Like many people I know, I have been seeing a therapist on and off for years, but have never seen the need to shout about it or indeed discuss it with anyone. The older you get, though, the past starts to catch up with you. Mine had probably never left me.
I spent most of my childhood being hit by my father - when he wasn't hitting my mother, that is. I was beaten relentlessly and repeatedly (daily, in fact), punched so hard that for years it was difficult for me to speak without stammering, finding it impossible to repeat my own name. (One therapist told me that if this had happened today, my father would have been in jail.)
For most of my life, all I could remember about the violence came in abstract, fuzzy images and I think I managed to pretty much blank most of it out. When I became a teenager I began treating it almost as badge of honour, like having a criminal for a father, advertising what a tough time I'd had, an excuse for delinquent behaviour and appalling results at school. And then I just buried it, for years, just put it into another box, one I rarely ever looked at.
When I started going to therapy I was told immediately that any problems I might be having in the real world were the result of my maltreatment when I was younger. At first I stupidly refused to believe it, minimising what had happened to me as a child and feeling guilty for even considering it. But then, of course, guilt is one of the many manifestations of an abused childhood, along with shame, fear and sociopathy. Oh, and denial, of course.
In the last ten years or so I have started to really acknowledge my past, and to draw the very real lines between abuse and temperament, between violence and fear, between hurt and anxiety, And I feel much better for it. Today I have no qualms about contextualising my present because of things that happened in my past. And while I wouldn’t say I’m any happier, at least I understand why I feel like I do. Which is a huge consolation.
Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ magazine, journalist and author.