I didn't want to leave but I knew if I didn't, I would probably have died.' Dramatic words, perhaps, but Teresa Carpio knew she was headed for a breakdown unless she turned her life around.
The singer was all sung out. Disillusionment with the music business and personal and career frustrations were threatening to wipe her out. It was 1992 and Teresa Carpio had been singing for 29 years.
'Everything was negative then. When a person is upset and angry, you can never see the good things,' said a wiser and emotionally healthier 42-year-old Carpio this week in Hong Kong.
She found her salvation in Springfield, Missouri - population 150,000 - with a supportive new husband, a loving family, religion and, most of all, finding out how to be a real person.
A 'real person' was not something Carpio had ever had the chance to be in her native Hong Kong. Born to a Filipino father and a Shanghainese mother, it was obvious at an early age that she had inherited her musician father's love and talent for music.
In a frilly dress and her hair in ribbons, six-year-old Carpio thrilled judges at the first Hong Kong talent singing quest with her renditions of Baby Face and Teacher's Pet.
She beat out others such as Danny Diaz and Teddy Robin, who would also go on to be singing stars, for the $1,500 prize money - enough then to feed a family for a year.