The death of my father when I was growing up meant that I became a nomad, being passed from one person to another because my mother didn’t have the means to look after me.

My pathway to self-destruction had already been created when I was abused by a family member at 14-years-old. I kept the dirty little secret to myself and refused to tell anyone. A few years later when I finally mustered up the courage to do so, it was brushed aside.

As a boy, my father would beat me for no reason. You have no idea how much pain this caused me. I began to hate him and I remember telling him that one day I would kill him. I meant it. One day, when I was much older, he tried to beat me and I…

Imagine being labelled as the black sheep of your family. Despised simply because of your gender. Plagued with insecurities and questioning your existence because of the constant reminder of what you turned out not to be. Meet Shannon Alagh, a young woman whose plight forced her to leave her home at a tender age and…

It can wreck the family home, consume one’s finances, destroy the body both inside and out and cause the mind to become a desert and wasted organ. Ricardo Perestrelo shares his story with Universal, telling a gripping tale of how he met, got sucked into the trap of and overcame the modern-day assassin: Drugs.

They would bombard my mind constantly. I didn’t want to hear them, but they didn’t go away. Day in, day out they would loom over me and there seemed to be no way to escape them. When they started to become more frequent, I desperately needed to shut them up. I was later diagnosed with…