"I Didn't Want To Go Home"

About this episode

<p>He had the house. The job. The wife. Three kids. On paper, everything was fine.</p><p>But by the time his son Mason was three or four, he was falling apart. Barely sleeping. Drinking too much. Finding any excuse to stay out longer. Supermarket runs for things they didn&#39;t need. One more round at the pub. Anything to delay walking through the front door.He wasn&#39;t a bad dad. He just didn&#39;t know how to be one — not for a child like Mason. Non-verbal. ADHD. Severe sleep issues. Smashing up the house. And a system that kept saying no.It took a huge row with his wife for something to shift. And it took a reckless, credit-card-funded trip to Disney World to finally understand what his son actually needed.Because in Florida, something changed. Mason — the kid who couldn&#39;t queue, couldn&#39;t wait, couldn&#39;t regulate — went on a roller coaster and came out a different child. Slept every night. Engaged. Calm. Two weeks of the son they always knew was in there.Then they came home. And within weeks, it all came back.This is what it&#39;s like to glimpse what&#39;s possible — and then have to figure out how to recreate it in a world that isn&#39;t built for your kid.Dan talks about the drinking, the guilt, the isolation, the fear of what happens when they&#39;re gone, and the relentless reality of raising a child who will probably need support forever. He also talks about hope. Because there is some. Even when it doesn&#39;t feel like it.</p>