Memories that can never be taken from me and will always be in my heart forever.. I would say that I lost my whole world when I lost you to suicide Daniel....I remember all the times that I had lost hope and felt so alone and just wanted to do something to help you but I didn't know what to do. As your mum I felt so hopeless and alone but if i hadda know then i woulda done anything....Then it happened, the thing i didn't even think possible...and my worst nightmare.... I lost You my Precious handsome sweet son and only child to Suicide and I know since that morning on the 19th October my life was never to be the same again....I wanna make you proud Dan and I know that everything happens for a reason and I guess If I can help Just one person through  losing you then I feel I have done and will keep doing you proud because of your book you were writing but didn't get to finish. Wanting other young people to know that something so simple as sitting round with your friends and smoking marijana
 just so that you can have a good time...You didn't realise at the time that your life was about to spiral downwards and take complete control of you......You then said if you had known what it was going to do to you then you would have never tried it in the first place.....And then you described it like a nightmare playing for life......(if anyone would like to read Dan's story or share it with anyone you can find it under (Dan's Writings) on this site...It was too late for Dan but maybe not for others ..This is DANS story, his feelings and just what he was going through on the leadup to taking his life......I only found it after his passing and as much as I thought I knew what he was going through well now i realize I wasn't even close and could never imagine just what Dan was really going through....even though 
I saw how depressed you were and the pain that you were going through..I saw all the signs of someone thinking of Suicide but didn't realise they were signs at the time.....Wish somehow i coulda known then what I know now.....What does a mum do when she is worried about her son...doesn't know where to go to get help or to even know what sorta help to look for.....If I spoke to others I guess was worried what people may say and think of Me if I had of told Someone how I was feeling at the time and what was happening when I didn't really understand myself or never thought that Daniel was even thinking Suicide.........And I just didn't know what to do....I'm sorry i didn't cause if i had known what i know now I think maybe you would still be here....I can wish anyway Daniel.....Even though i wasn't able to help you I know i went above and beyond motherly duties, even being your own personal taxi service.  With you getting me lost lol when trying to find parties that you were invited to and I know you knew I loved you so much.....And the best you gave to me is that I knew you loved me and your family so much and showed that just by the way you spoke with us and you loved nothing better than spending time with us...and your last letter you wrote to all of us including your friends.....My Sweet, Gentle, Sensitive, kind and beautiful son who would have done anything for your family and friends even if you were to get hurt in the end doing things you may not have otherwise.......Nothing was ever too much for you, even to be a protector for one of my friends who was scared because someone was hanging around her house so you said that you would stay the night and look after her and make sure nothing happens and I always remember your cheeky and  beautiful smile and the big hugs and kisses that you always gave me so freely except when your mates were around lol.......and that's why I know you didn't want to die, You just wanted to get rid of the pain that was driving your head insane...And mostly not feel so alone with what you were going through....But Dan I know that this world can be cruel and there are so many out there that judge without even finding out or asking what is happening....or even to ask if you were ok.....I know lots of your friends were affected by your passing....but i do know that they all loved you so much and in lots of different ways....and I think you would have been surprised if you felt that you were able to share with them what you were going through...But I know you were scared and worried about what people would think of you....You felt different but now that time is passing not so different to a lot of them who were going through the same things as you were.......And Suicide was the way that you thought would end your pain but not only did it end your pain it ended your life...Forever..Dreams and goals  just gone in a single second.....I often whether you thought that doing Suicide was  final...No more chances, way too late for you to maybe get a little more help... and mostly too late for all that were left behind after your passing over.....
So Dan I dedicate this to you....My son who I will love and miss for the rest of my life....At least Memories always last forever...and I will always love you..until I take my last breath xo

A lot Of Regrets

I gotta lot of regrets with just life in general and if I could go back and change things, id change a few but if I had the choice to be anyone else in the world, rich or famous or be me, I'd be me cause I got a great family, great mates, a good job now and my plan with this book is to help kids not to make the same mistakes me and my friends or now enemies made.

See when you get into drugs you don’t even realize it slowly changes the person.  I know because it happened to me and a lot of other people.  People start to steal to get it, friends aren't friends for long.  They lie and try to deceive you, steal from you and these are the people that you think are really nice and go on holidays with, even hang out with them and work together and then they rip you off.  You live and learn but its best not to do drugs in the first place and avoid it all.  

Life's just so much clearer, the quality of your life is just so much better, you don't get into trouble with police much unless ur a violent drunk .

