I've just found an unread email I sent to myself last year, (i usually send myself links and writings if I'm on a college computer so i can read it later on)
Reading through i was quite drawn in by the story, then towards the end I realised I'd written it. I was quite amazed at how good my writing is. It was for an essay we were supposed to do in first year. I'm not sure if we ever needed to hand them in. This isn't finished, but I figured I would share it.
"The foundations of war.
June 14th 2010. You have been called up and sent to Afghanistan to serve on the front line. In 5 days from now you will have just got word about a sniper on the rooftops. It is a task your unit thinks you should handle. From afar, you find a relatively safe spot to scope him out. He's aware of your location and it's only a matter of time before someone fires. You and the enemy both have your fingers on the triggers, watching each other through the scopes from a distance. It's a hot day, the sun is beating down on you, droplets of sweat roll from under your helmet and down your face, but you are focused, statistically you are prepared for this. All your training has worked towards this moment.
You both fire, time slows down and everything goes black. Before you know it you are gazing up at the sky, gasping for air. A helicopter filled with paramedics are on their way to airlift you to safety. The heat, the pain and the pressure of the situation you survived is over. Though your mental and emotional war is just beginning.
Night time falls, you're laid up in bed worn out but wide awake. The flashbacks from the day won't leave you to rest. This is the first of many, many nights of restless sleep.
Some months pass and you are let go from service. Army officials think it's best for you to go home, as the night terrors have somewhat affected you mentally and you are now too unstable to work under the pressure. The next few years you try to settle into normal everyday things that life holds for most of us. Going to work, coming home to relax, then doing it all over again. But in the back of your mind is the sniper; who was he? What was his name? Where did he grow up? Did he have a family? All these questions which he cannot answer. The only thing he left you with is a scar. The last action that man ever did remains on your body. It tells nothing of who he was or where he was from. Only that for a brief moment in your divergent lives you both shared a connection of fear.
So why did you survive? Was it luck? Fate? Or just that he didn't have the better vantage point? You're going to spend your life asking these questions. Wondering while you took away a stranger's right to live, it is you who has the second chance at life.
Regardless of the date, this scenario has probably happened countless times over the past 80 thousand that years human civilisation has existed. Yet we still insist on such vicious attacks upon each other.
We all go through wars. It is just the foundations in which we fight which are different. To fight for peace, for land, for freedom or justice. Sometimes we're not fighting each other, but ourselves. To be shot down can mean with words, memories even illnesses.
In contrast to the story above, my name is Braden Miller. I am a 19 year old photography student of Wigan School for the Arts. I enjoy gaming, building model planes and of course, taking photographs. Like everyone in this world I care for many people and many people care for me. Be that as it may, I am missing out the one thing that makes me... me.
This would be my war. My war is a mental and emotional battle to find peace and happiness within myself. From a very young age I have always questioned "Why?". Why do I exist? What is the point to my life if it's just going to end anyway? Sadly 12 years on, I am still in this same situation. However as I have grown up, I have discovered that life doesn't get much better than the years I'm leaving behind. Therefore my vicious circle of thoughts continue to eat away at me.
Many will say that 'over-thinking' is dangerous, it leads to depressive thoughts. They wouldn't be wrong. Ever since i started wondering why I'm alive, my thirst to find something worthwhile is always questioned with 'why'.
I can only give one answer. This is that our natural instinct is to survive and reproduce. There is no philosophical reason behind it. That is just how nature works. It is only because we as a race have fabricated this unrealistic world in which we live, feeding the greedy superiors and obeying their rules and regulations, that we believe there is something more. Things such as the afterlife. Doing good things means you'll go to a lovely place and doing bad things means you'll be tortured for all eternity..."
to be continued!
8/4/11
Not written for a while. i guess I've been pre-occupied with college. Looking back the last time i wrote in here was 15 days after my op, its now just over one week shy of 5 months.
My chest is recovering really well. I still have some tissue damage on my left side that has resulted in the swelling not going down yet. My right side is okay.
Saw my surgeon on wednesday and she said she's happy from a surgical point of view, however when she sees me in 12 months, if i'm unhappy with anything she'll sort it out then. Up to now i think it looks really good! I'm getting my strength back by the day. to think 5 months ago i couldn't lift up a cup of tea, to today - where I helped an old couple swing out the canal bridge so they could get their boat passed. Although, i shouldn't of done it because i could feel some twinges in my chest. Pushing a 30 tonne bridge isn't the smartest thing to do.
