When I was younger I always dreamed of an amazing life. One where I would graduate from school with an honors just like my father, one where I would meet Prince Charming and become a beautiful bride, an amazing wife and mother and everything would be perfect.

Just like the Disney stories and fairytales that we have all been read over and over again.

Life however had other plans. The strong figure, perhaps the only one that I looked up to, my father was ripped away from me by the cold hands of death aided by Leukemia at a young age of 9. In a developing country of Africa, there was little to be done, and I ended up loosing perhaps my only one true love.

I would spend the next couple years, navigating life with a suicidal and a temperamental mother, an absent sister and fear being my only moral compass.

Fear of the unknown or perhaps fear of the all too known sting of my mother’s hand or her sharp words of condemnation. I would learn years later that the loss of my father did more damage to her mind than I could imagined.

As I grew older, I saw every shred of my dreams torn to pieces. First my hope of becoming a an illustrator/writer and I ended settling for other people dreams, then my virginity seduced and taken by a man who was supposed to have protected me and been like a father to me. Pretty much everything went downhill from there. My Christian faith all but diminished with me stepping into Church perhaps only once a year.

Something was missing, something was broken that needed fixing. I tried to find this piece of me in anything that I could, alcohol, drugs, sex, men, money, and still I always came up short. The thrill was never long enough to last a lifetime, neither was the contentment.

On the outside people see an almost well put together individual. A professional, an awesome well rounded woman. But on the inside in my dark corner, I’m dangerously addicted to all sorts pornography, battling with my weight and weight related issues, never been able to have any stable relationship with a man, multiple partners but most importantly the fear that I may have contracted HIV and I don’t even have the guts to get tested cause I’m afraid it will destroy the very little shred of sanity I have left. I have been suicidal, I have been angry and rebellious but now I am lonely and scared and the sad part is I have no one to turn to, not my family, not my friends, not my colleagues cause I’m afraid of not only judgement but disappoint that will follow.

Daddy’s once brilliant star who was going to take on the world is now nothing but an empty hollow guilt ridden 30 year old who doesn’t even know where to start from.

Today I believe I have hit rock bottom zero…

But once I still have breath I can try to find my way again..

Ps **pardon the typos**