A Childhood I Never Got to Have
My name is Michael. I’m 35 years old, and for most of my life, I’ve been fighting battles that many people will never know anything about.
By the age of eight, I had been sexually assaulted by four different people. Before I was old enough to understand what was happening to me, I had already experienced things no child should ever have to endure. I should have been protected, loved and made to feel safe.
“Instead, my childhood was taken from me in ways that have stayed with me ever since.”
Learning to Put Everyone Else First
Not long after that, my dad left, and my mum turned to alcohol. When she had another baby, I was only 13 years old, but I became the person responsible for raising my little brother.
While other teenagers were growing up, making memories and enjoying their childhood, I was feeding him, cleaning, looking after him and trying to keep things together in a home where I was also suffering abuse.
My mum was an alcoholic, and the mental and verbal abuse continued for years. I was still a child myself, but I had to act like an adult because there was nobody else doing it. I learned to put other people’s needs before my own, to hide my pain and to keep going, even when I was struggling inside.
“I don’t think I ever really got the chance to just be a child.”
As I got older, I carried all of that hurt with me, hoping that one day I might finally find the happiness, love and security I had missed out on growing up.
The Family I Thought I Had Found
Then I met the woman I believed was the love of my life. I thought I had finally found my family, my future and the place where I belonged. We had children together, and being a dad became one of the most important parts of my life.
I wanted to give my children everything I never had. I wanted them to feel safe, loved and wanted. I wanted to be the dad who was there, the dad who never walked away, the dad who made sure his children knew they mattered.
When Everything Started Falling Apart
But life didn’t turn out the way I had hoped.
Financial pressures, the pain of miscarriage and the breakdown of our relationship brought heartbreak that I still struggle to put into words. I worked every hour I could, trying to provide, trying to make things work and trying to be enough.
I pushed myself harder and harder, believing that if I just worked more, earned more and did more, somehow things would get better – but it never felt like enough.
The Pain of Missing My Children
Losing the relationship was devastating, but one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced has been not being there with my daughter in the way I desperately want to be. Not being able to kiss her goodnight, hold her close or be part of those little everyday moments that other people might take for granted has broken something inside me.
“Not being able to kiss her goodnight…”
It’s not just missing a moment. It’s missing a piece of your child’s life that you can never get back. It’s going to bed knowing that your little girl is out there, wishing you could be the one to tuck her in, tell her you love her and make sure she feels safe.
A father can carry a lot, but missing his children in that way is a pain that is difficult to explain unless you’ve lived it.
When Someone You Love Needs Protecting
Throughout all of this, I’ve continued to worry about my family. My little brother, the child I helped raise when I was barely more than a child myself, became involved in county lines.
Knowing that someone you’ve spent years trying to protect is caught up in something so dangerous brings another kind of helplessness. You want to fix things, protect the people you love and make everything right, but sometimes you simply cannot.
Another Reason to Worry
Then, in 2025, we welcomed another baby into the world, but our baby had a problem affecting the brain. Even in a moment that should have been filled with happiness, there was more worry, uncertainty and fear to face.
It felt as though every time I tried to get back on my feet, life found another way to knock me down.
I Reached My Breaking Point
In January 2026, when it snowed, I went out to help people who were stranded. Despite everything happening in my own life, I still wanted to help others. That’s the sort of person I have always tried to be.
“Even when I’m hurting, I find myself thinking about what I can do for someone else.”
But around that time, I felt increasingly isolated by the situation with my ex-partner. I felt shut out, powerless and emotionally exhausted. Everything I had been holding inside for years began to catch up with me, and I reached a point where I attempted to take my own life.
The Day Everything Changed Again
Four months later, I was looking forward to going away with the children. That holiday meant more to me than perhaps anyone realised. It represented time with my kids, memories we could make together and something positive to hold on to after everything that had happened.
“Then, on the very day we were supposed to go, I was told I wasn’t invited.”
