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I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing that made me more accepting of who I am.

A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling that I didn't fully belong, that my parents didn't belong.

My parents were always very supportive and accepting. They even shared my curiosity for life, or perhaps I theirs.

Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn't the best looking guy, I wasn't the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself.

My father instilled in me an attitude that you couldn't really enjoy yourself unless you had done something to deserve it. So, my childhood was spent working on farms or local shops or, when I got older, in banks.

My childhood was bittersweet in many ways. We moved around a lot. By the time I was 10, I had travelled thousands of miles, often on my own. My parents were like my friends, so it felt like I didn't really have parents at all. But in a crazy way that was very liberating. It forced me to be independent, maybe a leader, and certainly a survivor.

I do think I learned to accept myself through the eyes of others when I was young because I wasn't brought up to think that I was beautiful or told I was beautiful.

I was so determined not to pass on to my children what I perceived to be the faults of my upbringing.

I will always be the way I was a couple years ago before anything happened. And that's to my parents' credit, my amazing parents who have been around me my whole life and raised me right. I'm very happy with what has happened so far.