My name is Nathan Daniels

[Nathan]

First and foremost, I consider myself a very loving father and husband, who holds his family in the highest regard and strives, every day, to be the best man he can be for them, but... it isn't always easy.

I am a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse that started when I was six years old, and lasted the better part of a year.

Beginning when I was twelve, I endured two years of social isolation… removed from school and relocated to the other side of the country. I lived with my grandmother in a forgotten, dirt-road town, where I was the only person younger than thirty.

When I was seventeen, a series of death took my grandfather, mother, and father in the span of three grief-stricken months. I found myself orphaned, homeless, and suicidal… I took up residence in my late father’s car.

Against all odds, I survived, but continued to struggle with severe mental illness, self-abuse, and suicidal tendencies.

I eventually lost myself in a ten-year, emotionally abusive relationship built on co-dependency, with a woman who nurtured my progressive psychological issues (in fairness… that worked both ways).

After the inevitable demise of that phantom relationship, I met Hailey, and fell in love for the first time in my life. Ours is an impossible to believe story, which proves true love really can overcome any obstacle.

We’ve been together for nearly a decade now, and have a six-year old son together.

I’ve explored many professions and interests throughout my life. Among other things, I’ve been a Kung-Fu instructor, warehouse manager, tattoo artist, personal trainer, truck driver, and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.

My life-long obsessions with martial arts, bodybuilding, and professional wrestling, led me to be a semi-finalist in the WWE’s (WWF, at that time) first season of “Tough Enough.”

Throughout my entire adult life, I’ve gone through dangerously progressive cycles of, first, high functionality and success, then, downward spirals into abysmal madness and suicidal tendencies.

This has happened four times now, and I came closer and closer to death each time. Just over two years ago, I was in the hospital for the second time, because of my complex mental illness.

I had cut myself hundreds of times, burned myself, broken my own bones, and lost seventy pounds of muscle tissue through self-starvation.

I separated myself from my family, briefly, in an effort to protect them from my madness as I endured blackouts, audio and visual hallucinations, and imminent doom.

They wouldn’t let me go!

Miraculously, I survived the fourth cycle by finally allowing myself to accept and embrace the powerful love of my family, and seeking closure for a lifetime of pain and suffering through a year of honest and emotionally intense writing.

This has given me an incredible sense of self-awareness and, most importantly, was a key factor in overcoming suicide after struggling blindly with my demons for twenty years.

I have Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, severe Social Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, and I’m prone to extreme bouts of insomnia and self-abuse.

I am a loving person, excellent father, supportive partner, hard-working writer, and an advocate for mental health. I’m dedicated to sharing my unique story with the world with perfect honesty and full disclosure, no matter how unflattering much of it is.

I want people suffering with issues like mine to read my words, whether in a poem, my book, or an article I’ve written… know they’re not alone in their daily struggles, and glimpse hope… that they too will survive!

I also want people, who have never experienced emotional trauma or mental illness, to read my writing and open their eyes to the harsh reality of psychological disorders, and I want those who love someone with these ailments, but can’t relate, to read and increase their understanding… potentially opening new lines of communication.

I accept that I will live with mental illness for the rest of my life, but I pledge to do it well and keep my continuing recovery and quality of life in a perpetual state of improvement.

I will balance my life between caring for my beautiful family and using my writing to raise awareness for, and fight the stigma associated with abuse, mental illness, and suicide.

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to introduce yourself and share a little here too.