I’ve always liked this quote:
“Not everyone gets the same version of me. One person might tell you I have an amazing beautiful soul… another might tell you I’m a cold hearted asshole. Believe them both. I don’t treat people badly… I treat them accordingly.”
But it’s only recently that I’ve truly understood how much it applies to me. Some people see the soul. Some see the edge. Both are real. I don’t go out of my way to treat people badly — but I will treat people accordingly. You show me respect, I’ll return it tenfold. You come at me with cruelty or slurs? I’ll match your energy and then I’ll raise it. That’s not spite. That’s survival.
And maybe that’s what “radicalized” me. Not one event. Not one meme. But the slow burn of growing up with two boomer parents who didn’t talk about feelings, who didn’t say “I’m proud of you,” who passed silence down like it was tradition. I haven’t fully broken that generational curse, but I’ll keep working at it — unlearning silence, teaching my boys the words I never heard, refusing to let pride and love be implied instead of spoken.
And let’s be honest — there’s been a cost. I’ve lost family. I’ve lost friends. Some stopped talking to me the minute I spoke my truth out loud. Some drifted away because it was easier than facing me. Others slammed the door because I didn’t fit their idea of who I was supposed to be. They wanted me to keep quiet, to laugh at the jokes, to sing the happy songs and keep everything shallow. They wanted comfort. I chose honesty. And honesty is expensive.
Back in 2020, I wrote something raw when the weight of that honesty felt crushing:
I am a bad dad.
I am a bad dad because my kids aren’t the most prepared for sports.
I am a bad dad because I carry around life-saving medicine instead of fun things.
I am a bad dad because I spend nights and days worrying about my kids’ futures.
I am a bad dad because sometimes we prefer quiet nights at home instead of loud, stimulating places.
I am a bad dad because I check on my autistic and epileptic son multiple times per night to make sure he doesn’t have a seizure in his sleep.
I am a bad dad because I am at more doctor and therapy appointments than sporting events.
I am a bad dad because I would rather root for my son’s neurologist than a sports team.
I am a bad dad because I’d rather play games with my 10-year-old genius kid than play football.
I am a bad dad because I will do anything for my kids.
I am a bad dad because I’ve done this on my own, failed at it, and kept trying anyway.
No, I am not a bad dad.
I am a parent of special needs kids, and you will probably never understand what I have gone through.
At the time, that was how I gave language to the pressure, the doubt, the weight of expectations. That was me pulling at the edges of the generational curse, even before I had the words for it.
Now, a few years later, I see it differently. I’m not a bad dad. I’m a dad who carries scars, who lives in the tension between fear and fight, who shows up again and again even when it hurts. Not failure, but survival. Not weakness, but resilience.
And I carry those scars on my skin too. I didn’t get my first tattoos until June of 2021 — my boys’ names, written in binary code on my forearms, etched into me so I would always carry them. Since then I’ve gotten 36 tattoos and counting. Every one of them is a marker, a memory, a scar turned into ink. All the ink is my scars — and I bear them proudly. I will keep doing it, because survival deserves to be remembered, and grief deserves to be honored.
I’ve always had a moral compass. But only in the last few years have I truly stepped into it — refusing to be quiet, practicing not perfection but better. In my house, we live by that: Practice Makes Better. My boys live with autism. And so do I. That reality shapes me, sharpens me, and pushes me forward. It teaches me patience, empathy, and resilience that the world doesn’t always hand out freely.
Back in 2020, I called myself a bad dad because I was carrying scars and medicine instead of trophies. In 2025, I know better: I’m not a bad dad. I’m the dad my boys need — scarred, stubborn, honest, and still here.
And if anything I’ve written here has inspired you, challenged you, or stirred something inside you — then welcome to Duskward.com.