What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?

If you’ve read my books or been following this blog for a while, you’ll probably know the answer before you’ve finished the question.

Roughly twenty years ago.

That was the chapter.

It was the point where it honestly felt like life had looked at me and thought, “Go on then… let’s see how much this bloke can actually take.”

I was on the verge of homelessness.

I was fighting to have a relationship with my daughters.

My PTSD was running riot.

I was autistic but had absolutely no idea at the time.

And my mental health?

Well… “shot to shit” is probably the most accurate medical diagnosis I can give you.

Let’s unpack that.

After a relationship ended, I found myself with nowhere to live. My family couldn’t help, so I ended up sleeping on the sofa of an old wrestling mate. It wasn’t glamorous, but it beat sleeping rough again.

Eventually she moved in with her boyfriend and we came up with what seemed, at the time, like a sensible solution.

I’d stay in her little council house and carry on paying the rent.

Yes.

I know.

Subletting.

Not exactly legal.

But when your choices are breaking the rules or sleeping rough, morality suddenly becomes a luxury.

While all that was going on, my daughters’ mum had started making contact as difficult as humanly possible.

I’d turn up to collect the girls.

“Oh… we’ve gone out.”

“They’re not here.”

“They don’t want to come.”

The excuses changed.

The result didn’t.

Letters from my solicitor about parental responsibility went unanswered.

Phone calls rarely got through.

And when they did, the girls were apparently never available.

It was only last year that I found out some of the things they’d been told about me growing up.

One of them was that I’d wanted my youngest aborted before she was born.

I hadn’t.

But lies have a habit of hanging around long after the people telling them have moved on.

Looking back now, I understand why I was falling apart.

Back then I just thought I was broken.

Everything piled on top of everything else.

The housing.

The court stuff.

Missing my girls.

The PTSD.

Trying to make sense of a brain that worked differently without knowing why.

So I did what a lot of blokes do when they’re drowning.

I reached for anything that promised five minutes of peace.

Drink.

Drugs.

Self-harm.

None of it fixed anything.

It just delayed having to feel it.

Then came the moment that genuinely broke me.

The council discovered I was living in the house.

I was told that if I cleared about £400 of rent arrears I could take over the tenancy.

I worked every bit of overtime I could.

Paid every penny.

Walked into the meeting convinced I’d finally caught a break.

Instead, I was told I had four weeks to move out.

When I reminded them about what I’d been promised, I was told I’d have to bid on the property along with everyone else.

I’d basically paid someone else’s rent arrears for nothing.

That one hurt.

For the next month I bid on every property I could.

Nothing.

That’s when I hit rock bottom.

I tried (for the first time) to end my life.

I woke up in hospital the following day to two police officers asking why I’d done it and telling me how selfish I’d been for upsetting everyone.

Different times.

Thankfully we’ve moved on a bit since then.

Recovery wasn’t some magical Disney montage.

It took years.

Hospital admissions.

Medication.

Counselling.

Learning how to exist without constantly wanting to disappear.

Then, during one of my final stays in hospital, a member of staff suggested I start writing down how I felt.

I nearly laughed.

Writing a diary?

Really?

I’d grown up believing men dealt with problems by getting on with them.

You certainly didn’t write about your feelings.

Still…

I’d tried almost everything else.

What was one more roll of the dice?

Those first pages weren’t poetry.

They were just chaos.

Anger.

Fear.

Grief.

Questions I didn’t know how to answer.

Slowly, without me really noticing, those pages started changing.

Sentences became verses.

Verses became poems.

Poems became something that made sense of everything that didn’t.

People often ask me what saved my life.

It wasn’t poetry.

Not at first.

Poetry came later.

What saved me was finally giving myself permission to be honest.

The poetry simply gave that honesty somewhere to live.

Without those notebooks there probably wouldn’t have been books.

There wouldn’t have been performances.

There wouldn’t have been conversations with complete strangers who’ve quietly said, “I thought I was the only one.”

There probably wouldn’t be this blog.

So what got me through The Hard Years?

My daughters.

Even when I couldn’t see them, they gave me something to keep fighting for.

Pure bloody-minded stubbornness.

I’ve never liked being told I can’t do something.

And somewhere deep down, underneath everything else, there was still a tiny voice saying,

“Don’t let this be how your story ends.”

Turns out that little voice was right.

Life isn’t perfect now.

It never will be.

But I’ve learned that the hardest chapters aren’t always the end of the book.

Sometimes they’re just the part that explains why the rest of the story matters.

Stay safe

Bc