My love for cupcakes helped shape who I am today. Cupcakes are still a significant part of my life to this day. I see them everywhere as if they will never go away, delicious cupcakes make me feel okay.

I learnt that cupcakes could cure anything, I learnt that young. I learnt that the first time one touched my tongue. I had awesome parents, we had so much fun. But not all days were good, sometimes we didn’t see the sun. Sometimes my parents stayed in bed and didn’t get up to check, those days I could do anything, but I felt hands around my neck. I know daddy liked to play especially when mum didn’t get out of bed, but afterwards we shared a cupcake, and all was right in the end.

Mental health wasn’t something I knew to exist, my parents always had time for me, they made sure of this. We were always running around, playing games in our house, we could be as loud as a lion or as quiet as a mouse. We were always having fun, smiling and laughing uncontrollably. But the way my mothers’ eyes glazed over left a sudden hole in me. I pushed it to the side because we were still having fun, and I had the best parents in the world who made sure I felt like number one.

My first traumatic experience was one I won’t forget, because these men came to the house and my mother was in bed. My daddy tried to fight them, but they beat him to the ground, I tried to run away but eventually I was found.

And I remember every moment. I remember every sound. I remember the tragic day that my life turned upside down. I cried and I screamed, I broke my nail on the wall. These men are trying to take me, and I don’t know them at all. They threw me in a car as tears started to fill my eyes, they were all wearing the same thing, some ugly blue disguise. I felt pain inside my chest and pain inside my head. Everything went black and I woke up in a hospital bed. The man tried to talk to me and as he began to explain, all those cupcakes I’d been eating, were actually named cocaine.