I never really knew my dad.
If you added up all the time I spent with him, it wouldn’t make six months. The first time I saw him, I was around eight, and I don’t remember doing much with him. The next time was as a preteen, and that round didn’t do me any favors — he ended up causing me issues with some of my associates.
He’s dead now. Been gone a few years.
I didn’t cry. Didn’t go to his funeral. My life didn’t change at all. I’ve got a half-sister he apparently was a real dad to, but for me, he was basically a donor.
I had a few temporary father figures growing up, but my grandfather was the only consistent man I could ever really model myself after. He was steady. Quiet. The kind of man who showed up even when he didn’t say much.
So when I became a dad, it wasn’t some grand plan to carry on a legacy. I never really thought about having kids at all. It just happened. My first son came along when I was twenty-three and still in the service. I didn’t have a plan for fatherhood — hell, I didn’t even have a plan for life. But I loved that kid instantly. He came along halfway through my second enlistment.
When my first enlistment was up, I was stop-lossed in Iraq — held past my three-year contract. My squad leader told me, while we were in Abu Ghraib, to write out an exact plan for what I’d do if I got out, and he’d stop bugging me about reenlisting. I never wrote shit. My only real plan was to head back to Vegas, maybe go to UNLV. You know, like the South Park underwear gnomes:
Step one, steal underwear.
Step two…
Step three, get rich.
Instead, I reenlisted. The tax-free bonus overseas didn’t hurt either. Responsible young man decisions — i.e., I bought an Impala SS from a custom car shop.
Then I got hurt again. This time, I couldn’t infantry anymore. At first, I thought I’d bounce back — just another obstacle. But not long after, I realized I’d plateaued hard in my recovery, and I hadn’t been doing great even before that injury. By the time the med board process kicked off, I’d just started to contemplate a reclass. One minute I was still thinking about whether I wanted to stay in; the next, I was out — trying to get my GI Bill lined up and figure out what came next.
And like any “responsible” young man trying to regain his footing, I made my family bigger after getting out.
When my kids were little, everything was simple. All I could do was love them. But as they got older, it got less simple. I started to withdraw. I was angry — at the world, at life, at myself. They caught some of that fallout. Anger aside, I was withdrawn, lost, and living beyond years I ever expected to make.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t have PTSD. Just because I was a little extra vigilant — maybe a little morose and reckless — that didn’t really cause me issues, and was totally unrelated to PTSD. Right.
Then the panic attacks started. They only happened when I was driving, which was great timing since I’d just landed the dream job at Coke — driving from store to store all day long. Every single time I started my car, the thought hit me: What if I lose control this time during an attack? Every. Single. Time.
During the actual attacks, my rational mind still worked. I’d see something on the side of the road — a tire, trash, debris — and my brain would say, “It’s nothing.” But my body didn’t believe me. My chest would seize up, my hands would lock, and all I could think was: Breathe… don’t crash. But I could barely force an inhale, let alone steer.
For a guy who drove all day for work, that became impossible to manage. I was living reckless when I should’ve been focused on building a future.
Then came the accident.
A panic attack on an ATV doing about 80 km/h, straight into a tree. Made a lot of toothpicks that day. I broke my back, my neck, and a whole list of other bones that don’t bend that way. My son was on another ATV behind me with his uncle. His uncle drove off to get help and tried to bring my son with him, but my son refused — and his uncle didn’t have time to argue. I needed medical attention immediately.
So my son stayed.
He sat there on the side of the road while I gurgled and bled and tried to hang on. He watched his dad dying, basically. I traumatized my son that day. There’s no poetic way to say it.
My first attempt at getting mental health help had actually been close to a decade before that crash, not long after I got out. I saw an intern — waited around four or five hours to see her — and when I told her my story, she looked repulsed. Not shocked. Not sympathetic. Repulsed. That was the moment I realized some truths are too ugly for people who haven’t lived them.
After the accident, I got serious about getting help. That’s when I ended up with the psychiatrist — the one who prescribed something new every time my mood shifted. Morning, noon, and night, I had a fistful of pills to take. One day I just hit a wall. I looked at that pile of prescriptions and realized I wasn’t living anymore — just medicating. So I quit all of them. And her.
I started looking inward.
Reading philosophy. Microdosing. Building small routines. Epictetus became more helpful to me than any prescription ever was. Stoicism taught me something simple but life-saving: I can’t control what happens, but I can control how I face it.
That doesn’t mean I’ve got it all figured out. I’m no sage. Some days still suck. Some days I lose ground. But I keep showing up. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And we lose way too many good men that way — men who could’ve found their way back if they’d just had one more day, one more reason, one more hand to hold.
For me, those reasons are holed up in their rooms right now — taller, calmer, nicer, and way less trouble than I was at their age. My oldest is as old now as I was when I joined. It’s strange ground to stand on — past when I left home, still trying to be a different kind of father than the one I had. Still learning. Still working at it. I haven’t been — and am not — a perfect dad.
They don’t need a perfect dad.
They just need one who stays.
And I’m still here.
Still trying.
And that’s the win.
MicG
Life after door kicking. 
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