“You’re only as sick as your secrets
So I’m telling everything
Half of the shit
You won’t believe
But I know it’s not unique to me”
From “Sleep at Night” by The Chicks
I’m going to preface this with a trigger warning for anyone who is or will feel triggered by substances, physical / emotional / mental abuse, or self-harm and suicide.
The idea of writing this blog post has been haunting me for approximately six months. I’ve gone back and forth in my head on if I should write and publish it. Is it self-sabotage because deep down I might not believe I deserve to be happy and I continue to try to destroy my career as a result?
Is it strength to bear it all, and hope that this deeply vulnerable moment helps me put down the weight of genuinely believing for so long that I am unlovable and deserve everything that has happened to me?
I guess that is going to be up to you reading this.
Allow me to give some context. I am in the process of finishing a book that I have been trying to write for over 15 years.
I have less than two weeks until the one year mark of an extremely traumatic experience that changed the trejectory of many lives forever, and the upcoming divorce being made official.
So… before I can regret showing you all my flaws and mistakes, I’m going to jump right in, while omitting certain details out of respect for those involved.
In January of 2024 when my ex & I found that Canela had huge tumors pressing against her lungs that were causing her to struggle to breathe, it felt like the last tiny shred of happiness was being ripped away from me.
I don’t remember all the details, but I do vividly relive the feeling of being in the room as the two of us said goodbye to her when we decided it would be unfair to her to keep her alive and suffering. We had been a family for almost a decade, and as she took her last breath, everything changed.
I think deep down, I knew that this was also going to be the straw that broke the proverbial camels back for us as a couple.
Having overcome so much together in that relationship, I have to be honest with myself in admitting that we hadn’t been happy in a long time. Relationships are hard, marriage is difficult, and we had been drifting away for some time.
For my part, I was in active addiction again.
I don’t know if I’ve ever shared about this, and to be honest the idea of hitting publish terrifies me because I am trying my best to be okay with the life I am about to restart in Toronto on my own.
I have to believe that this extremely vulnerable moment will make someone out there in the world feel seen and understood especially if they are struggling with addiction. I have no doubt in my mind that I am not the only one to have lived simultaneous and concurrent traumas throughout life which equipped me at the time to be in survival mode constantly.
As a young boy, I experienced sexual assault for quite some time and continue to work through the trauma it inflicted on me and the coping mechanisms I have used to escape the pain.
I never “wanted” to be an addict. However, when I discovered that food, sex, alcohol and substances could make me feel less sad, that disease took over. It was an insatiable part of me throughout my life many times that just made it all go away even if just briefly.
For decades I have been in a constant tug of war between the version of myself that I hope I can be who is healed and does not hurt others, and the monster that showed its face last year.
In February of 2024 and having unfortunately uncovered a familiar truth that reopened a deep wound in my heart and relationship, I proceeded to get intoxicated during a visit to my ex’s family. I allowed my addiction, and the fact that this wound was one that I was inflicted over and over and over, to combine into a literal psychotic break.
I do not have recollection of the night in its entirety and many mental health practitioners since have been helping me piece together why and what did take place.
What I can share is this.
I became physically and verbally violent towards my ex and their family, to the point that I caused damage to the property, mental health support workers were called, I was restrained and tied down to a gurney, and had to be sedated and taken to the psychiatric ward.
I quite literally snapped.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with no understanding of where I was, or what had taken place.
My ex was in the waiting room and I can’t even fathom what they must have endured sitting there after witnessing their partner become what I became. Or how incredibly traumatic that was to them and their family.
I do still remember that moment of knowing the relationship was over as I watched them leave and I was told my family was driving from Ottawa to get me and that I was not allowed to leave on my own.
Over the course of the next few days, weeks, and months I had to keep this all quiet and keep working to ensure my income. My ex moved out, we separated again after doing so once before in 2018, and I immediately started working with an addictions counsellor, my family doctor, and my psychotherapist. I became medicated for my depression in new doses, I had to quit all unhealthy coping mechanisms, and try my best to pick up the pieces of the life that I lost.
I recently sent my ex an email after a year of us respectively doing our best to cope not only with the ending of the relationship, but in finding ourselves since. In it I apologized for not making them or their family feel safe in the end. That guilt is something I have carried for so long, and the pain I have inflicted continues to haunt me.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there.
