As a second grader, my teacher, Mrs. Brown used to have our class write sentences 500 times each day. Even then I took joy in what most would assume as punishment or abuse.
When I was sent to prison at the age of sixteen, writing was the only form of communication with the outside world. There were no phones, tablets, etc. So I spent the majority of my early years corresponding with numerous pen pals and family.
When I started Boxingย in1984, unbeknownst to me, for decades, an unknown illness was being masked. When boxing was removed from my life, the illness came to the forefront… PTSD.
Because of the volatile, and unemotional environment I was thrust in as a child, I had been suffering unknowingly mentally, physically and emotionally. Boxing and other sports had been a medication and therapy of sorts in all that I was going through. With the absence of boxing all the aspects of PTSD and full fledged depression surfaced.
In 2016, a Mental Health Liaison advised and challenged me to write something in regards to my life and its experiences. A challenge that not only produced the first leg of my autobiography (Life at 16), but 10 other published novels.
With the renewed passion for writing, the pains and discomforts of my PTSD lessened. The happiness to again be entertaining returned.
