What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
If I could tell my 20-year-old self one thing, it would be this: keep going. Life feels confusing, overwhelming, and at times completely impossible right now, but things do get better.
The struggles you’re facing aren’t because you’re broken, weak, or failing. The truth is, it’s not schizophrenia or bipolar disorder at all — it’s autism, and understanding that will eventually make so much of your life make sense.
So stick at it. One day you’ll look back and realise you survived far more than you ever thought you could.
Sure, I love comic books. I love photography. And I’m definitely passionate about Mrs Bob—but that’s a story for another day.
The thing that truly sets my soul on fire is poetry and mental health awareness.
At first glance, they might seem like two completely different worlds. One is art. The other is survival.
But for me, they’re inseparable.
Because poetry helped save my life.
More than twenty years ago, I wasn’t the happy, well-adjusted bloke many people know today. In truth, I was a mess. My mental health was spiralling dangerously out of control. I was drinking heavily, drowning emotions I didn’t understand, and convincing myself that I had to carry every burden alone.
Like many men of my generation, I believed I had to “man up.”
Keep quiet.
Stay strong.
Don’t talk about it.
But silence can be a dangerous thing.
There were times when the darkness became so overwhelming that I tried to end my life. More than once.
Eventually, after waking up in the resuscitation room of my local hospital following one particularly close call, something shifted inside me. Looking back now, I realise it was a crossroads.
I could continue pretending everything was fine until it killed me.
Or I could ask for help.
I chose help.
Not because I was brave.
Not because I suddenly had all the answers.
But because I looked at my two young children and realised I couldn’t leave them growing up without a father.
For the first time in my life, I stopped trying to fight alone.
One of the professionals helping me suggested I start writing down my thoughts and emotions. The idea was simple: get the chaos out of my head and onto paper so I could begin to understand it.
At first, I filled notebook after notebook with late-night scribbles. Thoughts. Fears. Anger. Pain. Hope. Anything that was bouncing around inside my head.
Then something unexpected happened.
As I read back through those pages, I started arranging some of the words into verses. The emotions were still raw and chaotic, but now they had rhythm and shape.
It wasn’t poetry as I know it today.
It was closer to rap lyrics.
But it was the beginning.
The real turning point came when I wrote a piece for a family member’s naming ceremony. Afterwards, people kept asking me where I’d found the poem.
When I told them I’d written it myself, they seemed genuinely surprised.
And so was I.
For the first time, I allowed myself to think:
Maybe I’m a poet.
Over the following two decades, I spent countless hours learning, practising, refining and developing my craft. Every poem taught me something new—not just about writing, but about myself.
In the early days, poetry was my pressure valve.
A way of releasing everything that threatened to consume me.
My work was dark.
Unflinching.
Sometimes uncomfortable.
I wrote about depression, self-harm, suicide and the realities of living with poor mental health. Topics many people preferred not to talk about.
But those conversations mattered.
They still do.
Today, my writing covers a wider range of subjects. There’s more light alongside the darkness. More hope alongside the pain.
Yet mental health remains close to my heart.
Particularly men’s mental health.
I’ve been inspired by some incredible slam poets and advocates who have used their voices to challenge the outdated belief that men should suffer in silence. The idea that being strong means never showing vulnerability. The lie that asking for help is weakness.
Because it isn’t.
Real strength is speaking up.
Real strength is reaching out.
Real strength is staying.
The truth is that there are countless blokes out there who are fighting battles nobody else can see. Men who smile on the outside while struggling desperately on the inside. Men who believe they’re alone.
They’re not.
And that’s why I keep writing.
Because somewhere, someone might be reading these words and recognising a piece of themselves.
Someone who feels exhausted.
Someone who feels trapped.
Someone who is standing closer to the edge than anyone realises.
If my poetry, my story, or my words can make just one person pause for a moment and choose to talk to someone—anyone—instead of suffering alone, then every difficult chapter of my journey has been worthwhile.
Because poetry didn’t just give me a voice.
It gave me a future.
And if sharing that future helps someone else find theirs, then I’ll keep writing for as long as I have words left to write.
I don’t really have anyone I’d like to talk to, unless this hypothetical offer went beyond the veil, then I’d talk to Mrs Bob’s father, as I never met the man responsible for the woman I adore.
Otherwise.
Honestly?
Anyone who needs to be heard.
Not the polished version of them either. Not the “I’m fine” version. Not the social media highlight reel.
I mean the exhausted version.
The bloke sat in his car for ten extra minutes because he can’t face walking into the house carrying another day on his back.
The father who hasn’t slept properly in months.
The husband who feels emotionally disconnected but doesn’t know how to explain it without sounding weak.
