I Don't Want to Talk About It takes readers on a mother-and-son journey across the rocky terrain of child sexual abuse, homophobia, and living and dying with HIV/AIDS. The direction of Tony Carden's short life was determined by two pandemics: child sexual abuse and HIV/AIDS. Unlike the compassion shared with victims of today's COVID 19 pandemic, vilification was the burden borne by those who contracted HIV/AIDS and silence the lot of sufferers of child sexual abuse. On both occasions Tony's response to his anxious mother was: 'I don't want to talk about it.'