My story

My name is Diana Valentinova Petkova. I was born on 15th of July 1984 in a little town in Bulgaria. In January 2007 I left to the Netherlands for work and decided to build up my life here. For already 15 years I have been a Dutch citizen. Here is where everything changed. I became a believer in Christ and found the truth about the Gospel. 

My whole life has been one bumpy ride. I was born into a family where sexual and physical abuse, combined with fear, was the preliminary to my promiscuous and rebellious lifestyle. At a very young age I was sexually abused and through my entire life I was doing my best to forget about the pain I had gone through. I did this by means of using drugs, drinking alcohol excessively and having a numerous one-night stands. I couldn't hold a relationship or a job. To me it was all about partying and destroying my life and the lives of others. Because of what happened to me as a child, I was filled with hatred, aggression and disdain for every human being alive. Because I myself was abused, I thought that this was how I was supposed to treat others. I didn't know what love means, neither I cared about myself. Just living for the moment. 
This path led me to a very dark place. I ended up working in prostitution and this was the reason I came to the Netherlands. It didn't go as I expected it to. I got involved with a so called ''lover boy'' who exploited my feelings in order to profit financially from me. I got beaten up, humiliated, threatened, emotionally and sexually abused, was treated like I didn't matter. With the help of kind people around me I successfully got out of this situation and kept working like a prostitute but this time for myself. Unfortunately this option didn't work for me at all. I got more and more tired, more aggressive, unhealthy and deeply unhappy. I reached the point when I got so depressed that I wanted and was planning to commit suicide.