. Eighty-five percent of women online have witnessed digital violence against others. Women in public life are targeted even more — one in four women journalists globally, and one in three women parliamentarians in Asia-Pacific, report receiving online threats of physical violence.

And as AI reshapes what's possible online, it's creating new forms of abuse just as fast as we learn to respond to the old ones.

Why I Lead This Work

I don't lead Ditox despite what I went through — I lead it because of of the work that needs to be done. I’m just part of the vessel.

That experience gave me something no textbook could: a real lived experience understanding, of what it feels like to be targeted and unheard, and the resolve to turn that into something useful for someone else.

Ditox is my way of sharing what I brought back from that journey — with individuals, families, businesses, professionals, governments and communities, who all have a part to play in building a healthier, safer digital world.

This is where my story started. I hope it's part of where yours turns, too.

— Thao Tran