A Brief History of Everything

"Write what you know"

Sound advice. Wise words. I have been sat here for almost an hour and a half trying to think about what to write. I shouldn't be short of ideas:

~ I have a 3 and a half year old son who is the most amazing bag full of energy. Who has enough curiosity to bring cats to near extinction. I could hold the internet to ransom.

~ I'm getting married to the woman of my dreams.

~ I have overcome years of alcohol addiction.

~ I have had a very difficult life.

~ I am waiting to be listed for a double lung transplant.

And still I sit here with not a clue about what to write about. Maybe I have too much to write about? Is it possible to pick one item from a buffet? Just one item? ONE...ITEM? ONE?

I'll give you my testimony. Just a brief one. Hopefully you'll come to know a little bit more about who I am. Hopefully you'll connect with something I write.

When people ask me about my family history I often smile and say "It's complicated". It is complicated.

My childhood was very unstable. Very inconsistent. My mother and father (who I would later discover at the age of 21 was not my biological father) split when I was very young. They had had a child before the split. My brother. We moved around a lot. Sometimes to new places, other times between parents. Always new schools, new friends, new neighborhoods. Everything transient. Nothing stayed the same apart from my brother. We were always together until things got very bad at home. He spent less time with us (with me) and more time at his friends. He managed to escape. Fair play to him. My escape route was university. It meant staying at home while I studied and finished school but I did it. I was finally free. When I left for university though I left with bags full of anxiety. No self confidence or self esteem. I hated who I was.

Alcohol solved all of those problems for me so I drank often, and I drank a lot. Needless to say my studies suffered. I finished university with a degree in Biology but it wasn't strong enough. My dreams of entering the world of research and curing cancer evaporated. So I trundled through life unsure about what to do. Unsure about anything. Desperately unhappy. Alcohol was always there and it continued to eat everything. Slowly though. Just enough to not be noticed. Not enough for me to question. I was happy to excuse it. I was blissfully ignorant. And that's how it was day after day until one day something amazing happened. I met Aoife.

I was so in love. Head over heals in love. She was amazing. I could see a future. White picket fence. A couple of bambino's. I re-applied to my old university. This time to train to be a secondary school teacher. Biology and Chemistry. I remember the day I was accepted on the course. I was so proud. A second chance. Time to wipe the slate clean and give it all another go. Better this time.

I loved teaching. It was the most terrifying and enjoyable experience. Did I spend time in the staff toilets some times crying because of the stress? Yes! Was I terrified that a child would ask me a question I wouldn't be able to answer? All the time! Was the workload absolutely ridiculous to the point of working 18 hour days 5 days a week? Yes! So why on earth was it so amazing? Children. Anyone who has worked with kids will tell you the same thing. They are brilliant fun to work with. We'd spend a day a week back at university for lectures and we'd all tell our stories of what we'd been through. "Crying in the toilets" became a rite of passage.

Halfway through the course I had to drop out. I had gotten very sick. I suffer with lupus and pulmonary lung fibrosis and I was putting my body under a lot of pressure. I moved to Ireland shortly afterwards to live with Aoife. Our relationship had been long distance for two and a half years and now we were finally going to live together. Aoife was unaware of my drinking problem. It continued to stay hidden, behind closed doors, simmering away. My health declined, I was in and out of hospital for tests and operations and still there it was. Results came back and we were told that it was likely that I'd need chemotherapy and that I should think about banking sperm. We didn't know what to do but we knew we loved each other so we decided to try for a baby.

Aoife fell pregnant. While it should have been the happiest moment of my life I tried to end it all 3 months into the pregnancy. I tried to kill myself. This time there was no hiding. I had a very serious problem and for the first time Aoife saw it to. She didn't get angry with me. She just told me that she loved me and that we would get through this.

So I got sober. Our son was born. I went to counseling, AA meetings, treatment, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep it together. Getting sober was easy. Staying sober seemed impossible, was impossible had been impossible. Drinking started to creep back in. I tried to hide it as best I could and it worked for a while but I was falling apart again. Everything was unravelling. When Ódhran was one year old I left them both. "I need some time apart. I need to sort myself out before this can work". My childhood was repeating itself only this time it was happening to my son and I was responsible.

The wheels came off this time. My "independence" led to the darkest places I have ever been. I ended up in hospital 3 months later for self harm. I was stitched up and discharged only to end up in hospital again the very next night for the same thing. I had hit rock bottom. I had plumbed the depths and it was only when I was down there, so close to death that I realized just how much I wanted to live. How much I wanted to be there for my son and how much I loved Aoife.

I started to attend a day hospital. Started to cut down on my drinking and found a place called Tiglin. A christian treatment center up in the Wicklow mountains surrounded by acres of forest. I made the call, was assessed and a few months later got a call saying they had a place and they asked would I like to come in. I said yes and it was the best decision I have ever made.

For the first time I had an opportunity to really take a look at myself and take stock of who I was. I spent a year up in those mountains. A large part of me died up there. All the baggage I had carried with me over the years I buried in those woods. All the things that I didn't have were given to me. My life has been transformed. Everything that I lost has been restored in abundance. I have a future, my son has a father, Aoife has a partner. We are engaged to be married. I have so much to be thankful for and I try to thank God everyday for what he has done for me.

Life has never been better :)

And so that has been a brief history of me.

I hope you enjoyed reading. If you've any questions at all please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer them.

Take care folks,

Jason

NOTE - all images are from pixabay :)