At age 4 I drowned in a swimming pool on a family holiday. I was showing off, messing around and I jumped off the in-pool bar and knocked myself unconscious on the bar stools below the water. The only memory I have left of that experience is watching the surface of the water get further and further away as I felt I was being pulled to the bottom of the pool. My brother noticed I wasn’t anywhere to be seen and soon noticed my body at the bottom of the pool, he saved my life. Since that day all I have heard from my parents is “Your brother saved your life”, so I was forever grateful to my brother, he was my hero.

At age 6 on another family holiday, my brother raped me. The experience was confusing, I had no idea what had happened to me. My brother was my hero, but he hurt me. “Why would he hurt me?”. For years I told myself it was a dream, my brother loves me, he could never hurt me. Age 12, my parents broke up, my brother was no “man of the house” as he would say, and that’s when the abuse started. We would argue, as siblings do, but he would always take it too far. He’d throw me into doors, strangle me, tell me he wishes he never saved my life, he wished I was dead. The physical abuse went on for many years, but to make it worse I would always ask why my mother didn’t stop him? She would say “Well you wound him up, it’s your own fault.” She would watch my brother do this to me, but yet I still confided in my mother to make him stop, but she never did. I grew to hold so much hatred towards my life; my dad had left, he didn’t want me anymore, my brother wished me dead, my mother saw me as the runt of the family and I was being bullied in school.

It got to the point where I didn’t want to be anywhere, nothing and no place was safe for me to go to. So at age 15 I took my first overdose. I took over 65 tablets in one go with the intention of falling asleep and not having to wake up to what I considered “hell”. I survived that overdose, but throughout my teenage years I continued to try and end my life with tablets.

Although I felt so strongly about wanting to end my life I always had a small part of me that wanted to live for one purpose, to sing. Since I was very young I wanted to be on stage performing, I wanted to create music for the world to hear, to share my story with people. I remember wondering why my body had not failed from the amount of tablets I had consumed, but now after reading The Secret and Hero it makes sense. I have a purpose! I am meant to be on this earth to fulfil my ‘bliss’, to fulfil my burning desire to perform, and so I turned my life around. I started to think more positively, I started to listen to what my heart was telling me. I was sad and miserable not only because of my past, but because I wasn’t doing what I was meant to be doing!

So here I am now, age 19 and I have just applied to the biggest and most well known music college in England, based in London. I had my audition a week ago, it could have gone better but I was so hungry for it. I just kept telling myself I was going to get in, “I’m going to music college, I will become a professional singer, I will fulfil my bliss”. The college warned me that my theory wasn’t quite up to scratch, it needed a lot of work. Right there I could have allowed my doubts to kick in, but I stayed positive; “I will get into music school, I’m going to study there in September”. The college said they would let me know within the next two weeks whether I was accepted or not.

Two very short days after my audition the college emailed me and confirmed my place. I was ecstatic, I still am!

It seems surreal that after so many years of being depressed, suicidal and miserable I can finally look forward to having a bright future, one that I can be proud of for myself. I will be fulfilling my passion, my very own bliss and nobody can take it from me now. “Why?” Because I’m in control of my future, I control my mental state, nobody else! I don’t think I have ever been truly happy in myself but I can finally say that I am, I am happy!

This journey has only inspired me to do so much more with my life, I want more. I now want more than to just sing, I want to become a public speaker for young people battling mental health issues because of their past. I want to write my own book about my experiences and dedicate it to ‘The Secret’, because I truly believe these books have saved my life and I want others to see in more detail how someone can go through many traumatic experiences and still come out happier and better off the other end. So “Thank you” because without these books I may not even be alive to experience gratitude, love and happiness.

Thank you.