Afraid of the Dark: A Memoir of Mental Health and Fatherhood

'The bed is hard. I'm utterly exhausted but never has sleep seemed so far away. I lie there, terrified. How can I find a way back to any sort of life from this?

Soon a man in a blue uniform comes into the room. Softly he walks to the side of the bed and shines a torch into my eyes. At first, I'm confused, but then the awful realisation hits me - he's checking to make sure I'm still alive. I am on suicide watch.'

In May 2013, 38-year-old journalist Jonny McCambridge seems to have the perfect life - a beautiful wife and a newborn son, a top job in local media and a bright future in the newspaper industry. But just four months later, in the early hours of a September morning, he finds himself in the acute ward of a Northern Ireland psychiatric hospital. It's a voluntary admission - but only because a doctor insisted that the alternative was to have him forcibly sectioned.

How has his life so dramatically fallen apart? And how indeed will he be able to 'find a way back . . . from this'?

This is Jonny's heartfelt, viscerally honest account of his attempt to overcome the mental health demons which tormented him for decades and brought him dangerously close to the conclusion that life simply wasn't worth living anymore. He embarks on a long and often bumpy road to recovery which sees him returning to work too soon and having to abandon his media career, then adjusting to a new life as a 'stay-at-home' dad, becoming the world's least likely blogger and ultimately finding meaning and purpose in his role as a full-time father.

All the while, he struggles to better navigate the uncharted territory of his own mind and make sense of his emotions, shut down decades earlier by the expectations of a repressed society where boys don't cry and men are supposed to be strong and silent.

By turns poignant, heartbreakingly sad and side-achingly funny, this is a book which will speak to anyone who struggles to articulate their own emotions or to make sense of all that life throws at them, as well as those who at times feel crushed by the challenges of new parenthood.

Jonny McCambridge was born in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1974. After completing a degree in history and politics at Queen's University, he worked in the NI media industry for almost two decades, holding a number of senior editorial positions, including Deputy Editor at the Belfast Telegraph. In 2016, Jonny gave up daily newspaper journalism to concentrate on looking after his son. In 2017 he launched the popular blog, What's a Daddy For? In 2020, he was appointed News Editor of the News Letter.

Jonny currently lives in Hillsborough with his wife, Debs, also a journalist, and his seven-year-old son, James.

Praise for Afraid of the Dark

'Packed with humour, wisdom and pathos, this is a compellingly personal memoir by one of Northern Ireland's finest writers.'

br>Sam McBride, News Letter Political Editor and author of Burned

'Written by a gifted and courageous writer, this is a book every home should have.'

Frank Mitchell, broadcaster and journalist

'...this book will cement Jonny McCambridge's second career - not just as a truth-telling journalist, but as an author of the highest ability, integrity, penmanship and - I am certain - literary success.'

Peter Cardwell, former UK government adviser, author of 'The Secret Life of Special Advisers' and mental health patient

'Jonny McCambridge takes on his inner and outer demons with a cracking combination of grace, good humour, compassion, courage, love, self-deprecation and searing honesty. And brilliant writing. This is a wonderfully uplifting book.'

Writer and commentator Alex Kane

Afraid of the Dark is one of the rawest, most poignant accounts I have ever read...

Gareth O'Callaghan, Writer and Broadcaster