Perpetually anxious and hyper-vigilant, he was bullied by classmates for his facial tics and ultimately became deeply invested in the idea of one day proving he could be brave. Feted for his decades of reporting at the sharp end of disaster, Keane built a career on his capacity to take in the worst of human nature – and keep going.

The Madness By Fergal Keane | Used | 9780008420468 | World of The Madness By Fergal Keane | Used | 9780008420468 | World of

He felt himself unlovable, desperate for the validation he imagined would come from going to war: “The melancholy boy on the edge of the playground was thinking of the days when he could show himself unafraid and have the world applaud him for it. When I came out of Rwanda, and I did what was the most important film of my life, which was the first documentary during the worst genocide since the Nazis . Until he found a few counselors and psychologists that thought outside the square and helped him to slowly mend.I could never do this book justice in a review to equal those excellently and in-depth written by Canadian Reader and Nat K. Keane opens up about his experiences in many conflict zones, including South Africa, Rwanda, Kosovo, the DRC, Sudan, and Ukraine.

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This book is written in memory of those who died in the wars, and for those broken in body and mind.Reports from Belfast, South Africa, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Iraq, Ukraine and from the numerous other hells on earth. In 1999 he went into rehab and stopped drinking, but he wasn’t diagnosed with PTSD until 12 years ago (though, unbeknown to him, in 1999 a doctor noted that he likely had PTSD in his file). You want to be different, and in that sense what happened to my father, his example, pushed me towards being someone who will always want to be open to his kids. He explores with brutal honesty why he and many colleagues travel to conflict zones in the first place (it is different, of course, for journalists who have war break out on their doorstep), and keep going back when their mental health is fraying. However, it took him much longer to recognize he was “in the grip of a compulsion” more powerful than alcoholism.