In Rwanda the thing that troubled him most was encountering a group of people seeking sanctuary at a prefecture, people who were likely subsequently murdered. It tormented him that there was something he might have done to protect them, though it was by no means clear how. It wasn’t even clear that his own crew would escape violence. “Everybody I know who went [to Rwanda] was, if not damaged by it, certainly hurt by it.” I questioned how much control the author really had over his choices given the unconscious drive to put himself in dangerous situations. The destructive cycles are easy to hide under layers of heroic ideation and real world cynicism. The Madness, an informative and often wrenching memoir, confirms Hedges’ remarks and then some. Keane opens up about his experiences in many conflict zones, including South Africa, Rwanda, Kosovo, the DRC, Sudan, and Ukraine. Some of these stories concern the tragic loss of colleagues. His main focus in the book, however, is his own mental health: his alcoholism, breakdowns, and diagnosis of PTSD. Keane has not just the courage to risk death so that the most important stories can be told, as well as the eye to tell them with vivid subtlety, but also the humility to reveal the havoc that this task visits on the beholder' Spectator

BBC Radio 4 FM - Schedules, 3 - 9 July 2023 BBC Radio 4 FM - Schedules, 3 - 9 July 2023

I can visualise him writing it. Hear him reading it. Agonising. Trying to let it go. But, go to where? Keane began his international journeys, into places most people would run a mile from — and, all the time, part of his story was this unseen war raging within himself. We think we know people. We don’t know their struggles.We don’t often, or not often enough, think about those behind the camera. McIlveen’s writing, his words in Breaking, will make the reader think some more. Fergal Keane opens doors into closed places. He lets us look inside those complex compartments where fear, anxiety, anger and panic lurk, and he tells a story of being afraid all of his life... beautifully written... This is an important book' Irish Times Instead, Fergal turned to booze– an informal name for alcohol. Fergal had been addicted to alcohol before he arrived in Rwanda, but now he had another addiction to cope with – the need to keep returning to war. Fergal knew it wasn’t healthy, but he couldn’t stop. There is still no agreement on a legacy process to answer the questions of Northern Ireland’s past. But, eventually, when some story-telling archive is established, these contributions will add to understanding. That is the worth of this book. Its value. Why it is important. Keane has much more to think about; what happened on the many — the too many — front lines from which he reported. These stories develop. They never end.

The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD - William Collins The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD - William Collins

If I had read the book, I am sure it would have been a rewarding experience, but listening to it was very special. Keane read the book himself. Listening to his silvery voice, with an Irish touch, I felt like he was telling me the story from the bottom of his heart. An intimate experience.What is it like when PTSD symptoms get bad? “What happens is my mood starts to get lower and lower. All the time I’m hypervigilant and twitching and stuff like that ... I noticed when I’m sliding, because I start forgetting things. I misplace things. And then I start fixating on an idea, a worry ... a particular fear.” Despite having PTSD, he kept going, taking more and more risks until witnessing a massacre in Sudan, he realised he couldn't do it anymore, that for him going to war had become an addiction. He talks to Claudia about his ongoing work, recovering from PTSD. Some years ago he promised not to go to any “hot wars”, by which he meant he wouldn’t go near the frontline. Even this, he thinks, suggests some denial about the trauma of covering war at all. “It’s a f**king rationalisation. I admit it. I’ll never get better from this thing if I don’t admit it.” There are other ways his perspective on the job has changed. “When I was much younger, I would pop up at the scene of a massacre or an assassination and I was just totally focused. ‘Get the quotes, get the facts and file it.’ As the years have gone on, I just find it harder and harder to do.

The Madness by Fergal Keane | Waterstones

I did this. Then I did that. I went here. After that I went there. And there too. I saw this and that, and then more and more. But does it mean anything..." David McIlveen, described as “simply one of the outstanding camera journalists of his generation”, takes us inside the Royal London Hospital during the Covid pandemic; different from international assignments: I felt guilty that I was acclaimed. But not enough to reject the awards. I needed them. They were my substitute for self-worth,” he confesses.The Madness is engaging without resorting to sensation. Fluent prose follows the decline of the political situation - and of Keane’s own mental health - in chilling, compelling detail” - Observer He seems most upset when trying to explain his symptoms and what triggers them. “You know what? I think at some level I feel ashamed of it,” he says. “I’m still dealing with that. It’s so weird to lose control emotionally. It feels shameful. I can’t give you a rational explanation for it.”

BBC Radio 4 - All in the Mind, Fergal Keane and PTSD BBC Radio 4 - All in the Mind, Fergal Keane and PTSD

A gripping memoir of war reporting and it's after-effects on the mind and body. This is also life as an alcoholic and PTSD sufferer. The development of PTSD in childhood. "If there is a darkness in you, an obsessive, a compulsive, f-ed up part of you, war will find it and carry you to places most people would never dream of going. And it will keep you going." If you’re a drug addict or an alcoholic killing yourself people will say, ‘Oh, my God, stop.’ War is the only addiction that people will come up to you and say, ‘That was brilliant’ — Fergal Keane Brian Rowan is the author of Living with Ghosts: The Inside Story from a Troubles Mind (Merrion Press) And thus this memoir in trying to understand and manage how it led to or brought out a dormant PTSD – despite supposing that perhaps it was always there through genetics (a plausible concept) and his early childhood instilling him with a very strong survival instinct resulting from family experienced trauma, and which was always at the root of and reason for all he did, leading him to alcoholism, self-medication, nervous breakdowns… And thus trying to understand the basis of what formed his PTSD, and how best to possibly manage it.Professor Daryl O'Connor's new research finds that people who got Covid-19 early in the pandemic were twice as likely to experience depressive symptoms than those who didn't. They could have acted as my warning,” he writes. “Any one of their deaths might have persuaded me to stop there and then. Except none did.” A brutally honest exploration of what motivates Keane to keep reporting on atrocities despite the toll on his mental health... Gentle but unflinching' Guardian, Book of the Day