It's incredible the freedom i have now. My self-esteem is building up and I'm beginning to feel... normal. It's weird. it's weird having problems that aren't with myself, and its weird that my reaction isn't to blame myself or take things out on myself. It's weird being able to look in the mirror and not see a stranger anymore.
However, I'm still me. I'm sticking to my new years resolutions as well! Pushing myself out of my comfort zones.
We had really good weather today and I was boiling, so I went up to primark to buy a tank top. I've always felt a bit silly wearing them and the idea of wearing one in public or at the gym is something I've not been comfortable with. I'm not exactly a big gym hitter, and i once recall belle telling me she thought they were a bit gay for straight guys. It was strange wearing it, i felt on edge and exposed... if that's the right word? But it was good to get the sun on my shoulders and i wasn't overheating.
I think I'm making good progress on the comfort zone thing. it's making me stronger mentally.
Despite that, I would say the biggest challenge I've set myself is in college though...
We're on our Final Major Project in college, we choose any topic we like, work our asses off, and then on June 21st, put up our work for the exhibition. This is my 4th and final year at School For The Arts, and it's also been 4 key years to how much I have changed. I was just starting down the road to where I'm at now when I started college back in '07, and as of now, I'm at the end of it and ready to move on to new things. So I've decided to make this project count. I'm taking a huge step and being really open with myself, and whoever may look at my work at the show, but I'm basing my project on the last 6-8 years of my life. The emotional physical and psychological struggles - everything that has brought me to where I'm standing today.
It's really strange writing about myself, asking people who've known me to tell me about myself. I think I've dived in a little too deep with it all, but I know where I'm going with it. The visual language is key in all of this and I think I'm gonna handle this one quite well. It's not just for a final project, it's a good bye to everything of the past. Some closure, so i can move on. That's how I'm seeing it anyway.
My chest is recovering really well. I still have some tissue damage on my left side that has resulted in the swelling not going down yet. My right side is okay.
Saw my surgeon on wednesday and she said she's happy from a surgical point of view, however when she sees me in 12 months, if i'm unhappy with anything she'll sort it out then. Up to now i think it looks really good! I'm getting my strength back by the day. to think 5 months ago i couldn't lift up a cup of tea, to today - where I helped an old couple swing out the canal bridge so they could get their boat passed. Although, i shouldn't of done it because i could feel some twinges in my chest. Pushing a 30 tonne bridge isn't the smartest thing to do.
It's incredible the freedom i have now. My self-esteem is building up and I'm beginning to feel... normal. It's weird. it's weird having problems that aren't with myself, and its weird that my reaction isn't to blame myself or take things out on myself. It's weird being able to look in the mirror and not see a stranger anymore.
However, I'm still me. I'm sticking to my new years resolutions as well! Pushing myself out of my comfort zones.
We had really good weather today and I was boiling, so I went up to primark to buy a tank top. I've always felt a bit silly wearing them and the idea of wearing one in public or at the gym is something I've not been comfortable with. I'm not exactly a big gym hitter, and i once recall belle telling me she thought they were a bit gay for straight guys. It was strange wearing it, i felt on edge and exposed... if that's the right word? But it was good to get the sun on my shoulders and i wasn't overheating.
I think I'm making good progress on the comfort zone thing. it's making me stronger mentally.
Despite that, I would say the biggest challenge I've set myself is in college though...
We're on our Final Major Project in college, we choose any topic we like, work our asses off, and then on June 21st, put up our work for the exhibition. This is my 4th and final year at School For The Arts, and it's also been 4 key years to how much I have changed. I was just starting down the road to where I'm at now when I started college back in '07, and as of now, I'm at the end of it and ready to move on to new things. So I've decided to make this project count. I'm taking a huge step and being really open with myself, and whoever may look at my work at the show, but I'm basing my project on the last 6-8 years of my life. The emotional physical and psychological struggles - everything that has brought me to where I'm standing today.
It's really strange writing about myself, asking people who've known me to tell me about myself. I think I've dived in a little too deep with it all, but I know where I'm going with it. The visual language is key in all of this and I think I'm gonna handle this one quite well. It's not just for a final project, it's a good bye to everything of the past. Some closure, so i can move on. That's how I'm seeing it anyway.
15 days post-op
I had the steri-strips taken off today (butterfly stitches as some people call them?) I had an allergic reaction to them which began about a week ago, and the first 4 days was incredibly difficult to get through without scratching. The itching went away and left my skin feeling extremely sensitive, even the softest t-shirt feels like mesh grating on my skin.
