Lessons

They say that wisdom comes through making mistakes; if that’s true, then I reckon I must be the bloody oracle at Delphi. Here are a few lessons I’ve had to learn the hard way.

Mental illness is not mental weakness

Some of the greatest thinkers in our history were a bit crazy. So many blokes resist getting help with mental health issues because they think it makes them less of a man. By not doing so they’re just making themselves, and everyone around them, suffer unnecessarily. Everybody has problems and they are not all unique, somebody somewhere, at some time, has had similar problems to yours – just read the Bible or Koran one day and you will know what I mean. Getting diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (military service-related) woke me up to the fact that I had serious issues that needed addressing. I had a military outlook on the way I acted and processed my thoughts. It caused me a lot of problems when it came to reintegration back into ‘civi street’. Civis don’t think like soldiers, because they aren’t. I wondered what was wrong with them, not what was wrong with me.

Listen to the women in your life

They often have better intuition than you. If I had listened to my mum and first wife, I wouldn’t have ended up in the mud. Sure, we men think we know best, but it’s always good to have somebody to press the brake pedal now and again so you can pull up, get out of the car, kick the tyres, check the oil and take a deep breath. Women generally think outside of the box, and thankfully I have finally learnt that lesson now.

Crime doesn’t pay

Excitement, big man syndrome, respect, easy money, easy women, flash cars, everybody talking about you, and people want to be seen with you. Sounds good, eh? Well, it’s all bullshit. You will get caught, you will go to prison. Then the deprivation of your freedom will eat away at you and your resolve; you will start to rot from the inside out. Don’t throw your life away: walk away from criminal opportunity, and be happy with your lot. It’s not only about you. Whatever you do carries over to your family – your wife, your children, your parents, your siblings, their children, and everyone you take up with thereafter. Don‘t think when you’ve done your time you’ve paid your debt and all is forgiven – it doesn’t work like that, for you or for those close to you.

I spent more than ten years of the ‘prime of my life’ in a cage. I missed seeing and participating in my children’s formative years. I was not allowed to participate in a decade of Australian life and history. I had to start almost from scratch in my forties when I got out of prison. If I let myself think about it too much, the sense of loss is almost overwhelming.

My map of the world was screwed up

I never intended to hurt anyone or make them suffer. I don’t reckon anyone sets out at the start of the day wanting to do that. My conditioning through the army and experiences fighting in the jungle made me normalise behaviours and thinking patterns that were far from normal. I could flick on a switch in my head in a split second, shoot somebody dead who was intent on killing me, flick it back off and return to helping a family escape into the jungle from a pending massacre. Scary stuff when you think about it and far from normal.

Society needs the military, but the military also needs society

It’s probably because the military sees itself as outside of the general community that it doesn’t take the reintegration of servicemen (especially special-forces soldiers) back into society seriously. Exit counselling should be a non-negotiable for all discharged personnel, whether they take it seriously or not. Many servicemen have barely concealed disdain for civilians. I saw civilian life as having to work with undisciplined people, who you couldn’t talk straight to without them running off to the boss to have a cry. I thought they were shielded from the ‘real world’. The opposite is generally true and servicemen need to be better prepared for a more complex and less ordered existence. Better life skills training would enhance their needs and help resolve life’s problems after the military. I completed a six-month violent offender treatment program in prison, which really opened my eyes to the way I was processing my thoughts, and this greatly helped me address my problems. I had no choice in it; if I didn’t do it, I wasn’t going to be released.

Keep your distance from negative people; they breed negativity

Surround yourself with positive people, otherwise you will get caught in a negative whirlpool and get sucked down to their level of despair and degradation. There is nothing worse than people trying to drag others down. Walk away from these sorts or you will end up like them. Don’t let misguided loyalty take you somewhere you really shouldn’t be going. Know who you are; accept people for who they are but don’t let them lead you away from your own values. Prison is a prime example. Part of the reason I didn’t become all bitter and twisted in there was the fact that I stayed away from the politics and the system bashers – both screws and crims – otherwise I would have been sucked into the vortex.

Get an education

You are never too old to learn, and learning will change your life. Bugger all that crapping on about ‘the school of hard knocks’ being the best educator; formal education will change your perspective, open up your way of thinking and give you some great communications skills for moving forward in life . I did a Bachelor’s degree while I was in prison, and have now started on my Masters and PhD. Studying has helped transform my views on the world and how it is run. It has given me the chance to read widely and better understand the politics of the civil war in Burma, why the world largely ignores it, and why the military junta believes it is fighting a just war.

Believe in God

If you haven’t got a belief in something, you will become lost. I bother God when the need arises and he has always looked after me. I have fallen into some really deep holes and he has helped me out when nobody else could and I couldn’t see the way out. God is the one constant that nobody can ever take away from you, and who is always there no matter what. Faith can move mountains.