MAFS NZ'S MADDIE 'I WAS SUCH A LOST YOUNG GIRL'

The reiki expert spent decades healing her childhood trauma

She might be known as the "guinea pig reiki healer" from Married At First Sight New Zealand, but beneath the bubbly persona and loud laugh, Madeleine Gilbert has spent much of her life healing a troubled soul. Sitting down with Woman's Day, she reveals it's her devastating past that inspired her to guide others on their own healing journey.

At just seven years old, in her home suburb of Bayswater in Auckland, Maddie was sexually abused by her teacher for a year, before he moved on to another school.

"At that age, you don't really know what's going on," she shares. "You start to think it's normal. It wasn't until I was 21 that I told my parents. They encouraged me to tell the principal, who was there at the time, but when I was finally ready to go to the police, I found out he'd died of cancer years earlier." Maddie, 38, learnt that after her abuser left, he moved to a girls' school in the Waikato and she shudders to think of all the potential victims.

"After that, I began to see a spiritual therapist," she explains. "It took a really long time, but when you begin to understand the trauma, then you can take steps forward, and learn and heal from it." When she was a teenager, Maddie was sent to a prestigious private school, where her sister became head girl. But Maddie's rebellious behaviour proved too much.