To block out the pain and turmoil of the separation, I hit the bars in a big way, downing everything legal and otherwise. I spent half my life in Kings Cross — a red light district full of pimps, hookers, strippers, drugs and booze. I would stay there for days, in a haze and

making fast friends with like-minded women and complete strangers. Those first few weeks, while my son was staying with his mum, I was particularly out of control. I don’t know if I was sober for any of it. We agreed to share custody on alternate weeks, but what that truly meant did not sink in until one sunny Sunday morning.

It was 5am when I walked downstairs. The place was a disgrace. My wonderful and exceedingly drunk best friend, Jack, was passed out on a deflated blow-up bed next to the empty cot in what was to be my son’s room. There were newspapers scattered across the floor, empty wine casks on the cream carpet and across the courtyard. CDs and DVDs were out of their cases and strewn everywhere. The kitchen was squalid. I had no clean clothes for my boy. I had no clean clothes for myself. The place smelled like a seedy bar, which it just about was.

The Little Man would arrive in eight hours and I had to work the next day. I freaked. My hangover was so bad I was barely able to walk but I started cleaning. I started with the kitchen; I didn’t bother trying to wash up, I just soaked the filthiest implements with a plan to scrub later. Next I began washing clothes. I wandered past my neighbours to dump load after load of rubbish into my bin and then those of everyone else in the apartment block. I vacuumed the entire place and mopped the floors. I emptied the fridge, passing the neighbours again with more garbage.

I returned to the kitchen as the last and worst room. I boiled jugs of water to sterilise what I could. I washed and dried and packed everything away. Lastly, I folded all the clothes and packed them neatly into wardrobes and drawers. The place was completely clean. By now Jack was awake and seated on a deckchair in the sun. He had a glass of wine and just looking at it made me want to retch. I had an acute hangover, usually best treated by adding more alcohol, but I didn’t want to drink with my boy coming. So, with beads of toxic sweat pricking my forehead and back, and buzzing with anxiety, I sat down with a coffee to consider my position. What did I need to do now?

The place was clean but it was also bare. What does my boy need and how much money do I have left after my binge? I found $30 in coins and a $20 note. That gave me $50 for food to last five days. Fill the fridge and buy nappies.

I went out and bought tofu, tins of kidney beans and chick peas and vegies to make cheap, nutritious stews, curries and snacks. I bought oats and blueberries for breakfast, bananas, bread, corn and rice. So the fridge was loaded but then there was a heap of prep to do to get all the meals ready. What about childcare? Louis was booked in for only three days a week and I work five. Five big days. My mother had offered to fly down from Brisbane to look after him on the other two days, so I locked her in.

Technically I was ready. Mentally I was swimming in a black abyss.

MY SON HADN’T SEEN ME FOR A LITTLE WHILE, so he was a bit stand-offish when he arrived. But it didn’t take long and we were back into it. His smiling, happy face helped me feel much, much better. But the minute he began walking around I realised what I was in for. I had stairs with no safety gate; I had electrical goods, glass, a bathtub and plenty of doors ready to cause major injuries. Louis and I played but my heart wasn’t in it because I was so worried about everything. He went to bed at 7pm and I stayed up watching TV and ironing work shirts. Then I laid out his breakfast. Rolled oats in a bowl, soy milk locked and loaded in the fridge, a banana ready for cutting. I prepared his pram for the morning walk to childcare. I packed it with too many nappies, wipes, sun cream and a banana for the journey home. I found his hat, laid out three outfits. Then I hit the kitchen and made a batch of Mexican beans and vegetables with rice. I froze some and left a couple of meals in the fridge for tomorrow’s dinner. Everything that could be done was done.

Yet I was still deeply uncomfortable. I went to bed and didn’t sleep at all. I rolled and turned thinking about my son and my job. I now had $105 a day in childcare costs, a big rent bill and a mortgage on a unit in Brisbane. And, most importantly, I had to give him a good life. Without my job I was in the badlands. The morning went to plan. Louis was fed and watered. We played for a while but I still couldn’t relax. I walked him to childcare and he screamed with sadness when I left him. That broke my heart. But I had to go to work. I raced to the bus stop compulsively checking my phone, hoping and praying the boss wouldn’t email.

At work I felt like a foreign species. Not man, not producer. A ghostly thing that moved with the speed of a sloth, the reflexes of a tranquillised elephant and a mind like chocolate fudge. It felt like a dissociative state, standing next to household names such as the Sunrise breakfast show’s (then) star duo Mel and Kochie (Melissa Doyle and David Koch) along with Samantha Armytage and newsreader Chris Bath. Was that Larry Emdur or Sonia Kruger who just walked past my desk? Hang on, I’d better file my story. Hang on, I haven’t written it. Oh dear. I tried to collect myself but there was nothing there. I couldn’t keep my mind on the job. Over the next few weeks my split personality flourished. One week I was “single dad/career man”; the next I was “single man/career man”. I was being spun, stretched and flung from one situation to another, racing through the day like a madman. I felt I never really saw my son, yet my entire existence was devoted to him. The weekends were the only times I could breathe; I had sun and happiness for a couple of days. He loved me and I loved him back. This part was worth all the work. Then came the Sunday afternoon handover. These were painful for a long time. My son and I were just starting to enjoy each other’s company when it came time to give him back. I know his mum felt the same.

