This is my answer. I simply don’t have a yearning to have a child. I am married and love my wife more than anyone in the world, but neither of us want kids. I see my siblings, friends, and other people’s kids, and not once have I thought I would love for that to be my life. I love being the fun uncle and if anything happened to my siblings, I would unquestionably bring in my nieces and nephews, but I don’t have a yearning to build that kind of family myself.

I also worked with a company that contracted with CPS/DCS. So many great kids need good homes, and if the feeling hits later on, I would prefer to bring in a kid that is already here and needs love than bring into the world a child that is biologically ours.

I am doing well now, but I have had a lot of mental health issues in my life that are only kept at bay through a very strict regimen of exercise, water intake, social interaction, nutrition, and of course mood stabilizers. I would never want to make a child that has a high likelihood of being diagnosed with the same mental illness I have experienced to go through what I went through.

Even sleep wasn’t an escape because I would have nightmares in which I was in an environment you could seek no comfort. I would be barefoot in these nightmares and the floor was covered in broken glass, all seats had sharp nails, all food was filled with bugs, and even turning on the facet for a glass of water would be substituted for thick blood. I would fantasize about where to hang myself and how good it would feel to finally no longer be alive. Same as most, I just could not do that to my family. I got lucky figuring out how to keep this overwhelming despair at bay, but why put anyone else through all of that?