Well, minus the skin irritation around my nipples, the left one especially, the healing is going/looking great. The bruising is still swelled a lot but it will go down over the next few weeks. My surgeon is happy with the results from a surgical point of view. one nipple is different to the other because of the hematoma, and reopening the incision to fix me up.
Despite being all fleshy and being really freaked out, I'm really pleased with how it looks. My right side isn't causing me any discomfort, only the left.
Apparently when I went back into theater that night, I wouldn't stop bleeding. It took her what should of been 5 minutes a good hour or so to manage. My mum says I'm really lucky, as my blood pressure really dropped.
I've been instructed to go back to the gym in 6 weeks time to help my chest develop. I've gotta go lightly though, my surgeon doesn't want me to burst open the blood vessels she spend all night cauterizing. I don't want to either.
One thing I really appreciated today, was on our way for a pub lunch.
Driving up to Parbold, you can't see a thing. The clouds bringing in the snow have covered everything around us. The snow was getting heavier as we got towards the Wayfarer. You could see the road, and white. That was it. For a little while I reflected on when we lived in Coliston, driving up those country roads, snowed in for weeks at one point. I'd take max out in the snow every year, we'd play for hours and hours. Even now if it snows, it's like in his mind, he goes back to those days. I can walk him any time of year and he's happy. If I walk him in the snow, he's a puppy again. He's bouncing all over the place waiting for the next snowball to destroy.
Then we arrived, I stumbled out of the car then we began walking towards the entrance to the pub. The snow was still falling quite heavily and just to feel it across my face took me back to when we lived in Scotland. Only for a moment, it was like I was 9 years old again, out in the middle of nowhere, with my mum.
Well, minus the skin irritation around my nipples, the left one especially, the healing is going/looking great. The bruising is still swelled a lot but it will go down over the next few weeks. My surgeon is happy with the results from a surgical point of view. one nipple is different to the other because of the hematoma, and reopening the incision to fix me up.
Despite being all fleshy and being really freaked out, I'm really pleased with how it looks. My right side isn't causing me any discomfort, only the left.
Apparently when I went back into theater that night, I wouldn't stop bleeding. It took her what should of been 5 minutes a good hour or so to manage. My mum says I'm really lucky, as my blood pressure really dropped.
I've been instructed to go back to the gym in 6 weeks time to help my chest develop. I've gotta go lightly though, my surgeon doesn't want me to burst open the blood vessels she spend all night cauterizing. I don't want to either.
One thing I really appreciated today, was on our way for a pub lunch.
Driving up to Parbold, you can't see a thing. The clouds bringing in the snow have covered everything around us. The snow was getting heavier as we got towards the Wayfarer. You could see the road, and white. That was it. For a little while I reflected on when we lived in Coliston, driving up those country roads, snowed in for weeks at one point. I'd take max out in the snow every year, we'd play for hours and hours. Even now if it snows, it's like in his mind, he goes back to those days. I can walk him any time of year and he's happy. If I walk him in the snow, he's a puppy again. He's bouncing all over the place waiting for the next snowball to destroy.
Then we arrived, I stumbled out of the car then we began walking towards the entrance to the pub. The snow was still falling quite heavily and just to feel it across my face took me back to when we lived in Scotland. Only for a moment, it was like I was 9 years old again, out in the middle of nowhere, with my mum.
4 years ago, I promised myself I wouldn't commit suicide until this operation was over with first. To experience the freedom that I believed is on the other side.
I feel like today was my last day on earth. The odds are on my side for things going right tomorrow, but there's still the small chance something could go wrong. reality has been like a huge smack in the face thinking about it.
I hope these 4 years will pay off.
that I can renew myself and finally put everything behind me.
I guess I'll still have psychological damage, which I doubt will ever go away. my head is still a mess and I don't know what I'm doing, what I'm saying. Why I'm saying or doing what I'm doing. I can't make sense of much and thinking about trying to feels too exhausting.
...tonight is going to be a long night of thinking.
I feel like today was my last day on earth. The odds are on my side for things going right tomorrow, but there's still the small chance something could go wrong. reality has been like a huge smack in the face thinking about it.
I hope these 4 years will pay off.
that I can renew myself and finally put everything behind me.
I guess I'll still have psychological damage, which I doubt will ever go away. my head is still a mess and I don't know what I'm doing, what I'm saying. Why I'm saying or doing what I'm doing. I can't make sense of much and thinking about trying to feels too exhausting.
...tonight is going to be a long night of thinking.
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