Follow the series here: • The mission to release...
I'm a 53 year old middle aged man with complex post traumatic stress disorder and I live roadside in a 3.5t luton bodied truck with my awesome jackahuahua, Alf.
I've played guitar since I was a teenager and the ability to bash out three chords and the truth has been a lifesaver for me. I don't consider it melodrama to say I wouldn't be typing this without it. I've written and recorded some songs that I really believe in and they mean an awful lot to me. I think they're good songs and contain some powerful messages and the World needs more of them right now for sure!
So I'm on a 3 month mission to get these songs produced, marketed and released as an EP! Including producing promo videos and possibly a wee bit of merchandise.
The songs are there and are currently being mixed by my good friend, The Abominable Phenomenon. He's an amazing musician and producer and you can hear his work here:
/ the-abominable-phenomenon
Releasing this EP is part of a long term vision/idea/plan. My PTSD symptoms have been getting worse for about a year (coinciding with discovering I am probably on the autistic spectrum) and I need to try and take some power back. I need something to devote myself to that will help keep me from sinking into the void of anxiety and pain that CPTSD is. This EP project is just that. It's me trying to focus, to help myself so that I can get back into a position where I can help others.
And that is where the Hometrek Project comes in. I've been giving guitar rigs away to young people who need a bit of a hand and bodies that help them for a few years now. I've seen just how much good having something like a guitar in your life can do. And why stop at guitars? I've had the vision of formalising these giveaways into something solid. Something that can receive funding and donations so that it can provide more instruments to more people, young and old. A CIC or a charity? I'd like to expand the idea too. Maybe someone is a natural rhymer or poet and they just need a mic, a recorder and a beatbox ? Maybe someone else is drawn to digital media but can't get a decent graphics setup?
I'd like the project to run workshops. To actively look for those young people who may not yet even know what their expressive calling is and help them find a way of expression that does it for them.
Living roadside I'm reasonably aware of the challenges faced by the traveller community. Those from the traditional traveller community face way more than me as prejudice and isolation are sadly still rife in 2024. I'd like to reach out to the traveller community through the project and see if there's any way I can help.
It's a big vision. A big mission. And I can't do it alone. I'm already receiving vital and valued help and advice but am going to need so much more when it comes to making the promo videos for the songs and stuff. I have some ideas involving lots of people getting together, yelling and hugging, soapboxes and megaphones...
This chapter of the series is slightly different. it's me doing a talking head on the subject of PTSD. Despite the mainstream idea that it's a mental illness. it isn't, PTSD is a human condition. it affects mind body and soul equally and ravages all three.
Everyone experiences trauma and if we know it or not, it shapes us. Our reactions to it and need to not experience it again can build on top of eachother. Without ever experiencing a full on PTSD inducing event or events, we can build up thought, feeling and behaviour patterns that affect the way we live. The way we interact with the World. it's all a matter of scale. A spectrum with full blown PTSD type conditions at one end. PTSD showed me that this is very common and many of us are living our lives in ways shaped by traumatic experience. Often it gets passed around unwittingly, down the generations even. It's something we need to be more conscious of and something we need to understand more. We all affect eachother and that understanding will help us in our personal and social relationships.
If you've got so far as reading to here then thanks! Your thoughts and advice would also be welcomed with open arms. If you can help in any other way that would be amazing too!
#nomad #musician #ptsd