The businessman who calls burnout “being busy” because that sounds more acceptable.
The friend who makes everybody laugh while quietly falling apart in private.
Those people.
Because the truth is, there are a lot of men walking around carrying invisible weight while pretending it’s manageable.
And society is still incredibly good at rewarding the performance.
The bills get paid. The shifts get worked. The family gets looked after. The jokes still land at the pub. The smile still appears on cue.
Meanwhile inside?
Some men are absolutely drowning.
The dangerous part is that many don’t even recognise it anymore because struggle has become normal. Exhaustion becomes personality. Emotional shutdown becomes “just how men are.” Isolation gets dressed up as independence.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, one phrase still echoes louder than it should:
“Man up.”
It sounds harmless to some people. Motivational even. Like tough love.
But for a lot of men, what they actually hear is:
Don’t feel. Don’t break. Don’t talk. Don’t let anyone see what’s happening inside you.
That’s where the damage starts.
Because many men were raised on survival before self-awareness. Responsibility before vulnerability. We learned how to endure pressure long before we learned how to process emotion.
So when life caves in — grief, divorce, redundancy, addiction, anxiety, loneliness, depression — many men don’t have the language for it.
They don’t say:
“I’m struggling.”
They disappear into silence instead.
And silence is dangerous.
Far too many good men have convinced themselves that asking for help somehow makes them less dependable, less masculine, less strong.
Personally?
I think honesty takes far more courage than pretending ever will.
It takes guts for a father to admit he’s overwhelmed. It takes strength for a husband to say he feels disconnected. It takes bravery for a man to ring a friend and simply say:
“I’m not doing great.”
That’s not weakness.
That’s self-awareness.
We desperately need healthier versions of masculinity now. Not softer men necessarily — just more honest ones.
Because healthy masculinity was never supposed to mean emotional suppression.
A strong man can still be disciplined. Still dependable. Still protective. Still resilient.
But he should also be allowed to be human.
Allowed to feel grief without shame. Allowed to ask for help without embarrassment. Allowed to admit when the weight gets too heavy.
A strong man is not a man who never breaks.
A strong man is a man who stops lying about being broken.
That’s the difference.
And maybe that’s what “man up” should mean now.
Not:
“Hide your pain.”
But:
“Face your truth.”
Because too many men have spent years hearing the same message:
Be useful. Be tough. Be quiet.
That silence has cost lives.
The reality is painfully simple:
Before provider. Before protector. Before husband. Before father. Before leader.
Men are human beings first.
And human beings need connection. Support. Purpose. Rest. Honesty. Sometimes help.
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
There are plenty of places in this world I haven’t seen yet.
White sandy beaches, bustling cities, and quiet forests where the only sound is your own thoughts echoing back at you.
But if you asked me
“What place do you never want to visit?”
There’s only one answer that comes to mind.
And you can’t find it on any map.
It’s that dark place.
You know the one.
The place where the lights are on, but everything still feels dim. Where you can be surrounded by people, yet feel like the only person left on earth. Where your own mind becomes the loudest, cruellest voice in the room.
I’ve been there.
And I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I remember what it felt like…
Like being swallowed whole by something you couldn’t explain. Like trying to scream underwater – all noise, no sound. Like your own thoughts turning against you, convincing you that the world might be better off without you in it.
That’s the thing about it.
It doesn’t look dramatic from the outside. No thunder. No lightning. No warning signs flashing in neon.
Just… quiet.
Dangerously quiet.
There’s a line from one of my older scribbles, Gone, that still sticks with me:
“Swallowed by a darkness they can’t escape.”
And that’s exactly it.
It’s not a place you walk into.
It’s a place that closes in around you.
What makes it worse is how convincing it is.
It tells you things that feel like truth:
That you’re alone
That you’re a burden
That this feeling will never end
And when you’re in that headspace, those lies don’t sound like lies anymore.
They sound like facts.
But here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough.
That place lies.
It always lies.
Because I got out.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since then, it’s this:
Feelings aren’t permanent, even the worst ones.
As much as that darkness insists it’s forever… it isn’t.
Do I ever want to go back there?
Not a fucking chance.
No return ticket. No sightseeing. No “just popping in for a visit.”
That place can stay exactly where it belongs
In the past.
But I will say this.
If you’re reading this, and you recognise that place…
If you’re there right now, or hovering somewhere close by…
You’re not the only one who’s been there.
Not even close.
And more importantly
You don’t have to stay there.
I’m still here.
Still scribbling, still fighting, still feeling.
And that, in itself, is proof that even the darkest places in the world…
The Ramblings of Bob Christian 