I was born on 11^th April 1979 at the UCH Hospital in London.

My mother and father separated whilst I was still a baby.  I was brought up in Camden Town until the age of three by my father who juggled life of work and college to look after me whilst living with my Irish grandparents in a 3 bedroom flat in Camden.  I moved back with my mum at the age of 3 where I lived until the age of 13.

Both my father and mother (John & Angela) moved on in their relationships.  John met Zoe and Angela met Ricky and have since married and had children of their own.

I went to Rhyl Street Primary School and Camden School for Girls for the first year.

My upbringing was what any normal child from a separated mother and father would have experienced.  Nothing out of the ordinary in fact probably better than most. 

At the age of 12 I was to experience something that would change my life forever.  Without going into too much detail I had stayed round one of my friend’s houses for a sleepover and during this night was abused by my friend’s father.  Bobby Lee of Chalk Farm.  I feel name and shame is the way forward in these situations! 

Bobby Lee lived in Queens Crescent, Chalk Farm which was just around the corner from where I lived with my mum.  I often bumped into him.  Scared and speechless my mother tried to guard me from him and always made sure that the people around knew who he was.  I remember on one encounter a market stall holder was throwing cabbages at him. 

I was dragged through court after court bringing this man to justice.  But justice was never met.  Bobby then known to be involved with the triads was let off with a fine of £200 and a six month suspended sentence.

Dad had a house in Bath at the time; he had bought it for investment and a pension.  We used to go there at weekends to do it up.  This is when I started to turn nasty.  Mum and I would fight all the time she used to try and restrain me and on occasion slap me round the face to try and control me.  I would be punching her, kicking pulling her hair out.  It happened al the time.  I was uncontrollable.  I ran away several times to my dads and of course being a 13 year old with an attitude the lies all came out.  I used to tell my dad that mum was beating me.  The police came in the end and took me away from her.  One of my dads friends was called and picked me up I was not allowed to see either of my parents until the whole thing was investigated.  I lived with Bridget in Muswell hill for about 2 weeks still pursuing the fact that mum was beating me in the end mum gave up and said that I could go and live with my dad.  That’s when we moved to Bath.

Dad put me in a school up there and at first everything seemed to calm down.  It was a mixed school so of course I was into the boys.  Dad lived with Zoe and had done since I was a child it was when dad was offered a job to work in the Isle of Wight that things started going terribly wrong.  He would work away during the week and come home weekends.  Looking back on things now, Dad and Zoe both did a really great job of bringing me up.  I was always helped with my home work.  Taken out, and allowed to go out and stay with friends.  I always had the latest things even though they were second hand.

I liked to bike ride I did a lot of that on my own along the River Avon I met a few people that way too.  I had piano lessons, trampoline classes and swimming once a week so to be honest my time with them was really very good.  It was when dad went away to work that I started to rebel.  I remember one night sitting in the living room doing my home work with Zoe and dad walking in to me throwing the books right in her face, they hit her and hit must have hurt.  It was only because I couldn’t understand a mathematical question and she was trying to explain and I just would not listen.  I think it had something to do with the fact that she knew more than me.  She had control.

So that was how it started again with the tantrums and physical behaviour.  I ended up taking a huge overdose and was in hospital for a few weeks.  They got me to see a councillor and even with her I couldn’t control myself.  It did help slightly but I soon stopped going.  I turned 15 and was too busy going out getting drunk in the back fields with my friends and messing around with my then boyfriend Pete.

Zoe became pregnant.  That was it.  My life at the time felt like it was over.  My dad was not around all the time and all of a sudden there was a baby on the scene and the attention left me and went straight to her.  I didn’t handle it very well at all.  In the end Zoe sat me and my dad down in the living room and said that it was either her or me.  Dad had to make the choice, and I couldn’t let him.  I left.

I was still in school at the time just about to do my GCSE’s I went and saw my social worker and he put me in a bed-sit at the other end of town.  I got government grants to help me out and when I left school I got a job with one day a week to college.  That’s where I managed to get my NVQ Level 2 in Business Studies.

By this time I had moved from the bed-sit into a B&B.  The B&B was ok because the people who run it were parents of some guy I knew from school.  Mum would come and stay every so often and dad would always visit.  I was in the B&B for about 3 months then I was offered a flat.  It was a really nice flat not decorated too well; well it probably was for its time.  I went from job to job not finding anything that I could really get my teeth into.  I ended up jobless and signing on at the age of 16 so all this was in a space of a year.

