Have you ever lifted a spoon to your mouth and experienced an explosive sensation as the food tantalises your tastes buds?

Have you ever listened to a piece of music or a song being sung and felt goose bumps all over your body as the notes float through your aural field?

Have you ever danced with another, so in tune, gliding together in such unison that there is nothing else but the whirling and rising and falling of your bodies held in the arms each other?

From ages four to sixteen the constants in my life were rejection, neglect, poverty, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, inconsistency and insecurity. My mother taught me with deliberate precision, how to truly hate myself.

With occasional exception, the only person I could trust was me. I was a lonely child. If I may be so bold, I was also a beautiful child, blessed with a magnificent soul that was bursting with love, warmth and an amazingly kind nature that has never left me. No thanks to the adults around me. I just gratefully call it a blessing.

The first two years of my life were spent living in a nunnery in Harare, Zimbabwe after which time, a foster home was arranged for me. I lived there like a princess until I was four. I was cared for, nurtured, loved beyond words and slightly spoilt.