Content note: This post discusses depression, PTSD, military trauma, and intrusive thoughts related to suicide. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in Canada and need support, call or text 9-8-8 for the Suicide Crisis Helpline, available 24/7. If you are in the United States and need support, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7. Chat support is also available through the 988 Lifeline website. For Canadian Veterans, former RCMP members, family members, and caregivers, the Veterans Affairs Canada Assistance Service is available 24/7 at 1-800-268-7708. For U.S. Veterans and their loved ones, contact the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and pressing 1, or text 838255.
There are days that I wish I was vapourized by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) strike in Afghanistan. But most days I’m just sad, anxious and depressed. I feel worthless and dread waking up in the morning. I feel most comfortable alone and in the quiet with only the high-pitched squeal of tinnitus to keep me company. Like most veterans I’ve thought about ending it all. But, it’s an only ever an intrusive thought when the depression and anxiety overwhelm you. There haven’t been any plans. Just a sort of casual “I don’t care anymore.” A long-term solution to a short-term problem.
And that’s just it. For the most part I find it hard to care about anything. I wake up most days and go through the motions of life like a good soldier would. I do what I think I have to do to satisfy the concept of life. I’ve lost most of my passion for life and don’t really enjoy what I used to like videogames, socializing, experiencing new things etc. I’ve been attending therapy pretty much weekly since 2021. I really don’t feel any better about myself and life. But it’s helped enough that I can function. I can be a husband and father. But I still don’t like the person I have become since returning home.
Every day I wonder what the point of the Global War on Terror was and what it accomplished. I’m a miserable SOB. A lot of my friends are as well. Some have even succumbed to the mental anguish and took their own lives. Others didn’t make it home. And what was the point? Those of us that remain endure physical and psychological pain every day for nothing. Nothing was accomplished. Canada left the “mission” in 2014. Other countries stayed until 2021 then left. Two weeks later the very same men that tried to kill my friend and I for eight months steamrolled through the Afghan Army (that NATO trained) and retook the country. What was the point? We carried the war home with us long after the mission ended. Some of us buried friends. Some buried ourselves slowly afterward. And in 2021, watching the Taliban retake Afghanistan in weeks forced many of us to ask the same question: what did any of it accomplish? Now I have to live out my days feeling like this without the ability to shut it off.
Years of psychological therapy has pretty much helped me tolerate existence. Then something changed. Not because the depression disappeared, and not because therapy suddenly fixed me. It changed because I found something that made me feel engaged again. I will contest anyone that the greatest therapy I have ever had was the day that I decided to create my own universe and write a novel. For the first time in years I actually found something that I enjoyed doing. I could create whatever or whomever I wanted. I could express myself creatively. Spend time in the Hostile Frontier creating characters, technology and events. While I was in front of my laptop adding to the lore, I was happy. I would (and still do) spend hours a day coming up with new ideas and stories for the Hostile Frontier universe.
I wrote the novel because I was so absolutely disappointed in Star Trek Discovery and Star Wars The Last Jedi. I though that I could do better than the ones that created that slop. I have no formal education in writing stories. Before January 2022 I hadn’t written any kind of story since the short stories that I wrote in grade 12. I don’t know if Hostile Frontier is any good. I hope it is. I hope readers enjoy it. And if you don’t like it, that’s cool. Let me know. But, if you’re going to let me know you had better put your money where your mouth is and write your own novel. If that statement inspires you to create your own universe and it turns out to be the next great epic science fiction novel that garners the same shelf space as Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Andy Weir, H.G. Wells and Frank Herbert, then in some small way I’ll feel as if I accomplished something in life. Please, if you think you can create a story to tell, do it. It is the greatest therapy I’ve ever had. Writing didn’t cure me. But for the first time in years, it gave me something to care about again. It gave me a reason to create instead of just endure. If someone else out there feels lost and decides to create something of their own because of this, then maybe that means something.
R.A. Ellison CD
To purchase your copies of Hostile Frontier, click here: Hostile Frontier : Ellison, R.A.: Amazon.ca: Books Hostile Frontier | Barnes & Noble®