Throughout 2024 I was trying my best to not make my breakup my entire personality. I kept up appearances for the most part, though if you knew my ex and I, you almost immediately would have noticed. What I am proud of for us both is that this time around, we tried to keep everything offline.
With my career in television which I hope sharing this with you all doesn’t completely destroy, and their field of employment, one thing we both agreed on was that it wasn’t for any of you to know in real time. The only reason I am sharing it now is because I think with the divorce and starting a new chapter, I’m not supposed to carry this anymore into my life moving forward. And because I needed you to understand that throughout all the mistakes we made as a couple, and all the love we shared, that there was no one to blame.
Were mistakes made and things said to one another out of hurt, and anger, and sadness respectfully? Yes.
But a relationship of 12 years doesn’t go quietly into the night. And we both tried our best.
Flash forward to later in 2024.
After months of very publicly preaching about my sobriety, I had started to drink again. The problem was I didn’t have my safe guards in place, and I was keeping it a secret from most people in my life, and from you to maintain my public image.
One night, while staying at the home of a friend who I have since lost because of what I am about to tell you, I hit a low I have only hit twice before in my life.
I drank to the point of excess where I stood in the bedroom with a knife and I believed that I was finally ready to unalive myself because it hurt too much.
That friend and my ex have never heard that part of this story, and to them both if these words ever find their way to them, I hope they hear me when I say how sorry I am. And that they might understand me just a little bit more in admitting how close I was to that act.
What proceeded to happen is as follows.
I was in such a dark place that I must have audibly admitted out loud what was happening and someone heard. The few glimpses of that night which mirrored the one in February are that I remember the police in the home, the back of a police car, being in the hospital, and being so terrified that I was going to be strapped down and sedated again that when no one was looking in on me I snuck out of the hospital.
I was so terrified.
I texted my ex and that friend to tell them in a state of such intoxication that I had escaped and I proceeded to walk into the night, unaware of where I was or where I was going. But I knew it wasn’t strapped down to a gurney so tightly that my wrists and ankles would be bruised for weeks like they had be in February.
I found my way back to my friends home. Unfortunately I proceeded to continue drinking and the following day I left to go back to Ottawa.
That friendship is now damaged beyond repair which I am still deeply remorseful for, and I have to pay them back money I borrowed in 2024 so that the trauma I inflicted, the damage that was done, and this chaotic moment for them can be put to rest. I destroyed that connection because I was that low.
As for my ex, unfortunately I think I only solidified in their mind and heart that I was a disaster and leaving me was the right thing to do.
I have never been closer to unaliving myself as I was that night. And I am very glad I didn’t.
The rest of 2024 oscillated between me turning down work, ignoring my financial responsibilities, and begging my ex to come back because without them it felt impossible. I was that little boy all over again, hurt and alone. I was crying out to someone to help me feel safe and no one understood that.
I kept up appearance as mentioned as best as I could, but my entire life went up in flames in 2024, and for the most part it was my fault.
There are many layers of hurt and sadness and betrayal inflicted on one another over the course of twelve years together. We forgave and tried our best.
I personally believe that there was more good than bad, and those extremely close to us who know the dirtiest of demons and details will have their version and perspective.
…
But I have to believe that in sharing these dark moments and secrets I’ve been holding on to, that I am finally setting myself free and taking away the power of having them used against me.
I don’t want to be cruel, and my ex is not a cruel person either.
This is me trying my best to admit that I made a lot of mistakes and that I did my best to try and fix them.
That being said, I want you to know, that despite the upcoming divorce and idea that love isn’t always enough… I still respect and love them. It doesn’t matter the things they did, I am sharing what I did and what I tried to fix. I am taking accountability and sharing it in such a way that I quite literally am risking my entire career.
Because I have to put this down.
Maybe deep down I hope that this very public moment can be an admission of my part in the relationship being over. I know that they felt unsafe for a long with me, and looking back, I am so fucking sorry for that. I was not a perfect spouse, and while it is hurting me deeply to let go, I wish them only good moving on from me and us.
I do not regret the love I gave and got in return. It may have been complicated and didn’t make sense to anyone else other than the two of us, but I remember that for twelve years I had a big love.
And I hope if nothing else, and someone out there feels like their life is chaos and if they share no one might believe how crazy it all sounds, that you don’t feel so alone.
I will be okay. After all, “grief is just love with no place to go.”
Danny Bear xo