I cannot fully explain what that moment did to me. It wasn’t simply about a holiday. It was about feeling excluded from the family I had worked so hard to build. It was another moment when I felt that something precious had been taken away from me, and I didn’t know how to cope with the pain.
The week before, I had also been diagnosed with cancerous cells.
I was trying to process the fear of what that might mean for my health, the heartbreak surrounding my children and the feeling that my life was falling apart all around me. I reached a point of such despair that I went to a nearby location, intending to end my life.
I wasn’t thinking about how to make other people understand. I was in a place where the pain felt unbearable, and I struggled to see a way forward.
Something I Find Difficult to Talk About
And there is another part of my story that I find incredibly difficult to talk about.
During this same period, a gardening client raped me.
After everything I had already experienced as a child, being sexually assaulted again as an adult brought another layer of pain and trauma into my life. It is difficult to explain what it feels like to have your boundaries violated when so much of your life has already involved people hurting you, taking control away from you and leaving you to deal with the consequences.
I have spent so much of my life trying to survive what other people have done to me. To find myself facing something like that again was devastating.
What People Don’t See
And now, at 35 years old, I find myself living alone, trying to process years of childhood abuse, family responsibilities, relationship breakdown, grief, separation from my children, fear about my health and sexual assault.
“There is so much that people don’t see.”
They don’t see the nights when my mind won’t switch off. They don’t see the memories, the worries or the sadness that can hit me when everything goes quiet. They don’t see how exhausting it is to keep trying to look okay when inside you’re struggling to make sense of everything that has happened.
They might see a man who goes to work, who tries to help people, who wants to be a good father and who keeps putting one foot in front of the other.
What they might not see is how much effort it takes just to keep going.
For years, I have tried to be strong. I’ve tried to provide, protect, help and love. I’ve taken on responsibilities that were never mine to carry, and I’ve spent so much of my life worrying about everyone else that I haven’t always known how to look after myself.
I Don’t Want Pity – I Want Understanding
I’m not telling this story because I want pity. I’m telling it because I need someone to understand. I need someone to understand that when I struggle, it isn’t because I haven’t tried hard enough. When I feel overwhelmed, it isn’t because I’m weak. And when I find it difficult to cope, it isn’t because I haven’t got anything to live for.
“Sometimes, it’s because I’ve spent so many years trying to survive one thing after another that I don’t know how to put all the pieces back together.”
I have known what it feels like to be a frightened child, an unwanted responsibility, a struggling partner, a heartbroken father and a man who has reached the darkest places in his own mind.
But I am still a human being who wants to be loved, understood and treated with kindness.
I Still Want a Future
I still want to be a dad who is present in his children’s lives. I still want to have a future. I still want to experience happiness without constantly waiting for something else to go wrong.
I want to feel safe. I want to be able to trust people. I want to believe that my life can become something more than a series of painful things I have had to survive.
More than anything, I want someone to look beyond the circumstances, beyond the struggles and beyond the moments when I haven’t been okay, and see the person underneath it all.
Who I Am Beneath It All
I’m Michael. I’m 35 years old. I’m a father, a brother and a man who has spent much of his life trying to do the best he can with circumstances that have often felt impossible.
I am not perfect. I have been hurt, I have struggled, and there have been times when I have felt that I had nothing left to give.
“But the pain I carry is not the entirety of who I am.”
I am also the little boy who deserved protecting. The teenager who tried to raise his brother. The man who worked himself to exhaustion trying to provide for his family. The father who longs to kiss his children goodnight. And the person who, despite everything, has continued to care about other people.
I don’t need someone to fix every part of my life or to have all the answers. I need someone to understand how I got here, to listen without judging me, and to recognise that behind the struggles is a person who has been hurting for a very long time.
Now, I Want the Chance to Live
For once, I want to feel that I don’t have to carry everything on my own.
I have spent most of my life surviving.
Now, I want the chance to live.