When i was younger my life seemed perfect. I was ignorant and unaware of anything.

When i was 12 i got sexually assaulted. My attitude changed & my mum picked up on it immediately. Within 6 months i got sexually assaulted again. This time it was a lot more severe.

The rape was on going for several months & my step-dad was the perpetrator. This mentally disturbed me to an extent where i ended up in a mental institute for a quarter of a year. It took me a year to come out about that. I felt so ashamed and filthy. I was in denial and attempted self-harm over 5 times.

So let's recapture this: throughout that period of 1 year i had been raped twice, in a mental institute & had a criminal record. After i got out of the institution i went downhill even further. I was on mass amounts of medication, seeing counsellors and psychiatrists galore. I stopped my school education and struggled just to get out of bed for a year.

Eventually my life looked like it was starting to go back to normal. My mum had a new partner & we had moved 5 hours away so i could start afresh. After mum and her partner constantly fighting, me and my sister got the shits and left to go to Queensland. 3 days into the trip i found out my mum had got murdered. She suffered stab wounds & police said if i was there i would have been gone with her.

I was only 14 when i lost my mum and i can tell you now my mum hurt more than anything i had been through. I was a lot more resilient than previously and dealt with it a lot better. Not long after, my sister died of a genetic illness that i luckily don't have. I went to court for my step-dad. He unfortunately got off charges & the man that killed my mum got 13 years.

I'm now 16 & engaged. Haven't felt this good in a long time! I'm just writing this to let everyone out there know through every storm there is a rainbow waiting. Don't give up.