TO DREAM OR NOT TO DREAM? THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION.

Less than thirteen months ago a particular Vietnam Vet was battling for his life, literally. Severe depression, major anxiety attacks, confusion, anger, night terrors, hyper-vigilance, you name it, he suffered it. His biological family had left him to wallow in self pity, writing him off as a 'has been' and a fake, never believing , or even trying to understand the inner turmoil he suffered on a daily basis. He was just a silly old fool looking to milk the government for all he could get and to hell with everything else.

"Why can't you just take any job that comes along Dad? You are letting everyone down." his daughter would throw at him.

"You're just lazy and so full of your own self importance that you are only looking for a job with a fancy title. You know you are destroying your family don't you?"

As a matter of fact he did but he also had real trouble understanding what was real and what wasn't. He didn't remember many important things from the past five to six years; he couldn't remember people's names or what he had for dinner last night and he couldn't convince his own daughter that he really did have some serious issues. Not the least of which was the possibility of loosing his wife and other two children. He could see no reason to keep going. The future didn't exist, it couldn't, and nothing existed except the four walls of the house where he hid from everything and everyone.

Even the doctors had told him there really wasn't any future because his health wouldn't allow him to have one. "Find a good book." one doctor said; "Have you contemplated suicide? Should we commit you to a psych ward at Greenslopes?" asked another; "Just get your affairs in order soon will you?" said the psychiatrist! I guess this was the beginning of the end. Sad really as he wanted to do some things before it ended completely, there were places he wanted to see, places he wanted to share with his wife but it was at the stage were he couldn't even look at himself in the mirror as he hated himself so much for what he was putting everyone through.

That was me up until roughly six months ago. Up until then my only dreams were nightmares, the reliving of a war, constantly fighting for my life yet never getting hurt. These were my dreams; my night terrors and they were destroying me. When anyone ever talked about people chasing their dreams I used to laugh, mainly to myself and say; "Would someone care to chase my dreams for me?" In the last three years in particular, the desire to achieve was there, I know that, but I kept shooting myself in the foot, you know, hit the old self-destruct button and I believe I was doing it deliberately.

You know, there comes a time when even the most insane or unstable person realises that enough is enough. All the doctors and specialists in the world were not going to fix my problems and I was not being facetious either. I remember something Goldie said to me in an e-mail when we were talking about Buddhism. She said that the true Buddhist believes that "God" was who we were inside ourselves. I had asked her to provide me with the two questions she would ask if she had the opportunity and she basically replied that to ask the "supreme being" in her life she would have to look inside herself. That made more sense to me than all the advice I had been given over the years so, I developed my own questions and asked myself what the answers were.

Since joining the Sassyscribe group I have been trying to establish my genre of writing and have said on several occasions that I didn't know what it was going to be. I was not comfortable with fiction which I believed related to my desire to stick to facts, and poetry  . . .not really my scene so left that to Karen. Short stories were sort of okay as long as I was relating a past experience that really happened and the jazzy little Espresso, 25 words or less were alright for a while but I still did not feel comfortable. The decision to attend the Powell River Writers Festival in Canada caused me to look at travel writing as I had read an article about it and it looked to be right up my alley. Attending the Brisbane Writers Festival and listening to all the travel writers there was also a significant factor in my decision so I started to look even further into what it entailed.

·         Convinced the government to pay for a Diploma of Journalism and Photography course for me;

·         Completed almost half of it as at 1 February;

·         Gained authorisation from the Queensland Sunshine Coast tourism board to re-open discussions with their counterparts in Vancouver and the Upper and Lower Sunshine Coast Tourism people;

·         Had the Travel Editor from the Major Queensland newspaper suggest what articles to write while in Canada for his travel magazine;

·         Started negotiations with the same paper for a weekly column on a young and upcoming Queensland musician;

·         Re-contacted an old acquaintance from Taiwan and am now contracted to their travel business to write their travel brochure text (major one just completed); design and plan their PR program; design and plan specialist tours to Taiwan for 2005 and accompany the same; been invited to attend a familiarization trip to Taiwan in late March, early April complements of the Taiwanese Travel Bureau and depending on timing, extending that trip to Vancouver with China Airlines to write an article for their in-flight magazine;

·         Through this same company I will be allowed to extend my trips to Taiwan to take photographs and write other stories on a freelance basis. This will be extended to Mainland China later in the year;

·         Applied for and have been accepted for a photojournalism internship with Boots 'N All Travel a web site for the independent traveller operating out of Portland, Oregon. (See www.bootsnall.com ) They are providing me with a senior journalist as a supervisor, have planned out a semesters work for me including travel stories, short articles, travel guides etc. They will publish all of these in their magazine. If considered good enough they will continue accepting stories from me after the end of the semester.

A little more than two months ago I was still telling people about my inability to concentrate, my fear of stepping outside the house, my lack of drive and the less than exciting future. At that time anyone of those achievements would have caused me to run a mile; it would have terrified me but now . . .well, I think I have gained an understanding about a critical factor when recovering from PTSD. Thinking! About as profound as the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy's 49 being the meaning of life. But that is what it takes, thinking, using the old grey matter, challenging it daily to achieve something, and dreaming; not nightmares or death and destruction type dreams but dreams you develop for yourself; dreams you can chase to the ends of the earth and dreams that are achievable for you!

I can now class myself a photojournalist and I am going to forge a place in society as a reasonable one. I now have a purpose in my life and I can now look at myself in the mirror every morning. I am laughing and smiling more than I have in years, I have my life and my wife back; I hope the family will follow. I now think for myself, I question what is right for me and I have overcome the feeling of selfishness that comes with this, knowing that if I am happy and content with what I am doing, achieving and providing, then so is my family. I have literally cut out the middleman from my life and am taking total responsibility for my life at the expense of no one.

Richard

4 February 2005