I’m sitting here in my favorite spot, clicking on the keyboard as I always do. Along with typing up this blog entry tonight, I wanted to share that I’ve started writing my Memoir/book. I have a good solid five pages that I knocked out tonight. How this would translate to a book, we shall see, but there’s a lot of substance in this already. I needed to step away because even though everything is just dying to get out of me, I need time, and space when throwing everything out. I want to be careful with myself. The topic is tough and ugly. It makes me feel like I’m still sitting in the bar where this all began. I can almost smell the scent of old beer and cigarettes as I’m writing. Worse are the smells that came with the guy that ran the “business.” The food that he ate on a regular basis was powerful with garlic and onion. Greek food was something that was around me most of the time and while I know many really enjoy it, it does bad things to my head. Triggers, mental warnings of a past that I no longer want to think about.

I like the idea of just being able to roll things out as they happened. That I can be unrestricted in my content, or the manner of which I want to tell the story. It’s important for me to be able to take all of my readers through what really happened. As my counselor, Amy has said on several occasions, “I dance the line” in my blogs. Earlier on, it was more that I was trying to protect myself from the outside world. As time has gone by, there is the concern that my content is too much for what could be allowed by the company that runs this platform. I don’t want to lose my voice on here, so I dial things down, give you a very watered down version, and leave important parts out. In my book, I’m free to speak! It’s important for me to have a voice. I’ve gone too many years feeling like I didn’t have one, or that it didn’t matter. This is freedom, but with my freedom comes some pain. I’ll take that pain if it means that I can purge everything into writing.

I’m also texting my friend Amy while typing this for support. She’s reminding me to breathe and take my time writing the book, that I’m in control of my timeline. I wish so much that I could just plug something into my brain and download everything right onto the screen. I’m grateful that I can type fast, it’s helpful when trying to get things out of my head. I think that revisiting all of these places, people and events will be cleansing overall. While they have a certain amount of sting to them, I know that I can get back on the train and keep moving. I don’t have to stay there forever. No backslides!

I’ve been researching how to go about all of this and obviously I’m going the way of “self-publishing.’ I’m hopeful that I put something together that will intrigue a publisher and it will expand reading, but the main reason for doing this is to just get the story out of me and into print. I know that there are many people that are intrigued by the story and want to read it as it happened. If I have to hustle books on my own to get it into someone’s hands, so be it. I’ve also ventured into the law side of the book. It’s my belief that pretty much anyone that was involved is now gone. I know for sure that my old boss died in federal prison. He had kids though, so I’ll need to walk the line with that a bit. I’m writing it on my own using all the names, including my own right now because it’s easier to get out of me using them, but everything will be changed for the book. I’ll probably list it as a “fictional” Memoir. This will give me a little more breathing room, but we’ll see where things go once I have enough pages together.

Even with writing tonight, I felt the need to jump on here and just unload a little bit. Very wide range of emotions tonight. I’ve felt supercharged at moments and then went to tears. This will be a good process for me. I truly believe that. I already feel like I can be more myself these days. There’s something very empowering about bringing secrets to the surface, facing them, and now sharing them openly. I’ve made a promise to myself to never hold anything down inside of me for the rest of my life. It’s not worth it. I urge anyone out there that has some kind of secret to start writing, even if it just a journal to yourself. Putting it on paper or on a computer makes it real. Then, if, or when you’re ready, have others become witness to your secret. Validation of what happened to any of us is key to finding yourself and recovery. I say this to you now as a very changed man. It felt as though it was a crawl at one point during my counseling, but now it’s like I’m speeding on the interstate.

I want to say that I truly appreciate all of the love and support that I’ve received along the way. Remember that after years of hiding everything and feeling very alone had me believing that I would go through all of my days that way. Even when others were standing by me I was hesitant to accept them as caring. The question, why would always come into my head. Why would someone care about me? I understand now that I’m worth caring about.

“Not All Wounds Are Visible” This is something that is shared in the PTSD community to gain attention for mental health. I believe the stats are something like 1 in 4 people suffer from some kind of mental illness. That’s a staggering stat. While I may suffer from PTSD, and some of the events that I’ve lived through were terrible, I’m still standing. I’m still alive, and as long as that’s happening, I’ll keep sharing everything I can with all of you! I’m leaving you with this part about PTSD because I want to continue to raise the awareness that it deserves. If you see someone struggling, try to assist. If nothing else, validate that they matter in this world, if only for a few moments.

Thank you so much for sharing my journey.

~Robert~