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Being a Father With Mental Health Problems Is Terrifying
I wrestle with two opposing desires: to hold my family close, and to protect them by pushing them away
Sometimes my writing predicts the future. Not grand sweeping societal changes or new technologies or the winner of the 3:15 at Newmarket. Little things in my own life.
For example, in 2011 I put out my first poetry collection, Pub Stuntman. The title poem is about a crass, idiotic drunk who downs alcohol for attention. I genuinely believed I had written it about some of the characters I knew back home.
In 2012, four weeks after I got married, I quit drinking. I told people I was taking a break, but in my heart I was pretty sure I’d never drink again. Since then I haven’t had a drink, and I haven’t really felt the inclination. It’s like something had been building in me for years, beneath conscious awareness, and suddenly it broke the surface.
I had been a binge drinker since my late teens. As a teenager I felt weird, isolated, ugly, nervous, and unlovable. Not unusual feelings for an adolescent, but very real and very painful nonetheless. I was badly bullied in a way that made me terrified to leave the house, and I blamed myself for being stupid, clumsy, and hateable. I felt that if only I had been more…
