Hello Hive Community. I'm Raymond, and this is my Introductory Post

I came in through reading @derangedvisions post. Phew! What a story that was.

So this is my entry to @anomadsoul's Introduce myself formally to the Hive blockchain. Thanks to @Blocktrades and @ocdb for lending their power to this awesome idea. If there's one thing that I like doing, is talking about myself.

More of this please. The more you guys plough money into getting us "noticed" the more successful we will be. Advertising is why we all drink coca-cola but don't understand why. Advertising is why a large portion of us put our work into Facebook for free like a bunch of chumps.

Introducing, me, @raymondspeaks. Writer, publisher, Dad, Husband, Son.

The username Raymondspeaks derives itself from the fact that I'm an experience based writer and I speak to my audience in the first person term. If you were to read my work then you would feel that I was sat over the sofa next to you having a casual conversation.

I can write in other forms too, and ramp the vocabulary up a notch, but I try to appeal to as much people as I can so I keep things simple. Some writers forget that when we're talking to one another we don't talk like we've swallowed a dictionary.

To understand who I am and what I do you'll need to understand some backstory.

I had quite an interesting youth for a regular run of the mill person. I made it to the Scotland National Golf Team as a young boy, and I spent the first few years of my life behind the Iron Curtain in old Soviet Siberia. That made for a lot of classroom banter in High School for sure. You see, Dad was a Nuclear Engineer and back in those days the Russians were hiring people from all over the world to help with their Nuclear journey. Fortunately, my Dad was one of them, and it was his first big break. So off to Soviet Russia we went with me in tow, aged barely 1.

I grew up in a single parent household. My mum and dad split when I was five and we returned to Scotland where family was, and this is where I spent most of my youth. Growing up was less than straight forward because we lived on the sort of estate that made the east end of Glasgow look like a walk through Buckingham Palace. I was always getting myself into scrapes, and had a mum that thought I should learn how to fight for myself. Great in theory, not great when the boy I'm fighting is twice my age and height.

So growing up was tough. Lots of drugs, fighting and alcohol. You probably wouldn't believe it if I told you but I would be dead now if it wasn't for my dad grabbing me by the scruff of my neck and taking me down to live with him. I was a good kid trapped in a bad situation, and well, I needed strong armed out of that hole. I remember that day well. He sat by the phone and told all my friends that called that I was never coming out again, and if they wanted to keep their pretty faces they better not come back to my house.

And alas, this starts my period in England.

England, although only across the border from Scotland is a completely different culture and way of being. It was a culture shock at first. The men and women were MUCH softer in body language and less up-in-you-face straight forward. One of the things that frustrates me about England is no-one tells you what they mean. In Scotland if someone is annoyed with you then you'll definitely know about it. In England you'll get a polite telling off and you'll walk away not knowing if you were told off or just in a regular discussion.

England was fun. But I fell unwell and had to spend at least four years in recovery. Yeah, I fell down with a severe psychiatric illness and spent a total of three visits in a psychiatric facility (Including one in a secure psychiatric facility). Let's just say that I had a long fight with alcohol, and had a lot of deep burning issues from childhood that needed ironing out. You can read them, they are all on my blog.

Anyway, I spent four years in immediate recovery, and after that a lifetime of personal development and a voyage of discovery.

I think the correct term for it these days is a "simp." It's an evolving language so I've noticed that behavioural terms are rebranded from time to time. In my day it was a "nice guy." Growing up without a father in the home, and a mother that continually berated him in front of me sent me down a path of a lifetime of seeking validation from women and thinking that men needed development.

To give context here my father was no ordinary single dad trying to make ends meet and make good with his son. No, my dad was the type of person that had a lady waiting for him in each port. The amount of times I met his, "other woman" when he was married was too often to count. For all the mistakes my mum made I'm glad she instilled in me that I will always be a one woman man.

My perception evolved skewed, as I guess it does for most people until they witness (or feel) otherwise. So I grew up as a white knight, ready to rescue any damsel in distress that needed saving. You see, us damaged kids rarely realise it but we carry on the unhealthy behaviour of our parents. My mum all through my childhood needed saving from my nasty dad, and thus I continued that behaviour into adulthood, trying to save all the women around me from the nasty, mean men.

So let's just say I got myself some professional help. One of my good friends shared with me a book about how my behaviour was leading me down a path of not getting my needs met and what to do about rewiring my thought patterns and changing my life around.

So I stopped the drinking and picked up a book. Focused on myself, asked myself what I wanted from life. Got some hobbies, and began to get out more, something that didn't involve a pub and a beer glass. Went back to college and university and got myself a career.

I ended up in community management if anyone has read this far. I was the guy that went into isolated areas where drug use was high and interest was low and started up community groups. If they were successful I would slowly pull away until they could run on their own without the need for me. I'd just manage from afar. I loved that job.

At this point of my life I've now married and had a kid. My wife (god knows what she was thinking, haha!) ran her own business in Germany before moving back to the UK. She's travelled the world. My Son is 10 now, and is a wee bundle of autistic joy.

I loved my work. Doing that work helped me identify men that were in situations similar to what I've been through in the past, and with some love and care give them some oomph to their lives. Some direction, something to focus on. And the beauty of it is that they would think of it all themselves. I'd just nudge them.

And this brings me to now.

Sadly my work ended in 2015. The powers that be couldn't afford to keep me anymore so I had to find something else and quick. And from there I ended up creating my own blog The Relationship Blogger through an idea that I had from a personal development goal. I had always wanted to write, and in my last job I was journaling my thoughts as a way to heal from the past. I was getting good at it, and, I decided to do it professionally.

This is where I met @shawnamawna, and thanks to her tuition and patience is why I write so elegantly now. I would have never have learned the mechanisms to writing were it not for her, and I would still be writing 400 word posts thinking I was the best writer ever lol.

I write on popular publications. I had a spot on the Huffington Post before they shut the contributor portal down. I have my own column at The Good Men Project, and I've been writing on Steem for over four years.

I recently began the Man Cave Project for men. Previously a steem project, now a Hive project. A place for just us guys to come in have a relax to be, well, men. The idea behind it was we catch so much crap in the media, and everywhere we look that I just wanted to create that manly vibe again. I grew up without a dad. I didn't learn healthy men stuff, and I wanted to create a place that fosters that idea. Every boy needs a healthy role model, why not start somewhere. Even if it is online.

And that's it for me.

Writer, award winner, communicator extraordinaire. You can usually find me either in Neoxian City chilling with the big @neoxian, or back in my cave with the men.