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My mom had struggles. My dad had struggles. He raised me as a single parent. I rebelled and almost quit amateur boxing, but my faith in God had a lot to do with me slowly getting my life together.

When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

My mother was a woman who was very frustrated. She had a great deal of ability, and all this energy went into me and my brother.

I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.

My mother was very ill when I was 18. She had a brain operation and then a nervous breakdown. It's very strange when you see your parents, who have always been your pillars of strength, suddenly become vulnerable. You don't know whether to be angry that they are not strong or devastated.

I was angry about the fact that my father would beat my mother on a daily basis, that my mother would take it in turn and beat on me. I was an abused child. I was mad about all those things, very bitter and very angry.

I have a lot of anger about my childhood - being hard of hearing and my relationship with my father.

There's a part of me that never felt my mother abandoned me. I always felt that she did the right thing.

My therapist says I still haven't got in touch with my anger. Maybe one day I'm going to explode. But I'm still really happy. I know it looks like a strange and painful upbringing - all those experiences led me to the paths that I'm on now.