My plan at this point was to throw myself into work and make up for lost time in the week I was on my own. But I found myself so emotionally and physically exhausted that it became a party week. I would slow down on Saturdays because I knew I had Louis arriving the next day and, anyway, my body couldn’t take much more. Of course, my work suffered, as did my bank balance. I pulled off a few good stories over the next few months but nowhere near what was expected. My chief-of-staff lost faith in me. So did my executive producer. So they should have. My 12-year career was on the ropes. Childcare remained an issue. No-one would take a kid on alternate weeks because it meant one week with a vacant placement and no money coming in. I decided to look for a full-time place and just suck up the extra cost for the week he wasn’t there. Even so, there were no full-time places in the area. Not one. I ended up flying my cousin down from Brisbane to help out on my weeks. I decided I would have to move to an area where I could find a childcare vacancy.

The pressure and the pain were still there. Drinking was becoming a major problem. I became virtually useless at work. I went to a doctor who diagnosed me with depression almost on sight. The wounds of my broken relationships with Louis and his mum were reaping torment right across my mental landscape and drilling down into the core of who I was. My GP dosed me up on antidepressants, lined me up with a psychologist and told me to stop drinking, pronto. I abstained for around five months. But it was too late for my career. I had to walk away. The single dad/career man was about to become single stay-at-home, unemployed dad. Fortunately, we sold the property in Brisbane and I was able to take a few months off. So a full-time single dad I became. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.

I always thought depression was just a serious term for a perfectly manageable case of the blues. I changed my mind when I was brought back to reality by antidepressant medication. Before the drugs took effect, I couldn’t think straight, I had no mental force or agility. Then I saw the light. But, in many cases, I believe you can avoid that. The trick is to focus on maintaining your wellness rather than only trying to get well once you’re run down or too stressed.

If you are finding things a bit rough, don’t be too proud to seek help. Parenting helplines, counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists all can assist. Or visit blackdoginstitute.org.au. Signs of depression include: you can’t sleep or you sleep too much; you can’t concentrate; you feel hopeless and helpless; you can’t control your negative thoughts; you have thoughts that life is not worth living; you excessively use alcohol and other drugs.

Good, professional head workers can be excellent for both perspective and clinical assistance. When I was diagnosed at a surgery in Sydney’s CBD, my doctor told me depression made up half of her work and the lion’s share of her patients were men. My psychologist was a gem. I hit the weights, started running and never missed a tablet. In about six weeks, I was on top of the basics. My thoughts became clear. Louis became among the best-dressed kids in town. He had a diet Gwyneth Paltrow would approve of and he had my undivided attention. I wasn’t just healthy, I was fit and strong. It was time to get back to work. Besides, I was rapidly approaching broke.

I had no idea how much of my self-image I had invested in work. I had subconsciously defined myself as a television producer and print journalist who liked the pointy end of things. It gave me a unique insight into how so many women must feel when they have to abandon successful careers to raise children. I’m not sure many men comprehend the magnitude of this sacrifice. But they should try. Because rarely do they do it themselves, and I believe they should respect what their partners have been prepared to do.

When I began to prowl for jobs, reality set in. I couldn’t work in television news or current affairs because the hours and jobs were unpredictable. In my last week at Seven, the childcare centre called me three times to come and pick up Louis. I had no idea how to go about getting steady freelance work in a city that was still new to me. I can’t stand corporate culture and I can’t stand government sector bullshit, so I decided to target not-for-profits where I could apply my media skills in a public relations role that would do some good. I found one working against global poverty. I stayed in that role for a couple of years but I was never happy with my work-life balance — I felt like I was never giving Louis, or my work, the attention each deserved. And frankly, the work paled in comparison to the energised, competitive and challenging work I was used to.

Eventually I left and took a short-term contract position to pay the bills before stopping to write a book and a blog. Some thanks must go to the government for its contribution to SuperDad SpeedBible: The Toolbox for Men with Young Kids via the Centrelink Single Parent Pension.

THESE DAYS, LOUIS AND I ARE IN STRIDE. WE work as a team. He is six and coasting his way through Year One. I am 41 and my health, fitness, diet and, for the most part, my mental health are excellent. But when I look back I wonder how Louis and I ever pulled it off. When we set off on our man mission together he could barely walk, he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t eat by himself, go to the toilet or let you know he was about to vomit on your neck and all down your back. Twice. In place of nappies and tantrums, I get conversations and intelligent questions that sometimes I am unable to answer. Generally he finds a toilet before he vomits (except recently when he threw up on our doctor).

The intensity of the early years of parenting has largely vanished but what has not is my memory, because those early years were the catalyst for an entire rebuild of my mind and

my heart. In place of blind selfishness is patience. Where once I was trying to swallow the universe whole in a hedonistic dance of equal parts love and self-destruction, I’m now considering what more I can do to connect with my son. Never before could I say with absolute honesty or certainty that there was a human being on Earth more important to me than myself. I have made immense sacrifices to be near to, and available for, my son whenever and wherever he needs me. These days, I don’t often drink. I view alcohol

as a serious drug that needs to be treated with respect — by me, anyway.

I sometimes wonder if I’d have done anything differently. And the answer is a resounding “No!” What I would like to do is climb up on the shoulder of my earlier self and say this: “Mate, stop worrying. You’re doing the very, very best you can. No-one’s going to tell you this, but what you are doing is the hardest thing you are ever going to do in your life. Harder than any job, harder than any relationship breakdown. So stop what you’re doing right now and enjoy.”

No matter what mistakes you have made in the past, the beauty of making the decision to become a father — a real father — is that none of that matters any more. You could be a filthy-rich banker who’s knocked up a stripper half your age or an outlaw biker who’s done the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re 16 and got carried away without a condom or a 30-something expert in ovulation cycles and conception windows, all of that is yesterday. l

Edited extract from SuperDad SpeedBible: The Toolbox for Men with Young Kids by Ryan Heffernan (Jane Curry Publishing, $24.95), out now.

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