Denitz was the topic on everyone’s lips. She was beautiful to the core – at least in everyone else’s eyes. To them she was as spotless as they could possibly come. They waxed lyrical and almost exhausted all the known superlatives there are to describe a lady so haunting in her irresistible beauty. They were smitten!

However, little did they know that  behind that veneer of beauty and grace existed “ugliness” that only she was aware of. Beneath her poetry-in-motion beauty was a simmering insecurity and discomfort that battered her ego into self-resentment and low self-esteem. She felt she wasn’t worth anybody’s love and attention.

See, Denitz’s father was a verbal terrorist in his home. Unaware that every word he spoke to or about the daughter was a seed that would later sprout and manifest in her life, he unrepentantly, unrelentingly went about his abusive routine until she became totally incapacitated, benumbed and disabled by it. He never wavered in reminding her with a ‘discipline’ of a monk: “You are as ugly as your mother!”

The words took deep root within the chambers of her psyche. The lethal words, cast in her person by someone who ought to have affirmed how special she was, shattered whatever little self-esteem she might have had, to completely strip her of her self-worth so much so that she felt devoid of self-confidence; if that word ever existed in her pain-filled life.

But one memorable day, a classmate accosted Denitz and told her how beautiful she looked. Her eyes wandered upon hearing that because she thought he was directing his seemingly well intentioned, deserved compliment to someone else, not her. That remark was not normal. That was not a very unfamiliar interpersonal territory. Telling her how beautiful she was had a sacrilegious ring to it – as far as her view of herself was concerned!

The problem was that her ugliness was only so in her imaginary world but not as seen through the honest third party physical eyes. But because of the inner mis-perception of who she really was. Denitz was such a sulky individual who was also blessed with a very sublime mind.

When her nursery friend told her she was fit to be a model, she embraced the idea and ran with it. Now she discovered she was everyone’s favourite on catwalks. Other models fought hard to fend off jealousy and envy towards her. And who could blame them; they wanted to be like Denitz, to be recognized by virtue of their beauty and to earn the money, fame and fortune all rolled up in one.

Denitz on her part too felt scared of every new model who joined the promotional agency. She could imagine they were out to render her jobless.

Whenever Denitz acted like she wasn’t given to the cares of this world, no one could readily understand the depth of her ordeals; her wounded soul. The intensity of her pain could only be discerned in her withdrawn attitude and wayward actions. She had been abused, molested and rejected to the point she felt too hurting to submit to self-neglect. She had long given up on the reason to live. But just on the verge of irresistible submission to daunting self-rejection, there was a twist of fate. The momentary thrill of travelling to model, the money, the fame and the discovery of her beauty she couldn’t see before then was an experience totally strange. But even then, she wasn’t freed from emotional bondage. 

Denitz took to alcohol binges, sex orgies and drug abuse. Men used and dropped her and used her again, she lost her sense of self worth. Her life took even a more tragic turn for the worst. She felt empty. There was a yearning void within that could not be filled by eating, drinking and making merry. Men who kept swooping and swooning over her, even lesbianism which she felt would provide some much needed reprieve never worked as relief proved more and more elusive.

The career that began on such a highly promising note nosedived as she soon lost everything - at least in the superficial sense. Nothing could keep the life-threatening emotional whirlwind at bay. Denitz became vulnerable and susceptible to self-indulgent abuse.

Suicidal alarm bells began pealing continually. With no mother to turn to, since her mother had died when she was just 4, no father to turn to since he was but a monster she would rather avoid at all cost, she sought refuge in alcohol, abused drugs of every kind, indulged and gave up on her life.

The worst thing about Denitz’s situation was her company. She hanged out with people who would not help; neither counsel her nor renew her mind. She was a sitting duck for vultures called drug peddlers, sexual perverts and all sorts of bad guys who got her stuck deeper in the rut. Her striking beauty that waxed at one stage of her life had waned and so had her worth to fashion designers, men who had just wanted the fill of her glamorous beauty and the drug dealers who had drained her of all her fortune by taking advantage of her addiction.

How was this girl meant to overcome the feeling that was so tragically rooted within her? Denitz felt she had no choice left, no promise for redemption, no shoulder to cry on and no one to love since, to her, everyone was ‘unlovable’. To her there was no success to write home about; there was not even a straw she could clutch on. It seemed like everyone, including God, had abandoned her.

Pressed left, right and centre, pushed against the wall and without anything to hope for or a silver-lining to stir any hope to live beyond what seemed her fate, the ominous life-sapping fate that was now determined to inflict more pain on her lest she took her own life, Denitz resorted to suicide to cut short her miserable existence.

How many Denitzes grapple with unbearable pain of abused childhoods? How many children and adults are so helpless that their only option is to tragically end their lives despite the fact that they may be rich and famous? Many are the Denitzes stranded on the highways of destiny with no one to come to their rescue.

Such problems are squarely attributed to human follies. As wrong and injustices, they are prevalent in human society since time immemorial. Often, the problems can be traced to parental negligence or its absence. These tragic injustices are the reason the ACU came into existence with the first Centre at Mityana district in Uganda. Here ACUs are catered for so their lives can be restored.

The focus is global and the mission is brainchild of David Russell who had a personal experience with the ACU-situations.