many people openly disdained gay people<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI remember, it was in about 1984, \u201885; it was at the height of the AIDS epidemic and crisis,\u201d he recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery evening on the news, there was something about San Francisco, it was always these just awful stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy uncle was in the house in my home place with some other neighbour and they were watching the TV with this guy that had a week to live.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was telling his story to which one of them turned around and said, \u2018They should be burned alive.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When he met his wife Tina, he was going through a \u2018bisexual phase\u2019 – which she was aware of.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the very, very first thing I said when we met,\u201d Mr Fleming said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I had been in a relationship with a man that we’d broken up six months, I think, prior.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we started to go out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, as the years went on, he came to the conclusion that he was not bisexual – he was a gay man.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a realisation that left him feeling \u201ctrapped\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got harder and it got, it became so difficult in the end that there wasn’t a morning I didn’t wake up with that awful, awful pain,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not a physical pain; somebody said, \u2018Is it butterflies?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it’s not, it’s bats; it\u2019s like a psychic pain, like an emotional pain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mental health struggles<\/p>\n
Eventually, Mr Fleming began to feel overwhelmed with guilt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It led to him drinking more than he should have.<\/p>\n
Last year, he was admitted to St Patrick\u2019s Hospital after he attempted suicide following an overdose, where he was diagnosed with acute depression and anxiety.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I had absolutely failed in every walk of life, in everything I’d done,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I wasn’t a real man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
From St Pat\u2019s, he called his wife and stepdaughter; he accepts this has been hugely difficult for his family and hugely regrets the impact it has had on them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing I can say is, I’m absolutely remorseful and regretful for any of the hurt I’ve caused to the people I love,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeday I hope, if there is a God, I would hope and pray that there would be acceptance.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you are struggling, you can contact for Samaritans on 116 123 or Pieta at 1800 247 247 for free, confidential support.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy Fleming has spoken out about the breakdown of his marriage, revealing publicly for the first time that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-486338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116579697118072946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}