After starting drugs I got expelled from Warwick High School.  I started a tafe course in Information Technology and I was doing certificate 2 and I was a really good student in class and I wanted to get a job in IT.  The first module was operating a general computer.  I blitzed it.  I was really smart but as I was smoking I couldn't perform to the best of my ability or know what my full potential could be if I was drug free at the age of 15, but I wasn't as a teen.  You don’t even realize what its doing to you and some people never do and its sad what drugs do to people and that’s what kids don't realize all these people on drugs used to be kids once, they played with toys just like me and just like your kids and I just want to get across to them and you that kids grow to be adults, and parents cant watch them all the time.  Kids will always have their free will, that’s the greatest thing about this world.

After I hit the adult world I changed and made a lot of bad decisions with drugs and life in itself and you or your children never realize these things until you go down that track and if someone does it may be too late so if we do anything at all to kids the best possible thing to do is educate our kids on what they are actually getting themselves into when they take this road.  Well I've been down it and it's f.......d, friends soon turn against you they steal off you and if you fall down far enough down this endless well you may find that indeed you may turn into one of these scumbags, but the worst thing is you, yourself don’t realize this is happening to you.  Instead of you using the drug it's really using you and I don't hate these scumbags.  I infact feel really sorry for them, because once upon a time they were innocent kids, who had hopes and dreams and now all they got to look forward to is a life of money troubles, friends deserting them, job losses, jail and a life of misery and unhappiness.  You wouldn't want to wish that upon anyone, even if they did pick on you your whole life and unfortunately I've seen it happen to so many people that who were great mates and now they have nothing.  

It’s sad, it really is.  As a kid I’ll admit I don’t think this stuff even happened at all.  It's like a horror movie that's real and it plays for life - your life, but at the time you only think I'm getting high having a good time with mates and it's so much fun but you don't see what happens long term, and if you do you really just don't care but by then the drug has consumed you......

But back to what drugs did to me from the age of 15-17 when I was supposed to be learning but when a young mind is taking in so much of the drug you cant learn, you forget, get easily distracted, lose track of what your doing and after a while you just really don't care.  I was a bright kid to, I had only been smoking for not even a year full time and my interest in everything I loved disappeared.  By doing these things all my hopes and dreams just dripped down the drain.  If it happened to me it could happen to anyone.  

But I didn't care.  I didn't wanndo it and all I ended up doing was smoking heaps of pot.  And it did it to me.  It turned me into something I wasn't, it had taken over me and I still didn't even see it and it was right in front of my eyes.  Looking back it was unbelievable that something as simple as weed could do this to me but it was.  I thought I was six feet tall and bullet proof.  It was taking my dreams and hopes away in front of me and I just didn't care.  

So after I left my tafe IT course I enrolled at Assumption College, it was a pretty good school and I even got off drugs for a while when I was at school I started excelling at IT once again.  I was one of the top students and in IPT I even made a programme for an ATM.  I even got set up with job working for the council at the age of 16, and the job involved networking the council’s computers, and the pay was absolutely brilliant.  But for some reason I started getting stoned at school.  We had assignments due and id wait till they were just about due.  I copied the assignments off people.  Well I kept getting stoned and the job opportunity of a lifetime left, the last plane had gone and I missed it.......I'll never get another opportunity like that in my whole life.  My grades started to drop in all my subjects, I started to develop schizophrenia and I started to hear voices in my head.  I didn't understand what they were.   It first started when I was at Warwick High I was sitting at the table with my mates and these things started falling in front of my eyes.  They were like little see through spirals and hairs. (No one else could see them though)  I just ignored them though, but if I knew then what I know now I would have stopped the weed instantly because little did I know I was about to embark on a journey through insanity.  So it began I was smoking weed before school behind a building through a pipe.  That’s how it started every day before school. 


I got smashed as but then in classes, instead of doing the work I'd just chill and have fun in art.  I'd draw scare crows with signs saying' "No Feeding birds" and I’d just draw crazy stuff.  My marks went from A's to C's then to failing but I was so smashed I just didn't care, I just kept doodling away and that was just in art.  In my other subjects they went down too.  I was having trouble concentrating; I didn't want to work any more.  I just stopped doing my homework and that drove my grades into the ground.  But I didn't even notice.  See the drug was now using me instead of me using it, but I wasn't even using any bad drugs, it was just weed right?  Wrong look what it was doing to me and I didn't even notice or even care.  Just imagine if I was using heavy drugs.

I believe if you just have to try drugs do it after you graduate or better yet don't do them at all.....They change who you are and for the worse.  I went from A's and B's to D's and E's and then I didn't even graduate.  I left school to go smoke pot with my friends, so I did 2 whole years of school, started grade 12 and then left about a month into it and never went back.  How sad was I, and I so wished I did cause if I did,  it would of opened up so many more opportunities, and if I never started weed while at school it would of opened up even more good job skills, big money.  It’s so hard to find a job and when you finally do, its got shit pay, and worse hours.

I believe if I had never started drugs while at school I Just would have gone so further and would have fulfilled all my hopes and dreams.