I was going out all the time, I had no money and was doing a bar job cash in hand in the evenings.

I used to go to this Jungle club in Roxbury’s the night club in the centre of town on a Wednesday night every week for about a year.

At the age of 17 I left Bath and moved back to London.  I moved within a couple of days.  One minute I was there the next I was gone.  I had again gone through another ordeal.  I was raped.  Not by one but by two people.

I packed up a huge bag and left the next day for London.  I went straight to my mums in Hampstead where she was staying at the time.  I was in a state mum couldn’t understand it.  I told her that I was moving back and that I never wanted to go back to the flat ever again.  The next day I went into Oxford Street and walked around all the shops looking for a job.  I got offered one straight away working in Oasis in Regent Street the job was set to start on the Monday.  It was Saturday and the following day mum. Ricky (my step dad) came with me to Bath to collect the rest of my things.  I had to leave everything else there like the washing machine bed etc.  I handed the keys in and that was the last I saw of that flat.

6 Months later I was slowing getting back into the swing of things the job was going well I’d made new friends and life seemed to be improving.  But it wasn’t.

I had learned this new skill.  It was to bottle everything up to the point of breaking.  Before I used to let it out in aggression, this time I was taking overdoses and black outs without even knowing.  Before I knew it I was back in hospital.  Mum had admitted me after she found me passing out after having taken a whole packet of paracetamol.  I was admitted to Nicole Ward at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.  I’m not sure how long I was there because that whole faze of my life was a black out.  All I remember is being in a bed next to really nutty people who would swing from side to side screaming out stuff in the middle of the night.  The doctors put me on Prozac that anti depressant drug along with some really strong injections which were to stop me from harming myself.  Soon as the Prozac started working I was out.  I had, had a nervous breakdown and I was only 17.

I know it all sound so very surreal as if it can’t be true but it is.  Not only did these things happen but one which I didn’t mention is the one where a friend and I from Bath came to see my mum for the weekend in London.  We were on a bus and out of nowhere this drunk lunged himself on me.  He was on top of me spread across a double seat in the front row of the bus holding me down trying to hit me.  He must have been in his 40’s my friend Sarah was screaming “somebody help somebody help”  most of the people on the bus were just watching not doing a thing but one guy came to the rescue and through him off.  The bus driver stopped asked if I was ok and we ran off the bus and got the next bus home.  The police were called and they guy was caught in a pizza restaurant causing a disturbance.  This went to court as well.  I remember the judge passing me a letter that the drunk had written to me in court; it said something about how he was not in a good state of mind at the time and for some reason he thought I was out to get him.

So that is how life began for me.  I went through hell.  I believe that is why I am the person I am today and although I have faced my biggest challenge yet I will get through it.

Since moving back to London I have settled.  I am now my own person. I have got over the lies and torment that I put both my friends and family through and I have made a success out of my life.

I worked in Property Management for 7-8 years moving up the ladder each time I changed jobs.  I was very successful in what I did.  I ran teams of 25 and instigated projects that would make companies millions.

I left my job in June 2005.  Having just got myself out of financial debt I decided it was time for me to travel and experience things I could only dream of.  I left and moved to Thailand.

I was to only live in Thailand for 9 months but the time that was had there was probably one of my best ever yet.

I moved back home in November 2006.  It wasn’t safe for a girl on her own out there.  Having taken all my belongings I came back with none.

The rest of my story I believe you already know.  Through newspaper articles and/or magazines.

I am just like everybody else out there.  I’m not perfect but I don’t claim to be either.  I do believe that I am a much better person today then I ever have been.  What doesn’t break you can only make you stronger.

I now intend to live my life as fully as possible and I am a strong believer that my life’s path had been set out for me.  This was my purpose.  To be diagnosed with a Brain Tumour and to do what I am doing now in raising both awareness and money for a well needed cause.

I don’t believe in god.  I’m not sure what I do believe in anymore but I like to think that there are angles.  I am quite spiritually minded.  I believe there are ghosts and I also believe that someone is watching over me now. 

Nothing in my life has ever run smoothly.  Although I had a few gruelling months last year things have slowly progressed and here I am today.

I am a strong believer that things happen for a reason and only good can come out of evil.